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But there was plenty of information, and plenty of oversight already at hand. Indeed, too much: the prime services had two heads (though conveniently, neither saw the US financing business as his responsibility) and, as the {{CS report}} puts it, each was “inundated with [[Management information and statistics|management information]], underscoring the overall mismanagement of the business”. | But there was plenty of information, and plenty of oversight already at hand. Indeed, too much: the prime services had two heads (though conveniently, neither saw the US financing business as his responsibility) and, as the {{CS report}} puts it, each was “inundated with [[Management information and statistics|management information]], underscoring the overall mismanagement of the business”. | ||
As {{author|John Gall}} notes | As {{author|John Gall}} notes,<ref>In the wonderful {{br|Systemantics: The Systems Bible}}</ref> “prolonged data-gathering is not uncommonly used as a means of ''not'' dealing with a problem. ... When so motivated, information-gathering represents a form of Passivity”. | ||
''Sometimes, data and oversight gets in the way.'' | ''Sometimes, data and oversight gets in the way.'' | ||
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It was not only the co-heads who operated in silos. Silos, as anyone who has worked in financial services will know, are endemic. They are no regrettable externality of a modern organisation, but a ''fundamental ideological choice'' that it makes. “[[Downskilling]]” and specialisation — and by “specialisation” I mean “atomising a process into a myriad of functions so limited in scope that they can be carried out by ''non'' specialists, following a [[playbook]]” — is no accident, but precisely what our [[modernist]], [[reductionist]], data-obsessed times demand. Not an accident, but ''one waiting to happen''. | It was not only the co-heads who operated in silos. Silos, as anyone who has worked in financial services will know, are endemic. They are no regrettable externality of a modern organisation, but a ''fundamental ideological choice'' that it makes. “[[Downskilling]]” and specialisation — and by “specialisation” I mean “atomising a process into a myriad of functions so limited in scope that they can be carried out by ''non'' specialists, following a [[playbook]]” — is no accident, but precisely what our [[modernist]], [[reductionist]], data-obsessed times demand. Not an accident, but ''one waiting to happen''. | ||
Silos also give everyone grand pooh-bah titles and diffused responsibility. Co-heads of ''anything'' is either a failure of nerve (the case here) or a Spartan | Silos also give everyone grand pooh-bah titles and diffused responsibility. Co-heads of ''anything'' is either a failure of nerve (the case here) or a Spartan fight to the death to [[Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens|see who is strongest]] (the [[Goldman]] approach), but the more practical point is that, ''quand le merde se frappe le ventilateur'', it is not co-grand-pooh-bahs you want directing the traffic — far better to lock them in a dark cupboard, actually — but [[subject matter expert]]s with time to think and space to act who can figure out what has happened, what needs to happen, and how best to make it happen. | ||
Silos are kryptonite to subject matter experts: there is a [[reverse-emergence]] problem here though. If you diffuse one [[subject matter expert]]’s skills among five [[school-leavers from Bucharest]], you ''lose'' something: you trade a somewhat expensive ''capacity for a small amount of magic'' for a whole lot of cheap faffing around: lateral escalation.' misunderstanding; confusion . If you cut open the golden goose, you do not get the egg. | |||
===Red flags=== | ===Red flags=== | ||
*[[Don’t answer that|Not answering calls]] | *[[Don’t answer that|Not answering calls]] | ||