On the non-existence of ‘governance’.
Suddenly, I realised the full truth of Mitzberg’s dismissal of ‘governance’, since the traditional management would fit the bill perfectly but it has devolved to nothing more than a numb sort of administrative-clerk role (if you’ve read it and don’t understand, re-read it until you do).
Because, ‘governance’ isn’t anything. That what is assigned the ‘governance’ label, is nothing, literally and figuratively, and in all other ways nothing, more than plain good old management. Those who need models to do that, proof ex ante to will fail at their job.
Some of you may have heard me whisper, say, yell, over the past decades, that ‘governors’ are just a bunch of calcified obese that got stuck in their place and for mortal fear of being found out, they’ll mumblebluff their way through anything, anything, thrown at them. Zero, really zero, control over actual affairs, zero understanding of how shop-floor level work (the horror!) keeps the whole house of cards afloat, zero understanding of the treacherous nature of the false prophets deployed as ‘managers’. A few, a precious few white crows… the masses of them (all), just black. Inert.
If all ‘governors’ would disappear at once, wouldn’t society’s productivity shoot up through the roof ..? Wouldn’t actual managers step in and do the little bit of steering that’s required? Wouldn’t they disregard any of the ‘managers’ that (would) panic around, pushing them back into clerkdom ..?
Sigh.
One can dream, can’t one ..?
[Which one is it ..?]