Re: From sci.econ the root of bad management?



On Sat, 24 Nov 2007, phil scott wrote:

On Nov 24, 11:49 am, Straydog <a...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 24 Nov 2007, phil scott wrote:
On Nov 24, 10:46 am, Russell <Russell.Mar...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Nov 22, 4:02 pm, morrisjc...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Nov 22, 3:27 pm, morrisjc...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Morris, are you reading this, too?

What's that suppose to mean? Do I sense some hostility?

This stuff isn't new. I remember reading about this sort of stuff in
the business section of various newspapers and on the television news
since the 1980's. It doesn't surprise me anymore. The main
difference over the years I've noticed, is that everything is on more
and more "steroids" as time goes on.

For clarification, the first time I came to the realization that
management folks were complete dunces, was when I first read the book
"In Search of Excellence" by Tom Peters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Excellence

At first many of Peter's bullet points seemed reasonable.

After awhile, some of the firms in Peter's "excellence" sample turned
out to have crap performance (ie. such as Atari). This is when I came
to the realization that if the "experts" couldn't figure out what
constitutes "excellent management", then many firms are most likely
run by morons.

Some of this is simply being "fooled by randomness". For
whatever reasons a company will do well for a while. People
who do not study the situation adequately develop the theory
that "This success must be due to management technique X" or
"Brilliant manager Mr. Y". But since the success was not
due to any sustainable factor but just something which was,
at some level, "random" (e.g. just happening to develop the
right product at the right time, but not due to any particular
repeatable market insight), the performance at later times
lags. "Experts" are not paid to say things like "Atari is
succeeding because of random factors", they are paid for
developing causal models that exhibit their "insight".
After all, anyone can say "It was random", so if that's all
"experts" did, they wouldn't be justifying their fees.

Cheers,
Russell- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

it is interesting to notice the short half lives of all things
human...back thousands of years.. each dynasty, or king goes too rot
about as fast as it forms..the same today with each new guru... the
ones speaking some semblance of the truth not popular as they fail to
justify pervasive human folly... these seek to have that justified, by
means of building yet another edifice on top of the mess...

You can follow instrumentation fads in science, too. Hot instrument A,
becomes cold instrument A when instrument B comes out, then it becomes
cold instrument B when C comes out.



for example. a book on "How to succeed in middle management".

Some guy even plotted the use of buzzwords as a function of time. Some
reporter at the WSJ even managed to get a sentence into his article
"...there is no such thing as management science..."

When I was into my first real job after a postdoc, I learned that they
were just getting off of "matrix management" which all the consultants
were raving about but nobody liked.

Remember in the public schools when they had "the new math"? Which, nobody
liked, then they went back to the old way.

Medical schools went through several eras of "curriculum reform" too. I
was at a dean's meeting once and asked the dean "Um, do you guys ever do
any followup to see if this stuff works?" and I got a low voice back "no"
and the moved to the next topic.

Then way way long ago I had a student in an ecology class who wanted to do
a term paper on mosquito control (he worked for the local abatement
department) and I think he just copied something from work. But, I asked
the kid "Say, do you guys ever actually measure the before and after
density of mosquitoes and the before and after density of any other bugs
to see if you're getting the ones you want to get and not knocking off the
bees that we need for polination?" He didn't have any response for that.


ok ok...I see you lacked the philsie approach to hosing these folks...
its not rocket science.
you just insist on the discussion...and wait for the morons to
attack..by then you have investigated the larger mess and readied
questions 2 though 15. like that.

Well, if you want, I'll follow the "philsie approach" because we have at least moderately overlaping lines of thinking between us. I just play devil's advocate once in a while and just throw in some other stuff at other times.

in time these go entirely ballistic and send thugs. thats always
exciting. My habit was always to take them to lunch.. these would
leave in a slight weave..disoriented as they had been told that i
was ...errr ..nutz.. but yet when they met me, well I wasnt... maybe
just a little off total dead center...but that was it.

atter the thugs comes the attorneys...now thats a hoot.. i just love
them, fearful of their positions down deep, really they dont like to
think you would show up at one of their bosses board meetings handing
out floppy discs with their name on them... they just *hate that.

Believe me, I've heard this before and from other people. It might have been exciting if I were younger, but at my age now, I'd just as soon let someone else deal with the adrenaline.

thats when wackenhut is sent in.. or today the nice folk from
blackwater.... and there is absolutely no way in hell you could ever
even dream of out gunning em...no way hose...not gonna happens .. so
always and as usual a person has to be vewy vewy nice.... and anybody
that knows ol philsie here, knows thats true, more or less... depends
if anyone brings a gun. he just hates that.

Sure, "ready, aim, shoot, shoot, shoot.....and keep on shooting"

always be nice, is the best motto.

Or, at least try. Or, if you can't try, then look the other way and try to show a deadpan face (like as in "dumb looks are free").



so there you are with the wackenhut scum on your ass. what to do...
the short answer, go public as hell fast, but NOT, absolutely not with
the whole story. thats important. If you can figure out
why..then you wll be forever sucessful when confronted with those
sorts of situations.... when these start trying to claim that your
sorry ass is blackmailing them...go have some coffee.. these people
are nutz... no way in hell will you ever be able to esplain anything
to them.


I know what you're saying.

I wont fill the ng in on too many detials here...but about 3 years
ago I got a speeding ticket on my motorcycle for supposedly hauling
ass in the mc arthur tunnel in SF calif ....chp nailed me from half a
mile away parked outside the tunnel...so how the hell would he know..
I took it to court.

I wasnt even dragging the pegs...the bike was just barely drifting in
the turn. I was INNOCeNT.. more or less.


Hmmmm , "more or less" is a waffle(!).


outside the court waiting was the officer a young man in civilian
dress, accompanied on both sides and in front by a group of very burly
looking CHP's, maybe 6 or 8.....they were all grining at me, and we
talked. i iiked those guys, at the very least they had good records
and we understood each other.

Good.


never give up.

You can still hose em on the bug deal you know.

Or on the newsgroup.


Phil Scott









Phil Scott- Hide quoted text -

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