1/5/2011 Letter

Dear Frank,

Thank you for spending your time listening to us last night.  Art George is his name (or Mountain Eagle that Soars over the Valleys). 

I guess my quick answer to your question is "Better".  More efficiently, more effectively, cheaper, with less environmental impacts, and with more autonomy giving to skilled engineers and key experts who are able to coordinate their areas with all other areas of these complex enterprises successfully.

In fact, when these types of operations are best is when they express the key principles of this New Ism that we are researching and trying to articulate.  There was a recent story of a mortality rate comparison between well managed hospitals and poorly managed ones. 

http://worldmanagementsurvey.org/wp-content/images/2010/10/Management_in_Healthcare_Report_2010.pdf  

These researchers discovered key factors to good management. 

1. Skilled knowledgeable managers (this was the element of mastery in leadership we mentioned last night).
2. Broad autonomy given to these key managers (this is the element of decentralized but coordinated systems that we mentioned last night).
3. Competition (Again, decentralized, market driven systems are what are imagined within an effective New Ism).
4. Bigger is better (We did not touch on this last night, but the thought is that small enterprises are probably best as authoritarian, centralized (capitalistic) enterprises as the small business owners of these enterprises put in far more effort and energy into the enterprises than typical employees, and not only deserve the bulk of the benefits of enterprise, but also should have the decision making control to give the enterprise the best chance of survival in difficult times.  A New Ism will need to be focused on the structure of big business in my opinion and theory suggests that it will make those enterprises more nimble, more efficient, and better managed.  
5. Their final finding was that private hospitals were better managed than public.  I have several questions about this finding such as "Who paid for the study?", and "Did the private hospitals have more money to work with per patient?"  But the work of Elinor Ostrom suggests that with proper "design parameters" that the third way of "common pool resource management" offers even better outcomes that either public or private, so the fact that private is better managed than public does not mean that private is de facto the best option.
   

Underlying your questions is another bigger question which is "can people self manage themselves better than authoritarian management can manage them?"  This same question was at the heart of the American Revolution.  The Tories and Loyalists of the time argued that the "rabble" could never govern a nation and that the firm hand of the monarch was needed to maintain order.  We now know that the argument was false in the case of government.  In fact, no large industrialized nation can be managed as a monarchy because of the structural design limitations of authoritarian government -- just as you cannot build a skyscraper with wood frame construction.  It turns out that non-authoritarian, collaborative organizational structures are the only ones capable of the complex, epic projects that you suggest.  In fact, the space program, and large construction projects, exemplify the very principals that we are trying to identify in a New Ism.

Michael

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Your new Ism
From: "Frank Way" <frankpway@comcast.net>
Date: Wed, January 05, 2011 9:24 am
To: <m@sumpeople.org>

Michael:

 

                I enjoyed listening to you and Art last night.  By the way, what is Art's last name, and his email address?

 

                After thinking about what you are proposing, I must ask  you several questions.

 

                How would your new Ism have put the first man on the moon?

 

                How would it have designed  and produced the latest Boeing passenger Jet?

 

                How would it have designed and built one of the newest cruise ships?

 

                How would it compete with major corporations in the world markets?

 

 

                Please forward this to Art.

 

                Frank Way