Strategic Stabilisation
The worst thing a person can do is to enter an environment without any form of stability and no plan for managing the situation. I mean 'manage' in the literal etymological sense — that is, 'take in hand'. If the situation is not brought to some sort of temporal and temporary equilbrium (whether static or dynamic), then the whole idea of leadership is called into question: you cannot lead where management is impossible because a true leader takes things in hand.
The problem is that in any situation, the new leader (or the impulsive or choleric one) will find internal psychological and external not-so-psychological pressure to do something, anything. Most of the time, this is silly if the thing to be done is not an attempt to create a stable basis for future doings. Some leaders lurch from crisis to crisis, blaming the crises for their own incapability and inability to manage. Some leaders try to make everything look good with whitewash, much as the white lead on an Elizabethan lady's face would have made her look good until the flesh was finally eaten away.
I remember my first major appointment and the silly set of advice I was given: eat with the right people, say the right things, appease the parents, don't be too adventurous, be more adventurous, don't offend people, don't give in to the wrong people. The set taken as a whole, without a stable and rational basis, was silly; the individual pieces of advice may have been of use if a context or framework had been supplied.
In my first year, I took standardised test results in my department to a place above the national average for the first time in a few years. It was not very far above the national average, but it was a good place to seek temporary (and temporal) stability. Subsequently, I found that the person ostensibly directing me did not know that we had been below the national average in the first place, and was goading me into aiming even higher.
Of course, higher was plausibly a better place to be. But what irked me was that this person didn't know anything about the statistical situation at a national level, and seemed not to care for whether a good education was being provided except in the most general and platitudinous terms.
In fact, there was no strategy of in-house stabilisation, and apart from standardised test results, there was not much analysis. I was astounded to realise that there were committees and officers which submitted no reports at all, except the occasional verbal report without hard data (or even soft data). Because of this lack of information, a deliberate process of strategic stabilisation was an impossibility, since nobody knew whether we were anywhere near a state of stability or not.
I realised quickly that what was in effect was either a bicycle or a helicopter paradigm; that is, as long as we were moving, we were all right. The metaphor also meant that if we suddenly found ourselves moving in a disastrous direction, the likelihood of correcting our trajectory would begin slim and head towards tenuous before hitting non-existent. Fortunately, the density of the medium helped to correct by providing a modicum of inertia, and we survived quite a long while by general flailing.
The problem is that in any situation, the new leader (or the impulsive or choleric one) will find internal psychological and external not-so-psychological pressure to do something, anything. Most of the time, this is silly if the thing to be done is not an attempt to create a stable basis for future doings. Some leaders lurch from crisis to crisis, blaming the crises for their own incapability and inability to manage. Some leaders try to make everything look good with whitewash, much as the white lead on an Elizabethan lady's face would have made her look good until the flesh was finally eaten away.
I remember my first major appointment and the silly set of advice I was given: eat with the right people, say the right things, appease the parents, don't be too adventurous, be more adventurous, don't offend people, don't give in to the wrong people. The set taken as a whole, without a stable and rational basis, was silly; the individual pieces of advice may have been of use if a context or framework had been supplied.
In my first year, I took standardised test results in my department to a place above the national average for the first time in a few years. It was not very far above the national average, but it was a good place to seek temporary (and temporal) stability. Subsequently, I found that the person ostensibly directing me did not know that we had been below the national average in the first place, and was goading me into aiming even higher.
Of course, higher was plausibly a better place to be. But what irked me was that this person didn't know anything about the statistical situation at a national level, and seemed not to care for whether a good education was being provided except in the most general and platitudinous terms.
In fact, there was no strategy of in-house stabilisation, and apart from standardised test results, there was not much analysis. I was astounded to realise that there were committees and officers which submitted no reports at all, except the occasional verbal report without hard data (or even soft data). Because of this lack of information, a deliberate process of strategic stabilisation was an impossibility, since nobody knew whether we were anywhere near a state of stability or not.
I realised quickly that what was in effect was either a bicycle or a helicopter paradigm; that is, as long as we were moving, we were all right. The metaphor also meant that if we suddenly found ourselves moving in a disastrous direction, the likelihood of correcting our trajectory would begin slim and head towards tenuous before hitting non-existent. Fortunately, the density of the medium helped to correct by providing a modicum of inertia, and we survived quite a long while by general flailing.
Labels: Management, Strategic Planning, Strategic Thinking
etched with acid at 1:19:00 am
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