Annual Infarction (Part IV): Human Sciences
Not such a very long time ago, I was approached by an agent of the Imperium. On that occasion, I was asked if I would become an Imperial Assessor, essentially a person who would be tasked to enter institutions and compile a report on their fitness to continue administering funds from the Imperial fisc. Of course, I turned this opportunity down; having long been an independent agent, I was not one to return like a wolf to the Imperial fold.
It did occur to me though just how unique my perspective on such institutions was, and how valuable my experience could be to certain kinds of organisations. There aren't many Imperial Assessors with a doctorate in the specific and detailed assessment of the institutions they are supposed to assess. Apparently this occurred to somebody else as well, because a few months later, another agent of the Imperium asked if I could just assist in an advisory role, supplying recommendations on what should be looked at with respect to institutions undergoing the Quintessential Infarct.
"Hey," you might be saying now, "This post is straying from the straight and narrow and heading towards the sort of movie in which chainmail bikinis and barbarians clad in buffalo fur figure a lot!"
Oh, no it isn't. What's happening here is that I am trying to be educational without embarrassing specific people. The Quintessential Infarct is a form of Quality Assessment, in which the Imperium tasks a specific agency (hence all these agents in my tale) to look into an institution to see if it is worthy of wearing the Imperial Laurels and half-a-dozen legionary eagles on its brazen epaulettes. It is a step up from just wearing four legionary eagles on bronze-green epaulettes, trust me.
I turned both requests down for a simple reason. I am not one to be beholden to any side in a debate, no matter how collegial or professional. Either I am on one side as a champion for a cause, or I am not. I don't do hatchet jobs with the venerable axes bundled with my sticks. If I am to write anything, it will be fair, and if I am to float a recommendation, it is for re-commending something, and not secretly undermining anything.
The basis of all such assessments which call themselves 'quality assessments' is a mish-mash of what we conveniently and (unfortunately) accurately describe as the 'human sciences'. It is a kind of wisdom grounded in the eternally variable nature of humanity, and hence can be trusted on general human principles and not trusted at all in specific cases.
To my hypothetical young civil servant, I now offer some humble pieces of advice concerning the process of appraisal and the human sciences used in that process.
I think I will just offer a couple more points. When looking for documentary evidence, you should realise how easy it is these days to forge these documents. Any document without an independent time-stamp should be considered provisionally tainted, which makes the assessor's task much harder. I know a former hierarch who used to tell subordinates to create documents which did not exist before and back-date them in order to present a better picture. I was told by impeccable sources that this individual also directed others to modify other documents in confidential files.
Remember, therefore, what I said about trusting the human sciences from a general viewpoint and not a specific one. If you look at EVERY document and they say the same thing... well, it's hard to forge a decade of material, and it's more likely to be a true picture. But if your conclusion depends on a handful of documents, then you need to look very very carefully. This is why a three-year or five-year baseline is inadequate for a really superior appraisal; it is worse when the institution has had the same helmsman for more than a decade, because your baseline cannot easily be extended outside his reach.
To end this series, I will say that I have a genuine desire to help those who will one day be called upon to be both civil and serving. There is a lot of advice out there that is far better than what I've given so far; very little of it, though, is better than these ancient lines, some of which I have quoted before:
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Listen! The LORD is calling to the city—
and to fear your name is wisdom—
"Heed the rod and the One who appointed it.
Am I still to forget, O wicked house,
your ill-gotten treasures
and the short measure, which is accursed?
Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales,
with a bag of false weights?"
Wise advice indeed. So, my hypothetical young civil servant, remember not to be swayed from the basic principles, no matter what your boss tells you are 'basic principles'. As Dunnett's patriarch says, the problem is often in your choice of master.
It did occur to me though just how unique my perspective on such institutions was, and how valuable my experience could be to certain kinds of organisations. There aren't many Imperial Assessors with a doctorate in the specific and detailed assessment of the institutions they are supposed to assess. Apparently this occurred to somebody else as well, because a few months later, another agent of the Imperium asked if I could just assist in an advisory role, supplying recommendations on what should be looked at with respect to institutions undergoing the Quintessential Infarct.
"Hey," you might be saying now, "This post is straying from the straight and narrow and heading towards the sort of movie in which chainmail bikinis and barbarians clad in buffalo fur figure a lot!"
Oh, no it isn't. What's happening here is that I am trying to be educational without embarrassing specific people. The Quintessential Infarct is a form of Quality Assessment, in which the Imperium tasks a specific agency (hence all these agents in my tale) to look into an institution to see if it is worthy of wearing the Imperial Laurels and half-a-dozen legionary eagles on its brazen epaulettes. It is a step up from just wearing four legionary eagles on bronze-green epaulettes, trust me.
I turned both requests down for a simple reason. I am not one to be beholden to any side in a debate, no matter how collegial or professional. Either I am on one side as a champion for a cause, or I am not. I don't do hatchet jobs with the venerable axes bundled with my sticks. If I am to write anything, it will be fair, and if I am to float a recommendation, it is for re-commending something, and not secretly undermining anything.
The basis of all such assessments which call themselves 'quality assessments' is a mish-mash of what we conveniently and (unfortunately) accurately describe as the 'human sciences'. It is a kind of wisdom grounded in the eternally variable nature of humanity, and hence can be trusted on general human principles and not trusted at all in specific cases.
To my hypothetical young civil servant, I now offer some humble pieces of advice concerning the process of appraisal and the human sciences used in that process.
- It is far better to give than to receive; better to appraise than to be appraised.
- If you are to be appraised, best you do it to yourself first, exhaustively and exactly, hewing closely to the grain of your profession. By this, I mean that you should outline in very certain terms what it is that you are expected to do, appraise it thoroughly, and remind any external appraiser what is within his scope and what is not before he starts to do his job.
- Do not trust qualitative data unless you can triangulate it from base points far outside the institution producing it; one corollary to this is that you should never believe your own institutional hype.
- Realise that there is nothing to trust about quantitative data; it either comes from a reliable source or it doesn't, and so you must zero in on whether the source is trustworthy or not.
- It's the interpretation of the data which you have to be wary about, especially when you see a drop in standards across the board but are assured that the average performance is better (or you see standards rise but higher levels do worse): this indicates a flattening of performance and a loss of excellence.
- Be rigorous even when you are being treated to gratuitous ad hominem attacks. There is no such thing as being too thorough where money, power and/or reputation are at stake.
- Ask the difficult questions: what is the logical chain connecting an institution's actual practices and its outcomes? How strong is that chain?
- If you are going to apply something called 'human sciences', better for you to make it more scientific and less human.
I think I will just offer a couple more points. When looking for documentary evidence, you should realise how easy it is these days to forge these documents. Any document without an independent time-stamp should be considered provisionally tainted, which makes the assessor's task much harder. I know a former hierarch who used to tell subordinates to create documents which did not exist before and back-date them in order to present a better picture. I was told by impeccable sources that this individual also directed others to modify other documents in confidential files.
Remember, therefore, what I said about trusting the human sciences from a general viewpoint and not a specific one. If you look at EVERY document and they say the same thing... well, it's hard to forge a decade of material, and it's more likely to be a true picture. But if your conclusion depends on a handful of documents, then you need to look very very carefully. This is why a three-year or five-year baseline is inadequate for a really superior appraisal; it is worse when the institution has had the same helmsman for more than a decade, because your baseline cannot easily be extended outside his reach.
To end this series, I will say that I have a genuine desire to help those who will one day be called upon to be both civil and serving. There is a lot of advice out there that is far better than what I've given so far; very little of it, though, is better than these ancient lines, some of which I have quoted before:
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Listen! The LORD is calling to the city—
and to fear your name is wisdom—
"Heed the rod and the One who appointed it.
Am I still to forget, O wicked house,
your ill-gotten treasures
and the short measure, which is accursed?
Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales,
with a bag of false weights?"
Wise advice indeed. So, my hypothetical young civil servant, remember not to be swayed from the basic principles, no matter what your boss tells you are 'basic principles'. As Dunnett's patriarch says, the problem is often in your choice of master.
Labels: Appraisal, Humanities, Management, Micah, Social Sciences, Wisdom
etched with acid at 10:19:00 am
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