Succession Planning

I know a man with a strange quirk. Although capable of fakery, deception, and mismanagement, he was always a good administrator in some ways. These were not the strange quirk. The quirk was an incredible sense of persecution and insecurity.

His latest exercise had the whole earth-and-heaven buzzing. He asked (not for the first time) that each of his staff members name the people that they wanted to have as their leaders in the next era. Of course, each ballot had the name of the writer on it. What an illusion of democracy!

As a previous participant, I have seen the hidden files. This is not about choice; it is about testing the waters of the red ocean for signs of trouble. The results of the poll would never be made public. As usual, it is also about control of information, lack of transparency, and a habit of manipulating people.

The problem he has, as acknowledged by those observing him from above and below, and besides, is that he has no legitimate or competent successors around him because of what he has done in the past. He now has to manufacture a guardian for his legacy; a truly competent successor might erase the memory of his time as dictator, but an incompetent one might sully the sheen.

No Cylinders

When something is working at maximum yield, we say that it is 'firing on all cylinders'. What then to make of something that seems to be producing no yield or a declining yield?

In 1886, the venerable institution I speak of was founded with the highest of ideals. It has had many high points and low points. For the last few years, it has been at the top of the table and rarely fallen to anywhere below third place. There was one golden year in which the team could do no wrong, and they remained undefeated the whole season.

This year, however, with various stalwarts farmed out into the unknown and the untested and untried brought in to replace them, the team seems to have been firing on no cylinders at all. We have a player who claims he is the best of his kind; well, we are thankful that there is only one of him, then. We have a captain who is forever mouthing off inappropriately and causing dissension in the ranks; sometimes all he seems to think about is his position and his pride.

We are decimated by injuries and by the need to wait too long for the next generation to rise up and lead. In fact, while we were waiting, some of the better players of that generation have gone on to other institutions and done very well. Occasionally, they get the opportunity to 'stick the boot in', as it were, against our side. It must give them some pleasure to return to the Emirates and win.

There is no point in appointing vice-captains who don't play and can't lead. There is no point in picking players without the guile to unlock the defences of teams like Sunderland. Sadly, even the inventive and eccentric talent of the Persian (haha) is now linked to an ultimatum that the club should show ambition. Well, people like him should show some spine. Rome wasn't built in a day, although you apparently can raise a Villa in a few months.

Time to build up the Arsenal and stand United. Or something like that.

Second Guessing

C Northcote Parkinson was a scholar, an officer and a gentleman. A naval officer and instructor, and then after World War II, the Raffles Professor of History at the (then) University of Malaya, he was most renowned for a slim little book of sociological observations called Parkinson's Law. I have made it a point to collect every one of his books that I can find. They are models of clarity, good humour, and acutely intelligent perception.

I recently came into possession (thank you, Herr Hierophant) of one of his older books, In-Laws & Outlaws, first published in 1962. While reading it late in the night, I came across this section and laughed out loud, whereupon the local environment gave me a dirty look with elements of slight puzzlement. Here is the offending (well, amusing and entertaining) paragraph:

[Extracted from 'Secundity', p.142]
But does every organisation have an acknowledged Number Two? No, there is a significant exception. In a political despotism or dictatorship there is no real deputy and no named successor. For the whole strength of the régime rests on the assumption that the current ruler is impossible to replace. After all, an effective deputy makes the ruler less indispensable. A known successor makes him less secure. It is part of the techniques, therefore, of dictatorship to leave the second throne unfilled. Instead of Number Two there are several people in competition, the position of each weakened by the jealousy of the rest.

I think one of the most amusing things about local education is that vice-principals are never vice in the sense that a viceroy was. The Latin vice is best translated in such contexts as 'in place of'; it denotes a secondary power with the ability and/or capacity to replace the primary authority on any and every occasion. Quite often, however, there are professional secondaries with no hope of attaining apotheosis. This is a sad fact that Parkinson also addresses later in his book.