James Drogan

"Organisclerosis" is a favorite term used by my friend, Dave, to encompass the failings of much of modern management.

The February 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review brings a prescription for this disease, "Moon Shots for Management."  I call it to your attention, especially if you're one my students.

Here's the follow-on exercise after reading the article.

1. How will the prescription have a positive impact on what ails management?
2. What knowledge, skills, and experiences will you need to be able to participant in the administration of the medicine?

The title of this post is the title of a post from one of my favorite bloggers, Irving Wladawsky-Berger.  I draw attention to it, particularly the attention of my students who aspire to positions of leadership, for what it says are the characteristics of leaders.

Wladawsky-Berger speaks from wide experience in the hard, cold, global world of commerce.  There is no academic point of view here, of drawing conclusions from research, but rather of drawing conclusions from living and doing.

His three principal characteristics -- modesty and humility, an open mind, and a culture of collaboration -- are ones which agree with my some 44 years of experience in business and academia.

I'll end with a line from Wladawsky-Berger's post.

"The reason companies are often not able to turn themselves around and survive a serious crisis is not because they don't know what to do, but because the culture of the institution is not able to embrace the needed changes."

And therein is the rub.  My friend Dave calls it "organisclerosis."  It was recently suggested that I should take the lead in developing an online process to replace an existing manual process.  I turned this down because my assessment was that that portion of the organization that owned the process wasn't prepared to change.

From The Big Picture comes a pointer to this fascinating five minute video by the CEO of Public Radio International, Alisa Miller.

America is meant by the "we" in the title of this post.  I've no idea what the view is from the rest of the world.

I'm reminded of the phrase "willfull ignorance" and how, if memory serves, it is no longer a valid defense in legal cases.  More importantly, however, is a lack of understanding of much that directly affects the US.  Lack of understanding strikes me as one of the necessary conditions for decline.

I add new and updated notes and papers from time to time into the various sections grouped under Navigation on the right side of my site.  It has not been obvious when I do that.

Consequently I've added a new group on the right side called Recent Notes and Papers.  Listed here, latest first, are notes and papers recently published to this website.

Students of mine, please take note!  Good stuff here relevant for your presentations in such courses as the Capstone.

The Semester in Review is a jewel of a blog post from the cac.ophoney blog.  It's all about understanding one's audience and aligning communication with their needs.

Make sure you listen to Hillary and Melis in the five minute video clip.

This morning, The Big Picture brings a fascinating discussion, moderated by Charlie Rose, by two reknown economists on the economic issues facing America. It's in a language that most of us can understand and it prompted me to sketch the following diagram.

What I am suggesting is that all of us, professional and lay person alike, ought to be understanding the implications of what Stiglitz and Feldstein have to say in this 30 minute video on our personal situations. This consideration ought then lead to personal actions.

Talking about this mess is not enough. I'm reminded of "Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both."  John Andrew Holmes

In my view, Stiglitz and Feldstein use a lanuguage that is understandable.

It may be something we've not yet developed an interest in, but we should. The financial industry and the government seems to have demonstrated a certain ineptitude in these matters.

On the same page of The Big Picture that provides the link to the video is this delicious quote from Adam Smith.

"The uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution, in spite, not only of the disease, but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor."

...good writers.  I heard this advice long, long ago.

A recent article in The New Yorker (January 12, 2009), "The Speech" by Jill Lepore reminds me of this.  Good writers compel you to read.  Tolkein, Neal Stephenson, Robert Jordan, Stephen Donaldson (note the genre here) are like that.  The reason I bring up genre is there are good writers in genres that may not appeal to you.  I'm not, for example, much found of romance novels.

Anyway, Lepore seems to me a good writer.  The subject, Inaugural Addresses, is of interest and The New Yorker is one of my favorite magazines.  That is, the good writer needs to be in a genre of interest and in place accessible.

The story within the story is that of James Garfield preparing his inaugural speech.

I want to particularly call your attention to her discussion of the Flesch Readability Test and the delightful and humorous little bit that begins

in the middle of the third column on page 52.

An interesting story well told is what we have here.  Lepore, a good read for a number of reasons.

One of the key tenets of system design and control is that of understanding and managing associated risk.  I spend some time with my students on this notion of risk.

This past Sunday, The New York Times Magazine included an article, RISK Mismanagement - What Led to the Financial Meltdown, that is likely to become required reading for my students.

It tells the story of an overreliance on technology akin to religious fervor, the write-off of the values associated with common sense and experience, and the petty triumph of the material over the ethical.

Life is always full of lessons to be learned, but perhaps no more so than now.

Here's an elegant (i.e., simple and strong) statement from another of my favorite bloggers, Bob Sutton of Stanford University.

This is so often missing in our day-to-day lives.

I'm reminded of:

'When people at headquarters grumbled about some task, Mr. Feehan would reflect on the role of the ''can man,'' the raw young firefighter assigned to haul an extinguisher up the stairs. ''If you're the can man,'' Mr. Feehan would say, ''be the can man.'' Mr. Von Essen has done just that, with grace, humor and honesty.'

Jim Dwyer, "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; How the Fire Commissioner Saw It," The New York Times, August 29, 2002, [December 28, 2008]

The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism by George Friedman of StratFor came in the e-mail this morning.  Journalism is often admired for its dogged willingness to uncover that which others would prefer not to be known.

The Washington Post investigation of Nixon is often cited as an example of this.

However, Friedman reminds that there is, as my older daughter once told me, three sides to every story; your side, my side, and the truth.

Ethics is not easy.  My students and I discuss this matter at some length in the courses I teach.  Nor is there one universal set of ethics.  We discover this when we discuss culture differences.

We are, it seems to me, constantly oscillating in the void between means and ends, preferring sometimes one, then the other.

Finally, Friedman's article reminds me of:

"If stated reasons don't sit well with your conscience or stand the test of logic, look for deeper motivations."

Docent Glax Othn