"Up the Organisation"

Lola's comment on the Jacob Rees-Mogg post,

"WFH has not worked for my business - all my people could not wait to get back into the office. Which is surprising as we are just the sort of business where you'd think WFH would be a winner. It might be that I try to make work fun (!) and generally our clients join in with that"
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Reminded me of an excellent book on management, "Up the Organisation", by Robert Townsend, which I would recommend anyone to read.

Despite being a book on management, it is neither dry nor boring, in fact it is funny and interesting, from the cover, which has the question on it, "If you are not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing here?", via the introduction which kicks off with "Here is a plan for humanising business - for having fun while making it all work better than it ever worked before..." and sections entitled "Boss, how to retire the", "Ejaculation, premature" and "Secrecy, a child's garden of diseases" to "The guerilla guide to working women". Even though it was written in 1970, the message, that people work better when they are treated fairly and having fun is as relevant today as it was then.

Two ideas that go together well

Bosses, who needs 'em?

That was what they were wondering at Slate, whilst at Theconversation.com they were reporting on research that shows that happy workers are more productive. However, one of their conclusions is that “The main reason why people become unhappy and thus unproductive at work is their line manager.”

So if, as they reason in the Slate article,
More layers of management means paying more workers, and generally at higher salaries. It means introducing inefficiency, as each decision gets slowly passed up the chain for approval. In a hierarchical organization, decisions get made at the top of that chain by the people with the least connection to the facts on the ground. Meanwhile, the folks at the bottom, in the heart of the action, feel no agency over their work.
Why not get rid of management and make people happier and more productive in the process?

Added to the fact that that in many organisations, the only route to advancement and higher salary is entry into management, with the result that workers who are good at their job are rewarded by stopping them doing it and giving them something else to do, management, which they might well be and often are, pretty mediocre at doing, the case for doing away with, or at least, severely cutting back on management, looks pretty good. But, as they point out in the Slate article, who would be responsible for getting rid of management? The answer is other managers, who presumably don't see their own role in a similar light.

NHS Direct

Following the reports about the problems with NHS Direct's contacts for NHS 111 services, I spotted this:-

NHS Direct announced in June that it was pulling out of two areas - Cornwall and North Essex - even before the services were launched.
And earlier this month, it warned that the volume of calls in its remaining nine areas was 30-40% lower than expected, leading to lower income and leaving its whole 111 service "financially unsustainable".

Hang on... weren't NHS Direct the people running the service for the whole country until recently? How do you run a service and find your call volume is 30-40% lower than you predicted?