Tuesday, February 16, 2010
"Three card Monte"
It seems to me that one of the hallmarks of troubled schools is the inability to allocate resources efficiently and effectively. Perhaps this is the effect of ineffective or non-existent planning or in lack of continuity. In any case, failing or troubled schools always seem to engage in practices which are at cross purposes to practices which would actually allieviate or solve problems. One might say that they are, "Robbing Peter to pay Paul," but it's actually worse than that. They are "Robbing Simon to pay Peter to get better credit from Paul." Everything is reactive - very little is pro-active.
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It's not only schools. This seems to be descriptive of many other organizations. Another characteristic is that the language that dominates the conversation in dysfunctional organizations seems to be opposite to the dominant culture. For example, mean workplaces talk about how nice they are. Workplaces that reward individual behavior talk about teamwork. Organizations that talk too much about long-term goals seem intent on maximizing short-term returns, and vice versa. GregfromRiverdale
ReplyDeleteGregfromRiverdale,
ReplyDeleteTrue enough about the language that dysfunctional organizations use. Now here's my question... Do they engage in oppositional language because
1. They actually believe that they are operating in the more progressive manner
or
2. they would like to "think" that they are about to change the organizational culture,
or
3. they are using the progressive language as a smoke screen to hide their satisfaction with the "status quo"
I only ask because each of those question require different solutions.
Unfortunately for all of us, I believe the first, that they believe they operate in the more progressive manner. That means much frustration fro anyone trying to point out that that is not in fact the case. Maybe some mathematical formula might express it: the nature of the values actually held by an organization is in direct proportion to the degree of opposite values that an organization believes it holds? Something like that. Let's ask a mathematician!
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