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-----Original Message-----
From: Chester Bowling <bowling.43@OSU.EDU>
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Date: Thursday, April 09, 1998 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: [MG-ED-DV] Missing the boat...

At 08:14 AM 4/9/98 -0400, Lee Meeks wrote:
>To all:
>
>I agree with the value of original thinking vs. parroting
>back someone else's thinking...which may have originated
>with someone else's prior quote, which came from...blah,
>blah, blah...
>
>Having established that, I am a little perplexed how a
>discussion of management can focus on the noun, but ignore
>the verb...
>
>Here's one plausible yet simple definition of management:
>the effective planning and employment of an organization's
>resources. I consider these resources to include an
>organization's people, time, money, equipment, and
>ideas...thus the notion of management must always be
>present. Musn't it?

Doesn't everyone plan and employ the organization's resources?

>
>Considering the verb "management" (which leads to
>leadership, but that's another thread!), managing and
>management is action: guiding or enabling the interaction
>between resources for the purposes of furthering an
>organization's goals. And this is about establishing
>priorities.

What would be the difference between your verb, management and my verb, facilitation?

>
>So even if a self-directed, self-organizing organization
>chooses to think this can be done without management (noun),
>there remains a defacto requirement for management (verb)
>whether people choose to recognize this or not.
>
>I have pondered this for several days: how can there exist a
>truly management-less organization? But given resources,
>and a need to employ resources for a purpose, someone (or
>several someones) either by design or by default, must order
>the prioritzed use of those resources. And someone (or
>several someones) must guide their interaction.

So if the "several someones" are everyone in the organization is it still called management?

>This concept of "action" can be authoritarian or it can be
>"progressive"; it can also even be very passive sometimes,
>if that is the best means to best "employ" resources. But
>there is always a need to "manage" once the quantity of
>resources exceeds one of anything.
>
>If nothing else, in a manager-less or management-less
>organization, self-directed, self-organized or otherwise,
>there is always a need to prioritize and provide order to
>resources.

So if we thought of the universe as an organization who would be prioritizing and providing the order? Who provides the order on a ship, the captain, the navigator, the ship's engineer, the ship's designer?






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