Fred,
It seems that given what you say, you should be focused on the
monitoring and evaluation (control) of actions. One thing TQM has done for
us is bring a focus on measuring efficacy.
Charles Wankel
St. John's University, New York
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director
-----Original Message-----
If there is a single criterion of managerial performance, I believe it must
be the efficacy of managerial action. Plainly put, do managerial actions
produce the intended effects?
The effects sought by many managers are often far removed in time and space
from the actions meant to produce those effects. Thus it is that managers
change things in one place so as to produce the desired effects
elsewhere. Actions taken produce direct and immediate effects at the point
of intervention and then these changes "ripple through" the structure of
the situation, making themselves felt elsewhere. If all goes as intended,
the desired effects are produced and are not offset by any unintended
effects.
Managers, then, are interventionists; they change things so as to make
other things happen. To succeed, they must have a grasp of the structure
of the situations facing them and how that structure responds to
changes. They must also have a grasp of various means of intervening in
various structures. And, if the practice of management is to be a
responsible one, they must be able to say with some degree of confidence
that this action will produce that result or, conversely, that this
particular result requires that particular action.
This list, concerning itself as it does with management education and
development, seems to me a fit place to post the following questions:
Where do managers learn the craft of intervening in those complex
structures we call organizations and processes and relationships?
Do managers or those concerned with managerial performance think
of managers as interventionists?
Has anyone written about managers as interventionists?
Fred Nickols