Download - Ironic Manager
Richard J BadhamProfessor of Management
email [email protected] .
The Ironic Manager
AMBITION IS THE LAST REFUGE OF THE FAILURE Oscar Wilde
www.ironicmanager.com
• Formal Organizations: taking it out!– Organisational Esperanto and Emotional
Lobotomy– Organisational Schizophrenia and Manic
Depression
• Greedy Institutions: forcing it back in!– McManagement and emotional
engineering– Branding and the Expressive
Organisation
THE CONTEXT
Desperately seeking ‘Enterprise’ and‘Engagement’ yet….
The IRONIC MANAGERis one who:
• sees the organisationalworld for what it is,
• learns to performeffectively within it, &
• finds meaning in thisstate of affairs.
(S)he is the consummateplayer, but a ‘seriousplayer’ .
The DELUDED MANAGERis one who:
• misunderstands andmisrepresents theorganisational world,
• performs ineffectively,and, ultimately,
• fails to find meaning inthis state of affairs.
(S)he is the consummatedupe, whether serious orflippant.
THE IRONIC MANAGER
• ‘Most men would die rather than think. Many do.’ Bertrand Russell
THINKING!
• ‘The unexamined life is not worth living for man.” Socrates
• THE INSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVE “In business school I was given no hint of the imperative’s
existence and I did not intuitively understand it when Ientered the business world. I thought then that decent,intelligent, and experienced managers would automaticallymake rational business decisions. But I learned over timethat isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when theinstitutional imperative comes into play.” (Warren Buffet, 1989)
• THE INSTRUMENTAL FALLACY “Someone who is a victim, or an example, of the
instrumental attitude to management sees the people underhim as the instruments with which he has to carry out hisjob, to execute his plans. Each has a separate role,perhaps a separate skill, and it his his job as manager touse it as a good carpenter uses his saw and chisel andplane and drill to turn the idea in his head into a final result.In the same way he sees himself as one of the instrumentsof his superior manager, being applied to the larger task ashe applies his subordinate to the smaller one.”(Anthony Jay, 1971: 32-33)
THE DELUDED MANAGER
• The religion of rationality
• The irrationality of rationality
• The revenge of the non-rational
THE DELUDED MANAGER
• Situational irony “A condition of affairs or events of a
character opposite to what was, ormight naturally be, expected. Acontradictory outcome of events asif in mockery of the promise andfitness of things.”
(Oxford English Dictionary, 1979: 484)
THE IRONIC GAZE: viewing or perceiving
….one who sees the world for what it is!
• ‘Expecting the unexpected’
• ‘Coping with unintended consequences’
• ‘Wrestling with ‘paradox’
THE IRONIC GAZE
• ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence isthe ability to hold two opposed ideasin mind at the same time and stillretain the ability to function’F Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack Up, 1936
• ‘The person who can’t ride twohorses doesn’t deserve to be in thebloody circus’Former TU leader
THE IRONIC GAZE: ‘Janusian’ Thinking
THE IRONIC PERFORMANCE: acting or practicing
• Verbal irony “A figure of speech in which the intended
meaning is the opposite of thatexpressed by the words used; usuallytaking the form of sarcasm or ridicule inwhich the laudatory expressions are usedto imply condemnation or contempt.”
• Socratic irony ‘Dissimulation, pretence; esp. in
reference to the dissimulation ofignorance practiced by Socrates as ameans of confuting an adversary.”
(Oxford English Dictionary, 1979: 483/4)
……one who can perform effectively in the world!
• Leadership and rhetoric– Irony and community a virtuoso
performance– beyond ‘cheerful robots’ and
‘dragons of despair’
• Communication with multipleaudiences– the ‘Wink’ or ‘I can heartily
recommend the Gestapo to anyone’(Freud)
THE IRONIC PERFORMANCE
• A disposition, character or philosophicstance towards the world (an ‘ironist’).
• An observer of situational irony, and adeployer of verbal and Socratic irony.
• Variously viewed as humane andliberal or negative and cynical.
• For some, it is an engaged ethos, adisciplined (‘tempered’) grappling withpractical uncertainty and metaphysicaldoubt.
• For others, it is a form of radicalnegativity or disengagement, ridiculingall beliefs and values.
THE IRONIC TEMPER: living or meaning
….and finds meaning in this state of affairs!
• the ‘sweet spot between arrogance anddespair’
(Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 2005, Confidence, p.13)
• “Beyond the yellow brick road of naiveteand the muggers lane of cynicism, there isa narrow path, poorly lit, hard to find, andeven harder to stay on once found. Peoplewho have the skill and perseverance totake that path serve us in countless ways.We need more of these people. Manymore.”
(Kotter, John, 1985, Power and Influence, p.xx)
THE IRONIC TEMPER
• Circuses:– Principled infidelity and the
sergeant major ethos
• Bread:– High velocity leadership on the
edge of chaos– Mediators in a plural world
THE CONTEXT: Bread and Circuses
• Thinking things through– wrestling with ambiguity and
paradox
• Feeling things through– coping with ambivalence and
uncertainty
• Acting things through– winning a contact sport
CONCLUSION: SEEING THINGS THROUGH
