Hi Bob,
In management theory the distinction between management and governance was
first made by Henri Fayol in 1916. Fayol, a French engineer, was one of
the pioneers of modern management. In his book "General and Industrial
Management" he distinguished between "administration" and "governance" and
planned to write about both: he never dealt with the second subject. Some
think it unfortunate that in the first English translation of his work
(1930) "administration" was translated as "management".
For Fayol "administration" was one of six industrial functions (the others
were: technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting) with five
elements: planning, organizing, command, co-ordination and control. So you
can see that Fayol was one of the first writers who, with Cartesian rigor,
tried to enumerate the "principles" of management and brought us the
famous "command and control" organization. His work was elaborated on in
the U.K. by military folk such as Urwick and picked up in countless
"Principles of Management" books in the U.S.
For Fayol "governance" seems to have been a higher concept involving the
integration of all six functions. He never wrote about it, but if he had
it would probably have been in the "dirigiste" mode which seems to be so
embedded in the French management culture. For the reasons for this you
might want to look at Francis Fukuyama's latest book "Trust".
I think that you are quite right that complexity theory etc. will be
helpful in supplying new notions of what we mean by control and how we
achieve it. Fayol's business experience came from turning around French
coal mines, so his orientation was more toward restoring businesses to
health and keeping them there than coping with a hectic pace of learning.
We now know that there are several control system design options in
addition to hierarchy (power) - markets (exchange) and community
(affiliation) and, best of of all, self-control which seems to be some
kind of adaptive individual internalization of all the control systems.
Together with that orientation toward the future coupled with strong
values that we call "leadership" perhaps we can come up with the notion of
"self-governing" organizations.
Best wishes,
David Hurst
(dhurst1046@aol.com)
Speaker, Consultant and Writer on Management
Author of "Crisis & Renewal" (HBSP 1995) <A HREF="http://www.mghr.com/books/0
875845827.html">McGraw-Hill Ryerson - Crisis & Renewal</A>
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