Bob Williams wants to know "where the governance/management
paradigm came from, where is it being effectively challenged, and
how does it relate to 'learning organizations'?" (LO10419)
Bill Ayers suggests that the governance-management paradigm
originates with the British parliamentary system, that it is being
challenged everywhere by everyone, and then links it to learning
organizations via the need to surface basic and therefore
important assumptions. (LO10438)
If we accept the notion that organizations must be governed as
well as managed, the relevance to learning organizations should
be a given. It is not as clear to me as it seems to be to Bill that
the governance-management paradigm is being challenged on a
broad scale. Indeed, finding serious treatments of governance in
organizations is not an easy search, let alone finding treatments
of governance in relation to management. As for the origins of
the governance-management paradigm, I suspect it is far older
than the British parliamentary system. In some ways it goes all
the way back to prehistoric times when two human beings first
got on a log to cross a river and the one in the back said to the
one in the front, "You paddle, I'll steer."
I would love to discuss the governance-management paradigm,
as Bob terms it, but I fear we must do a better job of defining it
before we proceed, else we'll not get far. In the two postings
referenced above, I find a contrast between setting policy and
administering or implementing it, but I don't find much else that
establishes the boundaries of this thing called the governance-
management paradigm. My own views include similar notions
(e.g., the divorcing of planning from doing that so many attribute
to Frederick Winslow Taylor and scientific management, which
is but one of many cases wherein decisions are separated from
actions -- the imposition of the death penalty by a judge and its
carrying out by the executioner being another).
It is tempting to differentiate governance from management on
the basis of position in the hierarchy, with governance carried
out at the peak of the pyramid and management as something
done at lower levels. This view doesn't stand up to the slightest
scrutiny. Policy setting and rule making might be broader in
scope and grander in scale at the top of the organization, but
policies and rules are set all over the place. So, the hierarchy
won't do as a basis for differentiating the two.
It is equally tempting to distinguish between governance and
management based on their focus, with governance focusing on
people and management focusing on work. But that, too, falls
victim to serious scrutiny. We cannot assign control of work to
management and control of people to governance if for no other
reason than the fact that work is performed by people.
Even the notions of control and responsibility don't serve us
well. Govern is a synonym for control, just as it is a synonym
for manage, and being responsible for outcomes vs. outputs is
a distinction in results that might or might not be traceable to
a difference between governance and management.
In ordinary usage, the terms governance and management are
often used to define each other and that will take us in circles
if we do not sort them out. Sorting them out is what we must
do if the discussion is to proceed.
So, let me close by asking Bob Williams to tell us all a little
more about what he means by the "governance-management
paradigm," and let us see if we can get it defined in a way that
will allow us to move forward on a meaningful basis.
In the meantime, I will offer up my own very tentative definitions.
Governance, to me, is concerned with establishing the rules by
which managerial authority is to be exercised. In other words,
the management of an organization derives its authority from the
governing body of that organization. For many organizations, the
governing body is the board of directors or trustees, a body which
often contains members of management. In society at large, the
governing body is the state (from which most corporate forms of
organizations derive their legal standing and authority to conduct
business). The state derives its authority from the governed, a
fact that is brought home by elections and revolutions both.
I believe democracy is on its way into the workplace, and its
arrival sounds the death knoll for autocracy and plutocracy alike.
If the advent of the learning organization means anything at all, it
means a more democratic workplace. This in turn means that the
governance and management mechanisms of all organizations
everywhere will undergo deep, fundamental change. What kind
of change? I don't know, but I do know that we had better get
on with thinking through such matters or events will define them
for us.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
nickols@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>