Educator and writer Peter Ryley has a fine post over at Fatman on a Keyboard about how easily, and deceptively, data can be manipulated to support whatever policy management may want to enforce. His post provides a clue as to why the managers, though ignorant of the technical aspects of the business, get paid a whole lot better than the line workers.
The article tells a story of how postal managers played a trick on the carriers. An excerpt:
One of my more frequent big speeches is about the dire quality of some management and its remoteness from, and ignorance of, the real work that we all have to do. This has been reinforced by a doctrine of managerialism that has de-democratised work, thereby empowering (and enriching) managers and elevating the curious notion that generic management skills are more important than any expertise in the industry or service to be managed.
That’s just the “setup,” the whole article, Managing the Mail, is short and well worth reading.
Tags: creative accounting, Fatman on a Keyboard, Managerialism, Peter Ryley