Post No. 2,978 - Permission, “Permissionless”, and “Management”

Before I retired, there were managers who were human, humane (human-focused), and receptive (not hidebound) who made work a joy. 

Then there were the others - at their worst, social status-driven, backstabbing, fearful of anything impinging on their social hierarchy climb, self absorbed monsters who, in some cases, drove me to the point of suicide. 

This morning I came up with an analogy to illustrate the problem with the worst of them, which is this: 

Consider a mediaeval style village, living off agriculture using hand tools. 

A manager comes in, and decrees that workers should leave their tools in a shed at the edge of the agricultural area, rather than carrying them home each night, as that enables them to walk more quickly to work, and establishes a centralised means of controlling tools. 

From a time-and-motion mentality point of view (which has its benefits in some circumstances - and I have advocated for that sort of approach in those circumstances), and an authoritarian control-“accountability” point of view, this seems to be a good thing, and I can well imagine managers having a round of back slapping and congratulations on a revolutionary* game changing initiative ... 

... and being surprised and defensive when a loss of productivity results. 

If they had genuinely respected the workers - who, as I often said about wastewater treatment plant operators, are there every day and see, smell, and hear exactly what is going on under a wide range of conditions - to actually listen to them, they would have known that a lot of tool maintenance was done in the evenings after the family meal, or early in the morning, and that the biggest problem was a management change a few years earlier which stopped allowing some fields to have a year or so in fallow, during which time the village’s animals would graze and fertilise the fields - but a manager didn’t see the point of having fields that were not producing all the time, and someone in the next village had an artificial fertiliser which they claimed was as good and what could possibly go wrong with believing that unproven claim (no matter what “scientific” evidence was alleged to exist - but had not been seen because of commercial-in-confidence rules that managers would “obviously” have to respect) and even if they did these near impoverished farmers could sue the fertiliser salesperson like the managers did when something didn't perform as they had promised it would .... 

* Managers of this type don’t like revolutions, as those are not controlled by them or of benefit to them - or, more specifically, the hierarchy they wish to climb  

 

Yes, I got carried away with that, and yes it was fun, and yes, it includes sarcasm, and yes I knew, worked with and respected MANY exceptions to that sort of behaviour ... but it makes a few useful points. 

In my career, I was a technical specialist, and developed several innovations (and was pleased when the company I worked for decided to not patent one so others could freely use it - which is an example of community mindedness in managers) but also made several proposals which were stymied by managers whose permission I was told to seek were too hidebound and mentally inflexible to cope with something new and technical experts who had come up with a brilliant change some time ago but now could not grapple with the internal details of processes and people who nit picked on what seemed to them trivial aspects (because they were a relatively low cost to the overall project) and thus could be cut back because what could possibly go wrong with that (even as I explained why they were needed) and it would earn them three more climb-the-social-status-hierarchy-ladder-points ... 

Now, as it is, I made sure the proposals were public (through papers that were approved by different, better managers), so the possibility is there for someone to do the research necessary to assess the options, but that life experience meant the following, from Joan Westenberg’s “Permissionless” (available at https://www.permissionlessbook.com/), really struck home: 

“In Toyota factories, over 1 million worker suggestions are implemented every year - approximately 10 per employee. Not just submitted. Not tossed around in endless board meetings. Implemented. Almost 97% of suggestions actually happen.   

This seems impossible to most Western executives. Their companies have suggestion boxes too. But they typically implement less than 1% of worker suggestions.   

So what's different?”   

“Permissionless” then provides an excellent analysis-explanation of that, as it does of the whole conundrum of permission, who people seek permission, the problems that can cause, and how to get around it. 

 

Another quote I quite like (especially in light of what I have been writing about above) is: 

“In 1948, the Supreme Court forced movie studios to sell their theater chains. In the minds of regulators (who were over reaching in the first place), this should have broken Hollywood's control over film distribution. It didn't. The studios simply shifted from controlling physical theaters to controlling something more valuable: the permission to decide what constitutes “cinema.””  

Shades of Citizens  United, anyone? Because what  could  possibly go wrong with that ... 

 

This book is brilliant - and an excellent example of the incisive writing of the author - and I strongly recommend you get a copy. 

For those can, please buy a copy, but for those who can’t, it is available free online.

This issue also plays out in the spiritual world, around the issue of unverified personal gnosis (UPG). 

My views on UPG are: 

• everything that is now considered authoritative or credible or worthwhile started out as UPG; 

• what proves that UPG is authoritative or credible or worthwhile is NOT the opinion of the person with whom the UPG originated, but a long history of being useful to many people; 

• even if the UPG is not authoritative or credible or worthwhile, it may validly and genuinely be of worth to the person who had - who should then acknowledge that and not try to inflate it into something it is not; and 

• those wannabe gatekeepers who attack UPG on the basis that it is, at this stage, UPG, should study and learn from history to get some perspective, check their climb-the-social-status-hierarchy-ladder-points desires, and get some humanity and decency.
  

But there are other nuances (including safety, vulnerability, etc vs. control) that need to be considered, so I recommend, Dear Reader, careful reflection on all this - and make up your own mind.

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram. 

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   

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