5. The myth of management. At half-time things are looking pretty dire for Blackburn. He says:
This claims that people can be managed like warehouses and airports, and that some other people are especially good at it. This is entirely wrong, although it has spread over the UK like the grey goo that some fear nanotechnology would unleash (manotechnology, perhaps, and just as lethal). People can be persuaded, and ordered, given incentives and penalties, suppressed and killed, but not managed. Human affairs can be administered, but administration is not management. One administers to people and their needs.In many kinds of outfit involving large numbers of people, there is a task of coordination, as well as all the particular tasks, whatever they are. Simon Blackburn is right that the best method of getting people to work effectively and harmoniously together involves administering to them and their needs. But it is not the case that anybody can do this as well as anybody else; some are better at it than others. It is also not the case that all needs should be administered to. There are people who conceive unreasonable, self-serving, etc, needs. You may try to sidestep this by arguing that if they're unreasonable, then they're not needs, only wants or demands. The point stands, all the same. Working with other people involves dealing with such wants and demands. These facts leave room for a form of management, though it should be democratic in structure and in spirit. Will Blackburn be able to re-group during the interval?