Democratic management?

Some may ask why can't a manager be like a politician? What they are asking is for political democracy to replace traditional managerialism. They want managers to be elected. Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that electing the particular person who will perform the functions of management doesn't, in itself, solve the problem of determining what the right functions are, let's examine this idea futher.

Those that argue for democracy of this sort within organisations forget to consider the possibility of being in the minority. In an election for the leadership of a country it is possible for up to 50% of the population to disagree with the choice of leadership. Under some election rules an even greater percentage may in fact disagree with the ultimate winner.

What allows such a system to work is not the process of allowing the people to vote. Rather, it is the fact that the government does not have total power � regardless of who wins. It is tools such as constitutions, which limit the power of government, that allow such a democratic system to work.

What organisations lack is not a voting system; rather these other institutions which form a democratic society. Organisations, with few exceptions, have no constitution, no free-press, no opposition party, etc. When combined with the absence of any organisational price system the absence of these components do more harm than the absence of democratically elected managers.

In fact, democratically elected managers would, in the absence of these missing components, be granted a dangerous legitimacy. They would be free to perform any function � whether good or bad for the organisation � on the grounds that they were elected officials.

Sound familiar?

There's not conspiracy (#2); Aka 'valuing managers on the margin'

Management is not an evil thing. MWT is not anti-management. In fact, in half a MWT organisation there is more risk than in a normal organisation (or a full MWT organisation, of course). If you see MWT as risky you are only seeing half of the MWT solution.

Traditional management tasks have been designed with one purpose in mind. They have been designed to allow somebody no more competent than any other person to manage other people.

In any other situation the cost of managers would be too high. If managers were valued 'on the margin', such that any particular manager (as opposed to management skills in general) was more highly valued than an other manager, management costs for an organisation would simply be too high.

In a (full) MWT organisation managers really are valued on the margin. Management tasks aren't valued in themselves; so good and bad managers are more likely to be distinguished. Once the organisation can make this distinction managers can be paid differing salaries.

The problem with half a MWT organisation is simply the risk that the organisation cannot yet properly distinguish between good and bad managers and yet there is a wide range of management salaries.

Beware of being half a MWT organisation...