Management and The Condor

A couple weeks ago I was giving some customer training to plant floor folks (hourly union skilled tradespeople) when the small talk in between training tasks drifted to the vagaries and ineptitudes of management. Since I'm in a position of getting supervised/managed and have had to be supervisory/managerial myself, I found my self fence-sitting and doing devil's advocacy work. And what I heard was something I have heard at least a dozen times before. That management has no idea what's really going on, middle managers get cycled in and out and have no experience, that they're just messing up the works. To which I ask: "Well, if you were in their position, how would you handle it? What would you do differently?" The response comes, like it always does: "Just get out of the way, stop trying to tell people what to do and just everyone do their jobs the way they know how."

On it's face, sure, there's not much to argue with... if people know their jobs, trusting them to be conscientious and diligent should result in a smooth running machine of industry. People are happy, the plant is productive, everyone wins, right? I don't doubt that it's possible for 10, 20, 50 people to work in an egalitarian environment, in a flat structure, where everyone contributes their experience to decision-making. There's plenty of examples of co-ops, kibbutzes, etc. where that works.

But put 1000 people on the same shift into the synchronized human/machine organism of industrial manufacturing, and there just have to be organizing principles. Someone to resolve disputes, someone to coordinate schedules, someone to decide between equivalent options, someone to look out for safety, someone to distribute paychecks. So even if the Standard Argument ("just get out of the way and let people do their jobs") were put into play, eventually the functions of management would evolve anyway out of necessity. And engineeering, and product development, and marketing, and accounting, etc.

It seems I'm siding with management today. Call me an pawn of The Establishment, but how often can one have revolution after revolution and not end up in a state of constant upheaval? And what makes revolutionaries think that they won't, in time, be revolted against themselves? That somehow their received wisdom is more perfect than that of those they overthrew?

Why, you ask, would I be blathering about this now? I saw "Three Days of the Condor" last night, and at the end, as Condor confronts Higgins about why all the killing went on, what possible purpose the cold war intelligence games have, and Higgins makes a relevant point:
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Condor: "What is it with you people? Do you think not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth?"

Higgins: "No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In 10 or 15 years, food, plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now what do you think the people are going to want us to do then?"

Condor: "Ask them."

Higgins: "Not now, then. Ask them when they're running out. Ask them when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You want to know something? They won't want us to ask them. They'll just want us to get it for them."
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I guess what I'm trying to say is that, when there's someone planning or anticipating the future, there will always be those who will pass judgment after the fact. But the question I ask is: If you were in their place, in the same situation, balancing the same issues, with the same pressures, what makes you think that you would have come to a better solution? One that is the best result, the least evil, and in the time required?

Hindsight is 20/20, and I'm as guilty as the next in Monday-morning quarterbacking, but I guess what I'm saying if that for Management to be able to trust Labor's intentions to "just do their job because they know what to do", Labor needs to trust Management's intentions the same way.