Death of Campaigners

And so to the third day of this management course and wallowing through the misery of thinking too much about the failings of our internal structures. Still there is nothing new here, that wouldn’t apply everywhere. But it would be good to think we could do better that this.

We employ clever people who know every detail about an issue, often in an academic way, people who would make great researchers and we call them campaigners. Now to me campaigning is a separate skill that involves analysing in detail a situation, figuring out what you’d like that situation to be and then creating a plan about how to make that happen.

You don’t need to be an expert, or look good on TV; you just need the right amount of ruthlessness and to be able to see the path through the thicket.

Despite our failings campaigners often succeed, or at least hang around the organisation for a while. And so after a suitable period of service they become managers, and senior managers, who often as not have no real aptitude to manage.

So we force good researchers to become bad campaigners, and good campaigners to become bad managers, and old managers to become senior managers guiding our strategy.

Still the world seems to be changing, with our hands on the tiller.

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