Re:Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
by wpietri on Monday April 03, 2017 @01:46PM
(#14025163)
Hello! I have been both, as well as a founder. I also have been consulting on organizational process since before you started high school, so maybe lay off the condescension a bit.
I'm not saying good management is unnecessary. I'm saying that managerialism is basically the opposite of good management. Metrics can be valuable if used very carefully. But they so rarely are, because a lot of the drive for metrics is really is in service of a cultivated shallowness. Simple metrics allow somebody to swoop in, jerk some levers, provide apparent gain, and then jet off to something else, never mind the consequences.
I'm not saying good management is unnecessary. I'm saying that managerialism is basically the opposite of good management. Metrics can be valuable if used very carefully. But they so rarely are, because a lot of the drive for metrics is really is in service of a cultivated shallowness. Simple metrics allow somebody to swoop in, jerk some levers, provide apparent gain, and then jet off to something else, never mind the consequences.