Power Corrupts?
Once again we return to the eternal theme of power. As a retired academic I watch in amazement at the combined stupidity and cupidity of Vice-Chancellors. They were all once intelligent and reasonable people. What happenned, they were given POWER! It is wonderful to watch the transformation of sane individuals into raving lunatics.
This latest dispute in universities is to do, as usual, with pay. The workers want a roughly 25% over three years and the Vc's have offered half that. Of course the 25% is what they have awared themselves over the preceeding three years. So why do they think thay are so much more valuable? Power, because they have it they think they are special. Imagine hoever at some get together and they all died of food poisoning. A sad thought but one which would have almost no impact on universities, they would quite easily recruit another 100 or so people, no better and no worse than the current lot, so why do they think they are worth, not just more, but an increasing amout more.
This particular behavious is not peculiar to Vice-Chancellors, or academics. Take any situation, someone is doing there job well, perhaps running a small team doing something well, they might even be expert in something. Then they get promoted and suddenly they are in charge of twice as many people. But some of them do things the newly promoted manager knows nothing about. Would they admit it, of course not, they now have power and all of a sudden thay are experts in everything! Some time ago someone called Peters invented Peter's Principle. This asserted that everyone got promoted to their level of incompetence. Perhaps the two principles work together to explain why most management works by luck, as long as the management doesn't interfere and nothing much changes all will be well.
Which leads me neatly on to the problems of politicians, they suffer from these problems thrice over. Power, no expertise and vast management problems. As the government gets more and more into the detail of running things they will be presented with more & more management decisions. The problem is that most have no management experience and no training in management.
Consider the recent debacle over foreign nationals who have been imprisoned. There was no policy decision about this, just that management oversight. One presumes that nopbody cared enough to do anything about it but whose responsibility was it. There is no way that the Home Secretary can be expected to know what is going on, but should the prison service be held responsible, the coyrts or the immigration service. The only person to lose their job is Charles Clarke who is probably the person who has done least wrong, but the buck stops with him. But lower down the chain some people have screwed up.
This latest dispute in universities is to do, as usual, with pay. The workers want a roughly 25% over three years and the Vc's have offered half that. Of course the 25% is what they have awared themselves over the preceeding three years. So why do they think thay are so much more valuable? Power, because they have it they think they are special. Imagine hoever at some get together and they all died of food poisoning. A sad thought but one which would have almost no impact on universities, they would quite easily recruit another 100 or so people, no better and no worse than the current lot, so why do they think they are worth, not just more, but an increasing amout more.
This particular behavious is not peculiar to Vice-Chancellors, or academics. Take any situation, someone is doing there job well, perhaps running a small team doing something well, they might even be expert in something. Then they get promoted and suddenly they are in charge of twice as many people. But some of them do things the newly promoted manager knows nothing about. Would they admit it, of course not, they now have power and all of a sudden thay are experts in everything! Some time ago someone called Peters invented Peter's Principle. This asserted that everyone got promoted to their level of incompetence. Perhaps the two principles work together to explain why most management works by luck, as long as the management doesn't interfere and nothing much changes all will be well.
Which leads me neatly on to the problems of politicians, they suffer from these problems thrice over. Power, no expertise and vast management problems. As the government gets more and more into the detail of running things they will be presented with more & more management decisions. The problem is that most have no management experience and no training in management.
Consider the recent debacle over foreign nationals who have been imprisoned. There was no policy decision about this, just that management oversight. One presumes that nopbody cared enough to do anything about it but whose responsibility was it. There is no way that the Home Secretary can be expected to know what is going on, but should the prison service be held responsible, the coyrts or the immigration service. The only person to lose their job is Charles Clarke who is probably the person who has done least wrong, but the buck stops with him. But lower down the chain some people have screwed up.
posted by Unknown at
2:27 PM
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