Culture and Management by Zygmunt Bauman was published in Parallax in 2004 and speaks to the managers concerns with the managed, and how this relationship have evolved in the United Stated over the past 40 years.
Despite it’s having existed in practice for thousands of years, the sociological idea of culture was first spoken of as a term for the management of human thought and behavior. Industrial production processes that were increasingly complex and in need of absolute repeatability and precision, unlike the previous artisan approach to production, mean that there was an increased need for normative regulation within work spaces. Being part of a purposeful activity, certain human traits were seen to be like fertilizers to a productive process and thus human beings are made. Selective cultural improvement in the work site transpired by training and education in the “right” way of being. After connecting this term to another relatively new word – management – Bauman links the concept to ‘husbandry’ in the human sphere, ‘breeding’ in behavior and ‘cultivation’ of character. After this he makes a point to point out the dialectical characteristics, the interpenetration of opposites, which exists within the relationship:
“Just like ‘agriculture’ is the vision of the field as seen from the perspective of the farmer, ‘culture’ metaphorically applied to humans was the vision of the social world as viewed through the eyes of the ‘farmers of the human-growing fields’ – the managers. The postulate or presumption of management was not a later addition and external intrusion: it has been from the beginning and throughout its history endemic to the concept. Deep in the heart of the ‘culture’ concept lies the premonition or tacit acceptance of an unequal, asymmetrical social relation – the split between acting and bearing the impact of action, between the managers and the managed, the knowing and the ignorant, the refined and the crude.”
Bauman then quotes Theodore Adorno to point out how “the “managers-managed” relationship is intrinsically agonistic; how the two sides pursue two opposite purposes and are able to cohabit solely in a conflict-ridden, battle-ready mode. Put another way, from the Wobbly Constitution, the worker and the owner have nothing in common. As Baum himself puts it – “the management’s plot against the endemic freedom of is a perpetual casus belli.”
The ideas which structure workplace interactions – management – are codified into formal knowledge via educational institutions – like the Catholic University that I am now in – and the different approaches to workplace administration are taught. Culture creators are those that help apply changes to those norms, whereas managers are those that help maintain the norm. There is always a tension here too, as one seeks to change the status quo that the other previously enforced.
Bauman then quotes Hannah Arendt at length regarding the increasing liquidity of the world and its effect on human exchange in the workplace.
The second managerial revolution is the switch from normative, explicit regulation to a more implicit one.
First Managerial Qualities Neoliberal Model
Normative Regulation Seduction
Day to Day Policing PR
Routine Constant Change
Highly-Regulated Precarity
Understanding culture as operationally meaning something like ‘pattern maintenance’ of a “kind of totality inside which any deviant behavior of human units is promptly spotted, isolated before irreparable harm is done and swiftly defused or eliminated.” Another words whereas the logic of “solid” modernity was following instruction; the “liquid” modernity is doing it yourself. Bauman is very critical of this, quoting other historians and ethnographers as this helping to contribute to a culture of “disengagement, discontinuity and forgetting.” Bauman does not go on into any extended description of how thus to unravel this negative aspect of modern workplace culture, but does state that management needs to be aware of this unless the quest for abstraction, branding and profit – the reification of thought, objects and human relations – lead to workplace problems that suffocate their relationship. Cultural events, a fancy phrasing for company events, can thus be space to reinforce the norms required for a good workplace culture.
Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory: Evolutionary Paths and Future Advances was published in the Organizational Studies journal and was written by Ikujiro Nonaka, Georg von Krogh and Sven Voelpel and explains the process of “making available and amplifying knowledge created by individuals as well as crystallizing and connection it o an organization’s knowledge system.” As knowledge is something that is embodied within the body, knowledge creation is something more than just the transmission of information. Information itself is never interpreted outside of a specific embodied context – a basic presupposition within the education process for becoming a teacher – and therefore more than just the expectation of immediate assimilation following consumption needs to be presumed when developing organizational knowledge within a firm.
SECI Model of Knowledge Conversation
Knowledge expands through a four-stage conversion process:
Socialization aims at sharing tacit knowledge among individuals.
Externalization aims at articulating tacit knowledge among individuals.
Combination aims at combining different entities of explicit knowledge.
Internalization aims at embodying explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge.
The authors then use a Japanese concept, ba, to explain the different qualities of the spaces of encounter (originator -> context -> communication -> receiver) within which information and knowledge is transmitted.
There are for the authors three types of Ba – or Spaces of Meeting: Cyber, Interacting, and Originating.
Organizational epistemology is an important concept, and ought to be understood as a continuous process wherein the individual limits and constraints created through prior information and past learning is able to become newly actionable to the present job to be done. It views knowledge as something that “is oriented towards defining a situation so as to act on it rather than solving the depicted and manipulated pre-given problem.”
Knowledge, however, is fragile, and there are many ways that obstacles to coherence, creativity, sharing and innovation can emerge. Thus it is that an scientific method ought to be applied that relates to the needs of the business. Conversion, in which individuals externalize the experiences of knowledge, need not occur with every new bit information garnered by every individual, but an organizational design and knowledge creation and transfer processes should be in place to ensure that knowledge pertinent to Marketing is shared by Engineering should it have a potential use value. Because of this, the authors then look at standard business models to determine to an extent who needs what.
Hierarchy, Heterachy, and Hyper-Text
Hierarchy is what is most common in organizations where there is little variation in the work to be done – such as factories, fast-food restaurants, and construction. There is little variation that needs to be done, so there is little need from management for input from workers.
Heterarchy is categorized by its form. Assets and leadership are dispersed; communication is horizontal, and coordination informal and network based. reorganization results from “new demands for specialization and coordination as revealed by knowledge creation.”
Hyper-text – In a bureaucratic and hierarchical business system, this is a parallel project system layer that consists of a project teams that engaging in knowledge creating activities.
The authors’ connection between organizational knowledge, daily operations and the duties of company directors is clear: “providing accurate, timely and complete information for decision making is one of the most critical tasks of leadership.”
When understanding that the ba spaces are those where Middle managers are disseminating information, attitudes, etc. their role as knowledge producers, means for transmitting and ensuring that information was properly better comes into play. While reading this, I couldn’t help but think of my own training, both in the classroom as a teacher and in the classroom as a student discussing a different model of pedagogy and assessment.
The organization is in a state of becoming, moving between cycles of sense-giving from the top and sense-making in the middle, to sense-giving in the middle and sense-making at the top. There is no one “best model” for businesses, but rather they see that a business system, a project system and a knowledge system working in parallel that properly and efficiently coordinated and enables knowledge is the optimum for companies. This is and much further explanation on the topic gives rise to the “knowledge-based firm” concept that has recently come to dominate models used in Business education.
Outsider Knowledge Activists
Professional consultation is a common business practice as the focus of the business is sometimes so fixated on the task at hand they firms are unable internally to devote the attention required to weighing the benefits and liabilities of new practices and products. These people typically cause friction between themselves and the Performance Engine, but this is a “creative abrasion” that leads to new opportunities for knowledge creation. These people communicate future prospects and help provide overarching goals for the knowledge creation being developed in the different teams of an organization. They were the people with a “bird’s eye perspective” that helps firms achieve a new potentiality for being within the marketplace.
Leadership
One of the main directives for someone in a leadership position is to promote the SECI process. The primary functions of a leader is to:
1. Articulate knowledge visions and communicate them in and out of the organization.
2. Break down the values and visions into applicable concepts, images, and activities that direct the process of knowledge creation
3. Ensure that the knowledge system is being used, and considering how to help it evolve.
4. Define the organizational units, coordinate knowledge system layers.
5. Foster and nurture middle managers to act as knowledge producers
6. Provide space for ba and bring the right people together for it.
7. Search for supports, create internal groups and activities
8. Keep the bas energized and directed.
If it seems that if this were the case that all organizations and firms would be the same, however, they are not. The authors provide a telling explanation as to why that I quote here at length: “Organizations are dialectic phenomena that cannot be analyzed through a simple set of premises about behavior, be it profit or utility maximization, bounded rationality, altruism, human values, and social norms. The power of explanation lies in prudently combining insights from theories and research that draw upon different premises. In so doing we come closer to understanding the multifaceted nature of the organization.”
Double Loop Learning – How to Lead Knowing Everyone has Your Back.
This article, Single-Loop and Double-Loop Models in Research on Decision Making, was written by Chris Argyris and was published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol 21
Single-loop decision making is the norm within most organizations, and people are encouraged to learn so long as they do not come to question the fundamental design, goals, and activities of their organizations. This is effective for general organizational issues, however limits the ability to explore other options of business activity. In Double Loop learning, one is able to postulate about changing the fundamental aspects of the organization itself. Being able to ask questions and posit counter- examples allows for the creation of a more “innovation-friendly” environment.
As stated earlier, single loop is a behavior strategy in organizations to control the environment, protect the group and ensure that work is done according to the established protocols. While the authors don’t use the term, they state that in business conditions that are similar to those of the 4th Industrial Revolution that this is a quick way to start to lose. The negative effects of single-loop decision making means proper indicators can get ignored, new market factors can be missed, and business opportunities passed by. Unfortunately as the collective effect of these missteps start to come to light, they could be doubled down on and becomes hard to put back in the proverbial bottle: Under these conditions, top administrators tend to start engaging in a number of non-optional, emotionally driven attitudes: such as becoming “frustrated with the ineffectiveness of the decision-making process and react by striving to increase control, by increasing secrecy about their own strategies, and by demanding loyalty of subordinated that borders on complete agreement with their views.”
In Single-Loop decision making personal ideologies, cognitive rigidities and the concept of loyalty inhibits the generation and communication of valid and meaningful information to upper levels more so than double-loop. Additionally, key officials will repeatedly and privately attribute motives to others, which then influences the information that the officials give and the estimation of its importance and direction with how they receive it. This, obviously, is a problem.
Since the double loops strategy for decision making involved sharing power with anyone who has competence, and with anyone who is relevant in decision or implementing the action, or in the definition of the task , or the control of the environment that this need not happen. Rather than decision being about asserting power, it is about building viable decision-making networks in which “the major function of the group would be to maximize the contributions of each member so that when a synthesis was developed, the widest possible exploration of views would have taken place.”
That this article was written in 1976 and is advocating for an inquiry-based model of decision making is to me impressive. While stating that the ability to quantitatively test transitions from one model to another are difficult – he stated that it would also be a longer process as it involved exploration of an organizations basic values and feelings that requires a shift in the behaviors of individuals, intergroup dynamics and organizational processes. Making the time to do this, however, can lead to large organizational learning gains. Management, for instance, come come to see that their sense of a need for unilateral control is part of a self-fulfilling prophecy as they do not do a good enough job providing themselves or encouraging the transmission or pertinent information.
Group discussions are, however, expensive and given that theories-in-use of individuals and groups within an organization require significant effort – what then to do? The authors suggest multiple advocacy. Admitting that it is a difficult balancing act to follow – it means that “advocates” form for specific positions to take regarding a firm’s strategy and tactics. The decision making strategy is similar to the British magisterate system, and is a great example of how staging and theatrics can highlight the concept of embodied knowledge. The Multiple Advocacy process presumes three conditions: (1) No major maldistribution of power, information, analytical resources, competence (2) persuasive skills amongst member and participation fo the Chief executives (3) time for adequate exchange of ideas. People then debate it out and a winner is chosen. I, unsurprisingly for a debate teacher, prefer this. I have a high tolerance for competition and am typically averse to getting into the “in-group” mindsets but instead seek to chart a clear intellectual path based on available evidence.
The Oslo Manual was published by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development and concerns itself with The Measurement of Scientific and Technological Activities. They are a set of proposed guidelines for collecting and interpreting technological innovation data written for and by experts. The scope of the manual is having a set of terms that can be used to understand innovation indicators within market analysis as well as a number of guidelines that can be enacted in order to obtain meaningful indicators of technologically improved process or product (TPP) innovation. TPP innovations are defined as those which require an objective improvement in the performance of a product or service. The manual continues on to address issues related to data collection and survey methods and also puts into context this particular manual with other families of manuals; other methods used for obtaining data or defining it and other means of surveying that can be used. I’m going to provide below a brief overview of some of the elements of the manual, but given it’s technically it really ought to be read from front to back in order to understand the full OECD approach to collecting, classifying and analyzing innovation data and other indicators of TPP innovation. In a vast oversimplification of what the manual covers – it could be said to be mainly concerned with:
• What is to be measured?
• How should it be measured?
• Where should it be measured?
• What do the measurements mean?
Science, Technology and Innovation policies emerged in part from the context of the Second World War. Ironically enough, American businesses starting to apply some of the sectoral economic policies of the Soviets after witnessing how quickly they were able to industrialize their economy. As one of the primary means that States saw a means for obtaining economic prosperity in the new post-war liberal international order was innovation, the social sciences started to analyze what would soon become a new field of research. The manual isn’t concerned with situating itself with this historical framework – other readings that I’ve been doing have done that – but I think it’s important to understand that it’s a collective product demonstrating the growing recognition of the imperative for businesses to innovate and the concern as to how to stay innovative in a global marketplace wherein there are many more options to reach the strategic goal of satisfying an identified market demand.
Because of this dynamic TPP transfer factors are a major concern of the manual. Transfer factors include linkages between firms, the presence of expert technological gatekeepers within a firm; international links; the degree of mobility and authority of expert technologists; the easy of industry access to public research and development programs; spin-off company formation; ethics, community value systems, trust and openness within a network; as well as codified knowledge in the form of patents, the specialized press and scientific journals. This complex system of interlocking factors that helps determine innovation at the firm level is called the “innovation dynamo”. Obstacles – such as skill shortages, problems of competence, financial issues, or appropriation – can have huge impacts not only on firms, but on policy as well. For instance, a policy might be created in order to assist a specific economic sector, say software as as service (SaaS). If the predicate on which it is built (i.e. there are a sufficient number of workers with a specific skill set) is not sound – it could lead to policies that harm rather than hurt that sector.
TPP innovation activities have three possible endings. They are either implemented successfully in order to create a new or technologically improves process or product, aborted for some reason, or are ongoing in their implementation. They are either endogenous (internal) to the firm or they are exogenous (external) to the firm.
How to collect, i.e. via a subject or object approach, is examined; as is how to distinguish between something that is versus is not a TPP innovation; how to prototype experiments; the relationship between OECD’s unites and that of the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC) and the European Community (NACE) in relationship to understanding international surveys; how to properly structure and distribute surveys; how to map the diffusion of innovation; breakdowns on types of innovation; how to distinguish between general expenditure for process improvement and those that classify as TPP; and procedures.
In short, it’s very technical reading about a specific topic. Does this have a relationship to the research you’re doing? Well then, read the bloody manual.
The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge by Vijay Govindarajan and Christ Trimble was published by the Harvard Business Review Press and contains a wealth of research based insights on how to successfully execute innovation projects in a company. Because they study such a large variety of innovation endeavors in a variety of contexts, because of support for the Center for Global Leadership and the Tuck School of Business, they are able to generalize from the case studies and proscribe general laws in situations based on the elements of the dynamics at play. The authors’ case studies include an extended explanation of lessons garnered from Thompson Corporation and News Corporation’s (publisher of the Wall Street Journal) addition of computer software-based services to their organization which is exactly the sort of innovation initiatives I’m researching in detail for my PhD thesis at UPB in Medellin! Needless to say that plus the wealth of psychological considerations for successful project management and development makes this an ideal book for leaders.
The two sides of innovation are ideation and execution, and in this instance, the other side of innovation in the title means execution. Brainstorming ideas can be real fun, they say, but ideas are only the beginning. Without implementation, action, follow-through, execution, whatever you want to call it – then this means nothing. The true innovation challenge lies in the idea’s transition from imagination to impact in the workplace.
If the book could be said to have a single main takeaway, it’s that each innovation initiative requires a team with a custom organizational model and a plan this is revised only through a rigorous learning process. Because of this there must be much conscientious social engineering on the part of the innovation leader – which I will explain more about further in this book review.
Within companies their primary activities can be generally categorized under the concept of “The Performance Engine”. This is the dedicated team of full time workers that is in charge of ongoing operations. While they are able to engage in small scale continuous process improvements and initiatives in product development that are similar to previous activities – there is little scope for innovation to be achieved within the organization. Too much is needed so a new team must be developed to help implements it. This dynamic can be easily put in the following logic:
Project team = dedicated team + shared staff
As the names suggest given the groups thus defined, the shared staff is are those that work primarily on the Performance Engine but also have Innovation Team Duties. The Dedicated Team are those that are full time workers on the initiative.
The partnership, not just either team, executes the project plan. Because the focus of each group is very different – one is in repeating established work rhythms and the other determining the optimum means of establishing an innovation initiative – there are several principles that must be considered when deciding how to assemble a dedicated team. Not only do you need to identify the skills needed and hire the best people that can be found – even if their pay scale is above normal operations – and then you match the organizational model to the dedicated teams job. In the manner that the authors describe it, it almost reminds me of lesson plans for the first day of school – bring all of the individuals that will work on the innovation project together then start to transform them into a team by defining new roles and responsibilities; decorating and starting to fill in the new, separate space wherein the work activity will transpire; and even doing some role playing as a team in order to make charts of who will do what. After this a guided conversation needs to be headed by the innovation leader on how the usual performance based metrics for work are not going to be applicable in this work situation. This is important because the dedicated team and the performance engines need to know that even though they will share some existing processes and personnel, that they have different objectives and should have a different culture.
Defaulting to “insider knowledge” can be a trap the needs to be escaped from, and cautionary advice is provided on hiring within the organization. Not only can organizational memory eclipse the work at hand, but successful past performance aren’t reliable indicators in an innovation initiative setting as the processes are so different.
Because the key difference between typical planning processes for the performance engine and the best practices for innovation are so different, the human skills required for such an undertaking are significant. Hence the book is as much instructions for proper processes and principles as it is a guide to dealing with persons. Conflict between teams, within teams, and between executives, management and innovation leader all can have a degenerative effect on successfully execution. Dissipating a number of the myths associated with innovation – such as it being necessarily disruptive or distracting from the Performance Engine – is one of the key factors for maintaining successful control of the project.
The authors recurrent emphasis on the importance of documenting and sharing this information and be aware of the learning process reminds me of the frequent imbrecations that I heard as a teacher to ensure that my testing of students was part and parcel of a larger educational journey that I was leading them on. By ensuring that, excuse the pun, no child was left behind I ensured that I wouldn’t find myself in a situation where some students not making the appropriate learning gains. Since learning cannot be left to intuition – it’s important to have a rigorous learning process in place that is based on the scientific method. As such it becomes easier to refine speculative predictions into reliable predictions. With everyone involved being on the same page as to historical, current, and projected status of the initiative – from former operational hypothesis to what custom metrics metrics are being used to cost categories – it makes it easier to discuss assumptions and determine the means for best keeping the program on the correct trajectory.
Each chapter of the book ends with a series of proscriptive lessons garnered from analysis of the business cases presented– such as “Never assume that the metrics and standards used to evaluate the existing business have relevance to the innovation initiative” as the depth, power balance and operating rhythm of the two organizations are so different. This was an appreciated way of consolidating the lessons in and fast matter that I appreciated. This and the general style and concise definitions throughout made me appreciate the authors greatly. I look forward to reading Vijay Govindarajan and Christ Trimble’s other book 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators.
Those interested in seeing a SlideShare summary of the book can look here.
Leading Change by John P. Kotter was published by Harvard Business School Press and is an action plan for achieving innovative changes in the workplace. Published in 1996, at the time when the 4thIndustrial Revolution was just starting to whet the imaginations of investors and all things internet related were hot, the book presents a series of steps for business leaders to help their companies successfully adapt to the changing market conditions. With the increased pressure for efficiency and adaptability to the new market conditions which have increased the speed of business and shaken much of the business environment stability that previously existed.
It is based on John P. Kotter’s extensive research experience and conversations with major business executives that provides him with the crux on which innovation initiatives either fail or flourish: Ideating, enacting and sustaining cultural change in the workplace. It is not enough, he warns, to be aware of new pressures and possibilities for constructing value – to truly adapt requires a long-term view that many managers have been taught vie years of on-the-job experience to not consider. Because of the creation of what he calls a generalized “overmanaged, under led corporate culture” he states that a different type of business figure is needed to help instigate, inspire, and incite meaningful change within companies: a leader.
There is a significant difference between management and leadership, and those that have trained and worked for years in the former typically are unaccustomed to being able to accomplish the latter. They think in terms of weeks and months rather than months and years. They are accustomed to “following the book” rather than reviewing all of the available data that ought to influence future planning, engaging stakeholders on their perspectives and then writing a book. They are typically not very charismatic, but eminently practical. What follows is the book is a detailed overview of a successful change model; explanations as to why it is so important for the steps to be followed in order; examples of effective and ineffective solutions to problems that present themselves in the process considerations to be made to ensure that the change process is fully supported by the middle and upper-level executives; and approaches to ensuring that the cultural changes promoted are sticky.
Establishing a Sense of Urgency
Creatindg the Guiding Coalition
Developing a Vision and Strategy
Communicating the Change Vision
Empowering Broad-Based Action
Generating Short-Term Wins
Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
Common errors to organizational efforts include the following: allowing too much complacency, failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition; underestimating the power of vision; under-communicating the vision; permitting obstacles to block the new vision; failing to create short-term wins; declaring victory too soon; neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture. The appearance of these errors within the change effort has serious consequences. New strategies aren’t implemented well; acquisitions don’t achieve expected synergies; re-engineering takes too long and costs too much; downsizing doesn’t get costs under control; quality programs don’t deliver hoped-for results. Kotter also explains how it is that such process deformations can occur and accrues and how to watch out for them.
For instance, if there are no short-term wins built into the process it is likely that it will be abandoned. New forms of business intelligence guiding strategy may be ignored if there are secular reasons for non-performance that are not addressed by management. Interdependent processes that have been marked for change may seem excessive and leads to such an escalation that employees push back. Because of this, it is of the utmost importance that an effective innovation vision not just be presented, but also to be explained, talked about when appropriate in meetings by management, referred to when discussing the rationale behind a change in process that is not always adhered too, etc. These and more examples provide the basis for the specific order of the process described within the book and how to avoid getting off course. Following these steps allows a leader to truly anchor in the novel and innovative approach into the company culture.
Kotter’s depiction of an effective vision is it’s containing the following characteristics:
Imaginable: Conveys a picture of what the future will look like
Desirable: Appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customer, stockholders, and others who have a stake in the enterprise
Feasible: Comprises realistic, attainable goals
Focused: Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making
Flexible: Is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of changing conditions
Communicable: Is easy to communicate; can be successfully explained within five minutes.
This model is somewhat similar to Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick model of marketing – Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories – and similarly emphasizes the importance of interpersonal qualities to gaining buy-in by those involved in the innovation-change process. Some people that don’t follow the new direction will have to be let go, especially those with positions of power whose hypocrisy (saying that they’re following the new direction but actually not) causes friction. The inverse can be said of those that are lone leaders working to assisting in a company’s innovation change project. Kotter tells a story about a General Motors division that had been a highly effective leader of a transformation program, but how after step 7 – Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change – he was immediately fired so that step 8 – Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture – didn’t have a sufficient amount of time to express itself. The result, within 6 months everything went back to the way it was and the gains that were starting to be seen were lost – along with the momentum in the right direction. Only after three stumbling quarters went on did the managers start to admit that they had slipped in their adherence to the structure that was to lead them to success!
Kotter’s cogent and informed book ends with a section that reflections on the modern business world with words that I resonated with given that I’m reading this as part of my doctorate program in Innovation and Technology Management at UPB. The last chapter of the book is titled “Leadership and Lifelong Learning” and in it, he describes how the prototype of the 20thto mid 21stcentury executive is no longer applicable to the modern business world. He shares several anecdotes of entrepreneurs and middle managers that he’s met who, with the combination of inborn ambition and helpful connections and executives who were able to radically scale their leadership skills and thus radically increase the competitive capacity of the businesses that they were involved with. Their willingness to seek new challenges and reflect honestly on their successes and failures leads not only to the expected knowledge and leadership skill increased but an uncanny ability to deal with an increasingly competitive and fast-moving economic environment. Given that this path and those goals were what motivated me to enroll in the program I’m now in, it was nice to read that someone like Kotter in a way confirmed that I was talking the best path to master the skills needed for the age of the 4th industrial revolution.
“BE IT RESOLVED, THE FUTURE OF WESTERN POLITICS IS POPULIST, NOT LIBERAL”
As a former Lincoln-Douglas and Policy-Forum Debater while attending Jupiter High School, and a teacher of Speech and Debate while working at South Broward High School, I was excited to see an ad for The Munk Debates in my Facebook feed about the above resolution between Steve Bannon and David Frum.
Rather than drawing out who the winner was, I’ll say that it was without question Steve Bannon.
You can see why in my below tracking of the debate.
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Steve Bannon’s first words presented a compelling narrative.
Etiological stories are powerful as they allow for an organic depiction of various actors and values and as it allows the audience to quickly project themselves amongst the group of actors described.
Bannon’s choice was all the more poignant – he describes the people arrayed in the White House speaking to the president during the 2008 financial crisis that caused numerous deleterious social, political and economic across the world. Bannon thus establishes his view of the driving concern of the modern populist movement – seizing power from a transnationally oriented economic elite – the party of Davos. The framing of the story allows the viewer, within the first minute, to either identify yourself as a member of this group – or as someone that has been affected by it.
Bannon then goes to define populism, as understood in this particular moment, to be equivalent with economic nationalism. Economic nationalism, as propounded by Bannon in this instance and shown by his expressed disdain for Richard Spencer, does not care about race, gender preference, sexual orientation or religion.
After a fawning show of respect for Bannon, Frum’s opening speech proceeds to develop a Manichean framework that he will develop throughout the debate. There is a choice between “renewal and destruction; freedom and unfreedom” in this given moment and to side with Frum is to side with the former. Populism is defined as Bannon and Trump and allude them to
I think that Frum made a lot of very unusual statements. For one, he says: “We are here to show that who are who are parents and our grandparents were.” and then states that the same fights that they fought are ours as well. This claim is made without a substantiation, and for those like myself that are deeply versed in American history this appears baseless.
Another aspect of Frum’s case that was peculiar and unpersuasive in their mobilization was his choice of political allusion.
Besides Donald Trump being president, the only other historical events that Frum cites are the Poppy Day and Kristallnacht. While rhetorically powerful points to mention, the bright line showing the connections between the 1918 and 1940 and the present is not. Frum doesn’t just make this poor allusion, but doubles down on it by making an extended point about how it is that Populism divides with more hints to Nazism and Fascism. To reinforce this construction of “the present populists are an echo of former 1940s villains” he then goes on to cite a number of current foreign politicians – which the audience is unlikely to be familiar with – to reinforce his claim that populists are crooks rather than giving substantive examples. Frum’s then fumbles with a prolix description of how those in the current White House are just interested in destroying things (apparently he’s not familiar with Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy and the notion of creative destruction) and then is unable to define what the “one assumption” that the new populism is based on because he has gone over in time.
Bannon’s retort that Frum is just smearing the populist movement and stating again how it was that it is previous government politics that drove people to become more politically involved allows him to deflate quickly deflate the case. By putting into context and then ending with a joke related to Trump’s poll numbers, he humanizes himself. More than that, he expands on his narrative, citing Hillbilly Elegy – a book that connects sociologically the deindustrialization of the United States with the opioid crisis.
Steve Bannon cites this as well as the $7 trillion dollars’ wars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the infusion of capital as the motivating factors for why so many people abandoned the traditional Democratic and Republican establishment. He then relates the traditional economic concern for the “Little guy” as the basis of traditional American (settler, colonial) civilization. By following up with the rhetorical point on Canadian’s Commonwealth status gains him extra points given the audience.
One of the points that I think Bannon would have benefitted by responding to Frum’s comment is when he impugns the ethics of Trump for extracting profits from his businesses – as this is a form of financial inducement. While outside the proscribed constraints of the topic – “Be it resolved, the future of Western Politics is Populist Not Liberal” it would have been worthwhile to point out how the Clinton’s liberal policies helped them turn from poor county lawyers to billionaires. Say what you will about Breitbart, some of their reporting, such as on the Clinton Foundation, is worth-reading journalism.
Frum’s rejoinder round two begins with a torturously long admission that Liberal democracy is in crisis, but then claims that “the failures of a good system are not a reason to turn to an evil one.” Another binary sans substantive policy discussion. He states that there is a need to “renew and repair,” but rather than giving any substantive description of what those mean, their correlative in the American social body, or how to address the issues perceived as ills. He instead goes on to bloviate about how inclusiveness is important. After Frum sits down to another round of speech-halting applause, a class on why closing a speech with such a sentiment is bad rhetoric because of the opening it provides the opposing side is then provided by Bannon.
He responds by postulating the fundamental need for the Populist movement to convert others to its position or die as a directive forced in the governance of America. This and his follow up drastically undercuts Frum’s projection of it as xenophobic, racist or religiously intolerant. The succinct 3-part definition that Steve then gives definition to Populism/Economic Nationalism via specific items of Trump’s policies: economic nationalism, America-first security policies and deconstruction of the administrative state.
Given that a significant portion of Frum’s speeches are reminiscing about the political acumen of Bannon and referred to him as a “fiery tribune of Populism” it, functionally debunks Frum’s construction of the operating principles guiding the modern U.S. populist movement.
Bannon states that what is needed is an economic order that does not orient itself to the maximization of shareholder value, but of citizenship value. As someone that’s admittedly not familiar with the writings of America’s Modern Populist Movement, I was rather shocked by this. Bannon directly counters another of Frum’s positions by refuting the notion of populism as “mere destruction” by pointing out that the new NAFTA trade deal that was just organized helps develop a manufacturing hub that will be able to counter East Asia.
Frum tells a long tale meant to highlight how Trump is clumsy and his trade advisor doesn’t have any peer reviewed articles, then makes an introduction of two news terms he wants to introduce to the debate – nationalism and globalism. Describing several cases of one population harming another for various, such as pollution or military action and climate change he makes a national socialist (i.e. Nazi) smear rather than interrogating these new terms in detail and then claims that peace and prosperity are liberal ideas. Since Frum has already admitted by non-rebuttal of earlier of Bannon’s claims that he was a “conservative” involved in all of the government decisions that he now rues – to me this was a shocking admission. Not only does this disprove his claim, but it also shows from to be an unprincipled character as he did not leave in protest of the “illiberalism” that went on in the name of liberalism.
Having myself studied the history, institutions and policies of the EU myself in a graduate seminar at FAU, Bannon’s rejoinder is exactly what I would have responded with to this Frum’s turn of the debate topic from populism and liberalism to globalism and nationalism. Bannon asserts the longstanding tradition of a state within specific geographically definable national limits, and describes the chilling sentiment by many people about the foreign imposition of rules and also the rule by foreign unaccountable agents in some ways over the conditions of their lives. Citizen empowerment is populism. Bannon points to the supply chain changes as positives, as well as states movements to maintain their sovereignty. Bannon also states an eminently quotable phrase. “We have socialism in the United States for the very wealthy, and the very poor, and a brutal form of Darwinian capitalism for those everybody else. The devil gets the hindmost.” Millennials are like serfs in their non-ownership, 20% behind where their parents were in a gig economy without careers.
In another one of Frum’s unfit forensic formulations he responds to Bannon by claiming that “Trump’s economy is the same as Obama’s, but with more tariffs, more inflation and higher interest rates.” Given the impact these three factors have on the totality of America’s economic activity – this is a strange formulation. Substantive descriptions of continuity are absent. After this poorly made point, Frum gives a self-negating formulation – stating that the populists attempts to bring manufacturing back via tariffs shows that they “don’t know what they want” and that “hate doesn’t build”.
Bannon counter’s Frum’s hate point by pointing out that Trump’s first act of travel to visit foreign dignitaries in Saudi Arabia to have discussions on how to eradicate Muslim extremism, how does the Arab world come together to stop Iran, and in some ways advise towards the development of a peaceful social modernity. I think a worthwhile point to include here would have been to point to the massive amounts of fences that have been put up in Europe over the past two years to show provide a counter-factual to Frum’s construction of Europe as “less hateful”. I’ve heard Bannon talk about “the signal and the noise” in other interviews, and he closes the rejoinder by making it.
The debate is then here interrupted by the moderator so that he can ask specific questions. While they are tangentially related to the topic and are generally interesting, I think the moderator failed to sufficiently keep the debate within the framework of the resolution.
Frum claims Trump won in large part by appealing to people’s desires to have a better healthcare system that costs less money, a point which Bannon places back on his lap by stating that it was the Republican establishment that fumbled there, having requested to take this part of leadership over and not being able to follow through. Bannon responds by furthering the definition between establishment Republicans and Populist Republicans by talking about tax rates – which Bannon wants to increase for those that are making more than five million dollars a year. Bannon excuses Trump as getting his “sea legs”
Frum’s competency criticism of Trump seems shallow given the context of the 2016 election – wherein a political outsider who does not follow all of the pre-established paths paved by moneyed interests is governing in a new manner. Individual mistakes are endemic to any such process and while it’s true about his past similar denigrations aren’t now made about the character of Bill Clinton for his failed push for single player health insurance.
Bannon shows that much of this friction stems from contrasting Trump’s policy of quantitative tightening – something not desired by all economic sectors – with Obama’s of qualitative easing as well as a new national security policy that seeks to ensure that America’s allies are paying for their protection as otherwise the burden falls on U.S. taxpayers to the tune of trillions of dollars.
After another faltering deference to Bannon’s biography, this time to his military record, Frum’s response is to give the unsubstantiated claim that by demanding more of their NATO partners, Trump is selling the United States. It’s a weird statement given the lack of context provided, and Bannon shows his smarts by not responding to the claim and instead going back to NATO and national security and then relates this spending to an expressed desire not to be an Empire or an Imperial power expending “deplorable lives” in foreign theaters of war but a Revolutionary Power.
Frum’s rejoinder here about race seems shallow and following this he starts going on about how Bannon and Trump are “selling the country to the Russians”.
While Bannon does not go into detail about this, given the effects of global climactic change will have on the Arctic trade routes over the next 20 years (I am deeply pessimistic about U.S. politicians ability to enact legislation that will allow for the reaching of targets for cutting emissions) there will likely be a major shift in U.S. and Russian trade, collaborative resource extraction projects and military interaction (as more bases are planted to protect the routes) I was hoping that he would. Suffice to say as the questions continue from the moderator Bannon comports himself with equanimity even though the questions are loaded against him. Being familiar with the shocking statistical increase in White Nationalist murders and assaults across the country I found his claim that the left was worse to be disingenuous, even if I could agree with him that attribution of such people’s actions cannot be honestly placed solely at Trump’s feet.
Frum’s closing is weak. He falters at two points in making his points and can again only make an appeal based on poorly-explained historical precedent that populism will fail. When Frum states that “Liberal democracy is stronger than it looks because human kindness and decency is stronger than it looks.” I can’t wonder what he’s referring to as he’s agreed with so many of Bannon’s understanding of politics from Bush II to the Obama. He then goes on an extended diatribe reiterating the binary terms by which he has referred to throughout the debate which – given what speech acts have transpired better the orators – rings hollow. Frum has simply agreed to so many earlier points that I read the caricature he presented of Trump and other populists as disingenuous. When Bannon opens his response with describing David Frum’s speech as “Very good, and irrelevant”. It certainly matched my own assessment. Bannon’s assessment that the future will either be left or right populism, i.e. Bernie Sanders/Jeremy Corbyn or Trump/Bolsonaro is also my reading of the current moment. As evidence to the anti-institutional sentiments of this moment in history, Bannon points out how none of the “traditional” Republicans – backed as they were by think tanks and major donations by billionaires – were able to beat Trump. Giving a final emphasis to his point by alluding to other major upheavals in the U.S., Bannon states that it is the fourth turning moment and therefor it has to be the time of populism. Though I would not have understood the depth of what he meant by this had I not already ready The Fourth Turning, it was still a well-enough explained concept that it related to the resolution in a powerful manner.
At the end of the debate, for all the reasons describe in my comments above, I believe that Steve Bannon won the debate.
That said, I’m surprised that Facebook didn’t consider as part of their collaborative production with the Debate forum a scorecard on their website. It’d be an interesting to see how people actually tracked and responded to the debate. A little bit more pre-planning would have made for more interesting results that that which was given.
In a last bit of commentary related to the debate I have to admit being curious as to the protest that the moderator alluded to in the opening. After doing a little bit of digging online, I was amused to learn that one of the organizations that was involved in the demonstration outside and that may be responsible for the protestor interrupting Bannon was none other the front group for the Venezuelan State in Canada: The CPC and the Hugo Chavez Front. I find this to be yet another example of Orwellian Irony given that the economic goals of their Bolivarian project are actually pretty aligned with that of Bannon’s Economic Nationalism and that both projects – via different methods – are involved in re-writing/re-interpreting the law in radical ways.
Hugo Chavez Front is one of the Venezuelan government’s 5th Estate Front Organizations.
The film Gung-Ho opens with a group of managers for a Japanese manufacturing firm screaming while covered in ribbons that state their “crimes” as part of their training in shame for their poor performance. This is then quickly contrasted by a blithe Michael Keaton, who plays the role of a foreman at a now-closed automobile manufacturing plant that has been selected by his former co-workers to pitch the directors of the aforementioned Japanese firm on the benefits of choosing their town as the next site from which to manufacture their brand of cars. Throughout Gung-Ho, directed by Ron Howard, this cultural and economic friction that exists between the diligent-in-their-work but socially repressed Japanese management and the languid but happy Americans workers manifests itself in a number of other forms. As it’s depicted in the film, both must adapt to each other to become fully humanized.
Were Japanese managers to actually come to America they would likely be influenced by the thought of Eiichi Shibusawa (1840-1931), the Meiji statesman turned business leader, that posed a number of fundamental questions regarding the relationship between business enterprises and a “national purpose”, between business needs and individual ethics. While he’s not mentioned in the film, this seems to be suggested given the corporatist behavior of the Japanese. They quickly come to be viewed not as the saviors hoped for, but over-bearing task-masters. They reassign many people to different positions following the plants re-opening. They install video-cameras to monitor employees on the production line, make morning exercises mandatory, limit the amount of time one can spend on the bathroom, prohibit employees from leaving to spend time with wives that are having labor or children that have just had surgery and apply zero-defect quality and standardization models that are resisted by the Americans.
The Americans, for their part, seem intent on simply repeating the quality and quantity of work that they did with their previous employer only until they come to realize that their great hope in the factory starting up might soon be short-lived. After the narrative has been established in the conflict between these two group, the plot develops in such a way that the American workers must either match the Japanese production numbers – 15,000 cars in one month – or the plant will again be closed. While there are a number of protests by the workers against the management in the film about these changed conditions, in the end they unite behind Michael Keaton’s character as they recognize that if they don’t then they will again lose their jobs. BY the film’s end all of the workers on strike end up crossing the line to work so that they can meet this production number and thus continue to work.
I believe that Gung-Ho ought to be paired viewing with a recently released comedy that addresses issues of workplace culture, how adaptation of the desired traits of employers leads to upward mobility and how capitalism turns submission to those with money to an economic necessity – Sorry to Bother You.
While the films are poles apart in their over-arching messaging, the narrative of Gung-Ho indicates that only through greater submission to the will of the employer the individual can find financial stability and thus happiness whereas Sorry to Bother You indicates that this can only happen through collective workplace action via unions that is further connected to the overthrowing of the capitalist order via a radical leftist action, the thematic elements are similar even if the conclusions are the opposite. Unlike Gung-Ho, Sorry to Bother You depicts wage-labor not as a source for pride and identity, but as alienating, dehumanizing and a system to be overcome rather than bought in to.
A Proposed Model for E-government Maturity by Kolsoom Abbasi Shahkooh, Fatemeh Saghafi, Ali Abdollahi is a research article that uses a qualitative meta-synthesis approach to develop an e-government maturity model that is based on existing models. The Keywords of this research includes: E-government, E-government technologies; ICT; and Maturity model. eGovernment is a way of making government more efficient, cheaper (over time as initial investment costs are required for infrastructure and training) as well as smarter and more responsive to the needs of citizens.
The models which the authors have researched to come up with this include the following models: Delloite’s six-stage model, UN five-stage model, Layne and Lee four-stage model, Accenture five-stage model, World Bank’s three-stage model, Asia pacific six-stage mode, Darrel West’s four-stage model, Hill and Blanger’s five-stage model and Gartner’s four-stage model.
This is needed research as is evident by the models described, many of the authors refer to similar or directly overlapping stages but with slightly different names or qualities. Having a singular language with which to describe specific qualities of an evolving eGovernment platform is important as it eases discussions between private enterprises and government.
The five-stage model that the author’s come up with based on their review of the eGovernment model literature is as follows:
1. Online presence: In this step, government starts toward e- government and publish useful information online.
2. Interaction: Government go further and citizen can interactive with government by downloading forms, e-mailing to officials.
3. Transaction: In this step, typical services such as tax filling and payment, driver’s license renewal are available
4. Fully integrated and transformed e-government: In this stage, delivery of government services is redefined by providing a single point of contact to constituents.
5. Digital democracy: Some services such as online voting, online public forums and online opinion surveys are available.
Whose Truth? Sovereignty, Disinformation and Winning the Battle of Trustby John T Watts presents an overview of the social of the current media landscape basedonn themes and insights garnered from the 2018 Sovereign Challenge Conference. The article is interesting not only because it showcases how it is that disinformation can have a negative impact on the way in which societies function, but also as it is in part a strong criticism of the incentives and key performance indicators of the current media environment in general. I’m going to review how the internet has changed the habits and incentivizes of stakeholders, and then relate this to the general political concerns that are the primary focus of Watts’ article. Also, for clarification, when I speak of news in this review I’m speaking of political news and not entertainment news, sports news, etc.
The erosion of professionalism in the online media space is not just a concern of Watts, but one voiced by literally every media analyst that I’ve read over the past several years. Having worked several years as a digital marketer, and as someone that’s heard fake news content sent via email chains and social media posts make their way into people’s conversations on and offline as well as their systems of belief – I find the trend to be a significant one to be wary of. People mistaking the name Nostradamus for Quasimoto because of Notre Dame is one thing, but people believing patently false information leads can lead to a low level of aversion to political involvement or high level reactions to fake stories that involve targeted murders of people – as demonstrated by a number of recent mass shootings. While these types of lies, misinformation, disinformation and outright propaganda are most prevalent on non-institutional web pages without the same pressures to maintain high publishing standards, the legacy news outlets have been affected pressures caused by the internet and new consumption habits as well.
One way of lowering costs to deal with declining sales and advertisements has been to decrease the number of professionals hired to vet stories or content at the same time that the amount of content produced and distributed is increased. This need to produce ever more content to compete with other news producers leads to a sort of race to the bottom. As trained journalists are expensive, those without appropriate training or professional adherence to specific standards take their place. Because of the “never finished” nature of a website – unlike print, it can be quickly amended with corrections – any errors discovered can be amended AFTER publication. Additionally, computer programs that have been fed learning material to read and rephrase other outlets news – like the Washington Post Bot the did just this – also helps with the increasing amount of news that is now being published without the going through the previously existent gatekeeper/editorial process.
The leftist media scholar Jodi Dean describes how this dynamic related to the political her article Communicative Captialsim: Circulation and Foreclosure of Politicsas such: “with the commodification of communication, more and more domains of life seem to have been reformatted in terms of market and spectacle. Bluntly put, the standards of a finance- and consumption-driven entertainment culture set the very terms of democratic governance today.”
Watts’ suggestion is to be both honest and hold news outlets and platforms more accountable:
“Advertisers would get greater return on investment if their message was attached to better quality material that properly engages the reader. Their brand can also suffer harm if it is associated with poor quality or misleading material. By demanding that their advertising is proven to be associated with high quality material, they will eventually realign some of the market forces and shift the incentives of the producers.”
This is not all that can be accomplished without veering into the delegation of increased powers for the state to regulate of the media, media platforms or the internet in general. Platforms themselves, like Facebook and Twitter, can start to place a greater enforce on enforcing their community standards. This has been seen of late in the wake of people spreading false news and hate speech as well as coordinated efforts of ideologically motivated actors to behave in such a way as to “hijack” the algorithm which decides to place content in people’s feed.
The internet is incredibly impressive for enabling individuals to find others with specific, niche, and in some cases fringe, interests and beliefs. Because of this, a multitude of internet enabled subcultures has developed, while already established ones grew larger. In many ways this is a positive as it grants people the ability to find those with similar affinities and engage with those digitally. However online subcultures also create “echo chambers where views are validated and reinforced, and individuals are incentivized within those subcultures to develop and amplify the core beliefs of the group” (Watts). After the recent shooting in Pittsburg, for example, I looked through a number of Facebook groups and I would normally never read and was frankly shocked by the hateful rhetoric in there. When I attempted to engage them, rather than any sort of genuine engagement with these people the discourse devolved to name calling, something I’d not experienced since middle school, and antisemitic comments.
The political concerns related to this are multitudinous. For a business enterprise one is how high profile cases could result in fees or penalties. Legal liability for activity that occurs as a result of such platforms at this point is low risk given the U.S. regulatory environment, however given European legislation it’s possible that this might happen in that United States as well – which would thus mandate that another layer of coders and censors seek to ensure that they are not subject to whatever the penalties associated with regulatory violations.
It’s because of this that after reading Watt’s article, it’s hard not to see that those who express alarm over this essay, such as Andre Damon, and about several Facebook Pages being unpublished not as reporters but as ideologues presenting a caricature of reality. For one, they ignore the legal context in which Facebook operates. Secondly, they write primarily on behalf of news institutions that have been breaking the terms and conditions of Facebook, Google and Twitter; have a prior working relationship with such organizations; or have an ideological affinity to such a degree that they refrain from a thorough investigation of the matter.
An issue of greater concern is how this new informational medium could potentially be exploited by para-state and state actors in order to suit their strategic geo-political plans. In the news there’s been an increasing number of cases of emotionally unstable individuals either self-radicalizing or coming under the influence of others to commit acts. Furthermore, misinformation affects many other patterns of thought and behavior – and while a certain receptivity to such thoughts is an obvious precondition to adoption – informational warfare is real.
One of the conclusions Watts makes is that in this age of informational, hybrid warfare it is important for the corrective solutions not to inadvertently feed into the narratives of would-be disruptive actors. Given that a permanent monitor of such behavior would be costly and perhaps send the wrong message to users, this is why Facebook has opened up awards for those that find them. I think this is a great message as it serves to show the power of community self-regulation. There’s a lot more to say about details and examples – but I think as Watts’ report is worth reading I’ll more or less end it here.
In closing, I’ll share a not so minor criticism that I have of Watts report: the poor operationalization of American’s trust towards businesses and government. Watts defines this solely as evidenced within the Edelman Trust Barometer and doesn’t provide any greater historical context – which is a problem. While Watts rightly argues that a shared interpretation of reality is one of the glues of a social order the changing perception of a social order should be contextualized. Ascribing the declining lack of trust to “generational aspects”, he ignores a number of major newsworthy, historical events, how it was that Americans experienced and thus interpreted them.
For example, there is the fact that Americans were sold a patently false narrative in the wake of 9/11 by the highest level of governance to initiate the war in Iraq that has cost trillions of dollars and the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Then there is 2008 financial crisis, which was caused by the adoption of the financial industry’s proposed regulatory changes; an underfunded and lax regulatory government apparatus; and widespread fraud that resulted in millions of Americans losing their savings yet no major criminal charges being filed against those that were involved. These are just two of many examples as to why a decline in the trust for such private enterprise and public office in general could occur – yet in Watts assessment of shifting views, they don’t get even a passing mention.
Winning the battle of trust requires honesty and transparency if it is to be a genuine win, and not merely a change of perception. An enlightened citizenry ought not to presume the offices of elected representatives or corporate board rooms are working in their interests. Though just personal anecdotes to illustrate this point, I can think of several teachers that have expressed to me that they were delaying retirement but at least three years in order to try to make up the money that was lost as a result of the financial crash. A significant number of American students that I’ve spoken have correctly pointed out that were it not for the money spent on wars in the Middle East that universal health care and federally subsidized college for all would not sound like Utopian ideals that merit pillorying by the Council of Economic Advisors.
