I just had someone say to me earnestly on a conference call:
"We can't just say that because all the people responsible for doing this work were laid off, the work doesn't get done."
There was silence for a nearly a minute and then one of us finally spoke up and said:
"Why not?"
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
7 hours ago
6 comments:
Because we wouldn't want them getting the wrong impression. Or worse, the right one.
I hope you were the "why not?" guy.
I am a state government employee. But when it comes to the size and scope of government, the role of the free market, and so forth, I am also a fairly conventional Fox News, conservative, Republican.
Nevertheless, I have to say that the stories I hear about the culture of large corporations has led me to conclude that the disparity between the efficiency of the private sector versus the government sector is not near as large as is often suggested.
Corporate bureacracies and leadership can be just as bad as those of the government, or even worse. Darwinism realities, however, catch up to corporations a bit faster as a general rule.
Yeah, I would definitely see many large businesses as having the same pathologies as governments -- the upside is that through competition businesses that are doing a bad job can fall comparatively harmlessly. The fall of governments tends to be much more messy.
And, cynicism aside, I would say there does at least seem to be variation amount large companies. Some of those that do very well do seem to be doing so because they have much less dysfunctional culture and management than others.
Bureaucracies are bureaucracies. Difference is which ones you're forced to obey....
(I really wonder if, as I heard, the Chinese hell/afterlife was a giant bureaucracy. These days, I start to think it could be accurate....)
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