It has been several weeks since last I wrote anything about BP or anything about anything for that matter. Yet in the intervening span of time, not much has changed in Louisiana. What has changed over the span, is that a new crisis, a new sign of poor management has arisen, this one at Arlington National Cemetery. Somehow, I see a connection between the oil spill of 2010 and the grave confusion at ANC. To my mind, it's all about bad management, bad administration and the poor execution of professional responsibilities. That's clearly something that's not the exclusive purview of federal government agencies. Private and public organizations alike seem to suffer from that particular affliction.
There is an art to administration but where does one learn it? Business schools offer Bachelors', Masters' and Doctoral degrees in Business Administration but those degrees focus on Finance, Marketing, Organization Development, Human Resource Management and all manner of other thing. What those degrees don't seem to focus on is Administration. Those degrees don't focus on how to make stuff work efficiently and those degrees certainly don't focus on creating workplaces where the truth is spoken and incorporated into the daily activities of the workforce - truthtelling being a vital facet of adminstrative success.
I realize that many of us like the lies we are told (and the ones we tell ourselves too), mostly because we would rather not have to deal with the truth. Truth frequently makes us terribly uncomfortable and usually requires us to change something about ourselves. Who wants to have to go there?
Let's take as a case in point, the disastrous tour of Whitney Houston. Since she first appeared on Good Morning America more than a year ago, *singing* her hit song I Look to You, it was pretty clear to me that what we heard on the CD had been significantly manipulated to sound like the old Whitney. I have no complaints about the work done in studio to beef up a weak voice, but having had to work so hard to produce something euphonious, perhaps someone should have told Whitney the truth and said, "No babe, you can't tour. Don't you think the rigors of touring might be too much for your voice?" But instead, everyone went along and now, at venue after venue, at engagement after engagement, there are hundreds of dissatisfied fans. Many of these fans may well cease being fans once this debacle is all over. Why waste a comeback attempt, a CD that is well received, by doing a bad tour? Is there no one in her camp willing to tell the truth? Clearly not.
A good administrator it seems to me, recognizes that (s)he doesn't know everything that's going on in the organization. How could he possibly? Armed with this knowledge however, he seeks information from a variety of sources, making the effort to encourage a free flow of information across the organization - even negative information - so as to ensure that as many perspectives as possible are incorporated in decision-making processes. And this is where Whitney, BP and now Arlington National Cemetery have something in common. Clearly, the flow of information (especially negative information) is not free. Clearly, Whitney's organization, like the BP organization, and now like the Arlington National Cemetery organization, have no tolerance for truth. Indeed, with ANC we've already seen that the truthteller (aka whistleblower) was fired for 'stirring up foment' I guess, and then started blowing her whistle loudly once outside the gates. While inside the organization, her concerns were not valued. Indeed, so undervalued were her insights that she lost her job.
Until there is some broad movement towards teaching the rudiments of administration, this kind of thing will continue to happen. All too often, companies are peopled by folk whose only goal is to climb the corporate ladder, good sense, good policy and good work be damned. It's all about climbing, getting ahead, getting a bonus, getting a promotion, getting something. Promotions are not frequently given to people who point out flaws in logic, flaws in policy, problems within organizations. No. What is saved for them is stagnation or termination. Well I guess that works to save face but face saving inside the organization can result in gross embarassment outside the organization. Ask Whitney. Ask BP. Ask the Arlington National Cemetery which now has lost hundreds of servicepeople's earthly remains and may spend the next decade trying to sort it out and regain any semblance of credibility. But what do I know? I'm looking for a job as a professional administrator and there just don't seem to be any takers. I wonder why?
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