Let me clarify. I do not believe in free enterprise. Our human desires and the consequences of achieving those desires requires to be tempered, we each have to exercise restraint. Or have restraint imposed on us. Neither do I believe in some centralised state control, equality for all. We are all too varied in our needs, access to resources and aspirations. No, what I been flogging over many of these blogs is the need to get back to belonging to a community. A caring community that is accountable and responsible to those that relate to it. A community that is meaningful and able to better the quality of life for each of us that belong to it. In this globalised world we exist within, this matrix society, we may belong to a duplicity of communities with varying degrees of weak to very strong bonds. Our membership maybe often be transitory but in key communities membership is non-cancellable, it is lifelong. Our life has to governed by the communities we bond with, with the obligations, responsibilities and expectations that their membership entails. You cannot be honourable and a freebooter. Holding your head up amongst your peers seems to be a core value requisite in each of us as members of a civilised society. Whichever way you frame it, membership has its price but also returns in kind.
Tythings I knew of as a word. I have just finished a book where, for the first time, I encountered an explanation where the full significance dawned. A tything was a medieval unit of ten households where the heads of house looked out for each other head of house and was held to account for any misdoings by anyone within that tything. Not just his own household but anyone properly tied to the group. A collective reprimand for any one individuals failings but also a caring supportive framework for each group member. An automatic support response, regardless of status, wealth or worthiness, just dependant on degree of need.
In arriving at a new definition of community, relevant to our century, we too could do with a tything concept. A core group we are responsible and accountable too. A group of peers bound by familiar circumstances and backgrounds. Able to relate, respond and reprimand as the occasion demands without judgement or censure. Membership where the group can achieve far beyond that of any one individual and can reach out and be significant in a much wider network of like minded groups. That is beginning to sound like a community structure where we can have a voice, a voice that counts, a voice that is tempered by consensus, a voice able to give as well as receive, a voice that can rebuked if too extreme. No room here for smug pleasure seeking self-satisfaction and gratification. Time to stand up and be counted.
Showing posts with label accountability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accountability. Show all posts
Monday, 6 April 2015
Saturday, 19 July 2014
Who is in charge?
You are put in charge. Someone has selected you above other contenders, seen some quality and has placed their faith in you, you are in charge. Keen to justify that faith you want to show leadership, you want to be seen to make a difference, you want those under you to now raise their game to match your own performance. You are in charge so you direct, you issue instruction, you resolve conflict, you are in control. Those under you begin to appear to have lost all initiative, they no longer make their own sound judgement calls, everything is queried or requires your confirmation. You begin to suffocate under all the calls on your decisions as you bewail the lack of initiative of those working under you. Sounds all too familiar?
We are social animals, we perform at our best within the herd and with the herd's approval. That is who we are. We are also lazy, prone to just follow the next person rather than take the risk extra work or failure by going our own way. The worst performing societies, knee-jerk respond to the first skitter of reaction. The whole herd dashing off to follow that first change of direction. Like lemmings dashing off without forethought, panicking in response to some ill-define threat until they all leap off the cliff edge, following blindly that frightened first alarm call. The best performing societies the herd balances it responses with a measured view drawn across all the whole range of reactions, from the flighty, skittish, to the philosophical, the thinking out of the box, to the been there done that, to the plain weary to the stubborn not changing until it has to change. Choosing a course out of that gamut of reaction may at times be ponderous but with the wealth of experiences that range of reaction brings, may more often make a sensible lasting judgement call than the knee jerking at the first signs of a hiccup.
As individuals we bring our own unique style, experience and judgements to the task at hand. Not one of us will set about skinning the cat the exact same way as another. The variation in technique matters not. What matters is that the cat is skinned. Management may want to raise targets of time or quality or cat welfare. How those in charge of the task set about achieving a better output is vital. If they issue orders and instructions, then those doing the work switch off and submissively follow the order or instruction. More expansive orders and instruction then have to follow because those doing the work have not read the mind or seen the work the same way as those issuing the orders. The alternative is to empower those in charge to do the task their way whilst encouraging and supporting them to raise their standards to those targets. Those in charge offering gentle suggestions or meaningful comparisons along the way. Those doing the work, in the absence of direction will share experiences amongst themselves, support each other and will find a collective way to achieve the required result. Those in charge being left free to attend to other matters with just the occasional light touch to adjust output. This is collective societies working at its best, working collaboratively but accepting accountability for your own input.
In the scale of things, just tosh. Except of course that governments act and work like simplified people. Our Political Leaders exhibit that need to show they are in control and are seen to be acting divisively. Government rush in to be seen to respond to the latest emotive outburst. Control, followed by ever more detailed prescription of what is permitted and which sanctions will be applied to what defaults. We teeter, with the best of intentions, remorselessly to Totalitarianism. The citizens slowly surrender their will to think for themselves, to question, to challenge and sink into despair of just doing what is required, no matter how illogical, just for a quiet life. We lose all round. No one wins.
We have to empower people to think and act for themselves. We have reform our society so people take responsibility for their own actions. Government has to restrain itself, guiding on the long term objections but easing up on the desire to control the now.
Surely when the person in the street is baffled by the logic of the bedroom tax, penalising of the destitute, requiring access to everyone's electronic communication, official encouragement of zero-hour contracts, commercialisation of core state functions, to name but a few, then it is past time for a sea change.
We are social animals, we perform at our best within the herd and with the herd's approval. That is who we are. We are also lazy, prone to just follow the next person rather than take the risk extra work or failure by going our own way. The worst performing societies, knee-jerk respond to the first skitter of reaction. The whole herd dashing off to follow that first change of direction. Like lemmings dashing off without forethought, panicking in response to some ill-define threat until they all leap off the cliff edge, following blindly that frightened first alarm call. The best performing societies the herd balances it responses with a measured view drawn across all the whole range of reactions, from the flighty, skittish, to the philosophical, the thinking out of the box, to the been there done that, to the plain weary to the stubborn not changing until it has to change. Choosing a course out of that gamut of reaction may at times be ponderous but with the wealth of experiences that range of reaction brings, may more often make a sensible lasting judgement call than the knee jerking at the first signs of a hiccup.
As individuals we bring our own unique style, experience and judgements to the task at hand. Not one of us will set about skinning the cat the exact same way as another. The variation in technique matters not. What matters is that the cat is skinned. Management may want to raise targets of time or quality or cat welfare. How those in charge of the task set about achieving a better output is vital. If they issue orders and instructions, then those doing the work switch off and submissively follow the order or instruction. More expansive orders and instruction then have to follow because those doing the work have not read the mind or seen the work the same way as those issuing the orders. The alternative is to empower those in charge to do the task their way whilst encouraging and supporting them to raise their standards to those targets. Those in charge offering gentle suggestions or meaningful comparisons along the way. Those doing the work, in the absence of direction will share experiences amongst themselves, support each other and will find a collective way to achieve the required result. Those in charge being left free to attend to other matters with just the occasional light touch to adjust output. This is collective societies working at its best, working collaboratively but accepting accountability for your own input.
In the scale of things, just tosh. Except of course that governments act and work like simplified people. Our Political Leaders exhibit that need to show they are in control and are seen to be acting divisively. Government rush in to be seen to respond to the latest emotive outburst. Control, followed by ever more detailed prescription of what is permitted and which sanctions will be applied to what defaults. We teeter, with the best of intentions, remorselessly to Totalitarianism. The citizens slowly surrender their will to think for themselves, to question, to challenge and sink into despair of just doing what is required, no matter how illogical, just for a quiet life. We lose all round. No one wins.
We have to empower people to think and act for themselves. We have reform our society so people take responsibility for their own actions. Government has to restrain itself, guiding on the long term objections but easing up on the desire to control the now.
Surely when the person in the street is baffled by the logic of the bedroom tax, penalising of the destitute, requiring access to everyone's electronic communication, official encouragement of zero-hour contracts, commercialisation of core state functions, to name but a few, then it is past time for a sea change.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
What it is worth
We should be daily on guard against our instinctive presumption that what we asked to pay for something equates in anyway to what it is worth. By the time the seller has added on his profit, made allowance for stocking space and expected rate of turnover, the distributor has taken off his slice for double handling, storage waiting for and then transporting, and, assuming there are no middlemen taking a slice before handing on, the prime producer has to cover the advertising, product packaging, verification of standards met, recoup his product design, plant rightoff and premises, insurance against adverse events, stocking levels only then do we get to the nitty gritty, the payroll to produce and the purchase and stocking of the raw materials;finally we get close to the 'value' of the product.
We expect an intimate relationship between what we pay for something and it what it costs in terms of labour and raw materials, yet what is costs actually is ethereal. A figure derived from gut or more probably prior experience of what degree of ancillary costs can be born by the expected market, and still sell and still make a profit. It has a lot closer relationship to the vagaries of house selling, what does the market bear or expect for this size house in this location. Pricing is not hard wired to actual costs but is pitched at market expectations and precedences.
This divorce from the actual cost of things is not just about the products we buy, but as I have explored previously in Government Savings, it is also true of the cost of how we choose to manage and administer ourselves. The 'cost' of government is not a balance sheet figure derived from what it takes to run or administer a set of procedures but reflects a historic norm. This is what has been relied on in the past to produce this end result and that with these adjustments this what it costs us now.
We got here for a sliding progression of perfectly reasonable and at the time right and fully justifiable choices. Right here and now being required to pay what others expect is their due and entitlement just does not seem right. Clearly we cannot go back to barter. Can you imagine the furore at the Supermarket as we all came in with our trade goods to exchange for our weekly shop. Equally we just cannot make and keep contact with the worldwide spread of sources and suppliers to individually barter an exchange for all those everyday items we now so desperately depend. Yet we have to get back to making some connection to what it actually costs, for something, as against what the marketplace thiks it can get away with.
I take heart from EBay. There is a model here, the dutch auction, products are offered at an optimum price then, depending on stock levels, degrees of demand and closeness to spoiling date, the price decreases until the consumers decides that it is worth it. Services might operate in an inverse way, with the rate for the service increasing until some provider snaps it up. Quality is the bug bear, we know only too well how the supermarkets dumb down the specification until it is a pale shadow of its former, introductory, self. With the growth of consumer feedback and instant consumer vitriol when things are wrong, maybe there is is this growing tool that will keep suppliers and providers sharp on their toes. Maybe, just maybe they can claim back from the domineering supermarkets, accountability for the what they provide. That would be the dawn of a new age.
We expect an intimate relationship between what we pay for something and it what it costs in terms of labour and raw materials, yet what is costs actually is ethereal. A figure derived from gut or more probably prior experience of what degree of ancillary costs can be born by the expected market, and still sell and still make a profit. It has a lot closer relationship to the vagaries of house selling, what does the market bear or expect for this size house in this location. Pricing is not hard wired to actual costs but is pitched at market expectations and precedences.
This divorce from the actual cost of things is not just about the products we buy, but as I have explored previously in Government Savings, it is also true of the cost of how we choose to manage and administer ourselves. The 'cost' of government is not a balance sheet figure derived from what it takes to run or administer a set of procedures but reflects a historic norm. This is what has been relied on in the past to produce this end result and that with these adjustments this what it costs us now.
We got here for a sliding progression of perfectly reasonable and at the time right and fully justifiable choices. Right here and now being required to pay what others expect is their due and entitlement just does not seem right. Clearly we cannot go back to barter. Can you imagine the furore at the Supermarket as we all came in with our trade goods to exchange for our weekly shop. Equally we just cannot make and keep contact with the worldwide spread of sources and suppliers to individually barter an exchange for all those everyday items we now so desperately depend. Yet we have to get back to making some connection to what it actually costs, for something, as against what the marketplace thiks it can get away with.
I take heart from EBay. There is a model here, the dutch auction, products are offered at an optimum price then, depending on stock levels, degrees of demand and closeness to spoiling date, the price decreases until the consumers decides that it is worth it. Services might operate in an inverse way, with the rate for the service increasing until some provider snaps it up. Quality is the bug bear, we know only too well how the supermarkets dumb down the specification until it is a pale shadow of its former, introductory, self. With the growth of consumer feedback and instant consumer vitriol when things are wrong, maybe there is is this growing tool that will keep suppliers and providers sharp on their toes. Maybe, just maybe they can claim back from the domineering supermarkets, accountability for the what they provide. That would be the dawn of a new age.
Monday, 12 November 2012
Fair Cop?
For the record I am underwhelmed by this whole Police Commissioner vote thing. The government advertising to whip up public interest really says it all for me. It is the classic 'which slice of the pie' do you want. Stop car vandalism or stop drunk louts or stop house thefts or stop speed abuse or stop drug pushers. The answer is of course all of the above and some more as well. The problem is there just is not enough pie to go round.
What I take exception to is that the government retains tight control of the permitted expenditure and manner and methods to be employed in policing our country. The Police Commissioner is just the 'locally elected' fall guy to take the heat of accountability off from the government decisions which make it impossible to attain the public's policing aspirations. As an aside, 'locally elected' of course equals a political parties nomination with first loyalty to the Party not the electorate.
Just yet another deliberate, cynical tactic by the government to divide to rule. Make someone or organisation 'accountable' at local level to take all the blame complaints and criticisms. Whilst retaining all meaningful control back at central government, preventing them for exercising and employing new innovative and structurally different ways of skinning the impossible cat. They were devised by government so government could escape public blame for failing to adequately source and fund an effective police force.
What I take exception to is that the government retains tight control of the permitted expenditure and manner and methods to be employed in policing our country. The Police Commissioner is just the 'locally elected' fall guy to take the heat of accountability off from the government decisions which make it impossible to attain the public's policing aspirations. As an aside, 'locally elected' of course equals a political parties nomination with first loyalty to the Party not the electorate.
Just yet another deliberate, cynical tactic by the government to divide to rule. Make someone or organisation 'accountable' at local level to take all the blame complaints and criticisms. Whilst retaining all meaningful control back at central government, preventing them for exercising and employing new innovative and structurally different ways of skinning the impossible cat. They were devised by government so government could escape public blame for failing to adequately source and fund an effective police force.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Held to Account
In a way the antithesis of trust, being accountable to those we choose to move amongst. In a totalitarian state the only thing to keep us on the straight and narrow would be the fear of being caught out and the retribution which would be sure to follow. That is not a world I want to live in. So what other options are open to us? At this stage in our progress we live in a rootless, faceless society. You can move around in, about and out of town and not see anybody who recognises you. You can cross all of London feeling as a racial minority group with few of your fellow travellers sharing your ethnic clothing, habits, courtesies, dialect and clearly none of your life interests. Yesterday's fad the hoodie is now an irrelevance. There is no longer any need to hide your identity, other than from the ever prescent CCTV camera, your identity is completely safe lost in a sea of strangers. You can and do what you like, where you like and how you like without any restraint, guilt, retribution and not the least chance of a restraining hand from some nearby fellow citizen. You are a law unto your yourself only, and, unless you are very unlucky, no officaldom's heavy hand will come anywhere near you to put a stop to your self-indulgence.
Except of course we do not live on a desert island, and my freedom to move and live my life is dependant on your willingness to keep within the normal social bounds and, of course, visa versa, your freedom to act the goat is dependant on my willingness to tolerate your anti-social conduct. In an ideal world, but we have drifted quite a long way from that ideal world. I cannot physically restrain you as that would expose me to civil proceedings. I cannot verbally remonstrate with you as that may well precipitate a violent physical counter-action. There is no longer the remotest chance that I know anyone in your family that could intercede about your social mayhem as I dont know them and even if I did, youth is no longer responsive to close relative let alone parental restraint.
It is a mad mad world we are in, but it is up to each of us to change it. To change it to the kind of world where we all feel more comfortable and safe. So, no golden bullet solution but a number of pointers.
First we have to give up the comfort blanket, stop expecting the State to step in to resolve all our issues of being people and living within a society of people. The State does not do finesse, it can only apply coarse over-reactive draconian measures, it simply cannot devise enough unambiguous rules to control how we interact with each other. We will suffocate in the attempt. No it really is down to us.
Secondly then, in this very diverse racially mixed society, how to begin to rebuild connections across all members of the societies (remember this is a matrix society) you move among? You and I have to get involved. So the Small Society. Here the State does very little. You and I have to get involved if anything is needed to make the community work. Anything from pavement repairs, street lights, litter clearance, emergency services, social support, you name it and anything you want then you have to be part of the process of agreeing and cooperating with it running to your satisfaction. No opt out, no longer is it the local authorities job, now it is your job to be involved else it wont happen. Scary.
Thirdly it has to be wide ranging to swamp the community with the need for action. As we all know there are always those stalwarts that step up to the plate and tackle those task for the benefit of all while the majority keep their heads down, content taking benefit, freely criticising but not offering that needed helping hand. If we are to ever escape for our past subservience to power and control from above, we all have to be prepared to play a part and to confront those shirkers. There are a raft of roles waiting to be filled, not everyone is a leader, or committee fodder, but there is role for everyone. Hence to confront the complacency of phoning for the person from the council to sort it out, we need to be inundated with task that do threaten our comfort, security and peace of mind.
Fourthly by people having to come out of their private contented shells to participate in the arrangement and organisation of the every day functioning of their social lives they meet and have to engage with other members of their community. This engagement creates a wider network of known people within the community and as a direct consequence accountability arises. You, and the members of your home group, can no longer pass faceless along the edges of society. You are full on in, known and accountable. You have to conform to your communities mores.
Clearly not a one step panacea, a host of problems and difficulties at every turn, but, and a very big but, if we find this way to re-engage with each other then all the problems and difficulties are solvable. Whilst we a talking with each other there are solutions that will be found. Never can it be more true that the combined whole is so much greater than the sum of its individuals. This is the real core of society, not the application of authority and control from above.
Except of course we do not live on a desert island, and my freedom to move and live my life is dependant on your willingness to keep within the normal social bounds and, of course, visa versa, your freedom to act the goat is dependant on my willingness to tolerate your anti-social conduct. In an ideal world, but we have drifted quite a long way from that ideal world. I cannot physically restrain you as that would expose me to civil proceedings. I cannot verbally remonstrate with you as that may well precipitate a violent physical counter-action. There is no longer the remotest chance that I know anyone in your family that could intercede about your social mayhem as I dont know them and even if I did, youth is no longer responsive to close relative let alone parental restraint.
It is a mad mad world we are in, but it is up to each of us to change it. To change it to the kind of world where we all feel more comfortable and safe. So, no golden bullet solution but a number of pointers.
First we have to give up the comfort blanket, stop expecting the State to step in to resolve all our issues of being people and living within a society of people. The State does not do finesse, it can only apply coarse over-reactive draconian measures, it simply cannot devise enough unambiguous rules to control how we interact with each other. We will suffocate in the attempt. No it really is down to us.
Secondly then, in this very diverse racially mixed society, how to begin to rebuild connections across all members of the societies (remember this is a matrix society) you move among? You and I have to get involved. So the Small Society. Here the State does very little. You and I have to get involved if anything is needed to make the community work. Anything from pavement repairs, street lights, litter clearance, emergency services, social support, you name it and anything you want then you have to be part of the process of agreeing and cooperating with it running to your satisfaction. No opt out, no longer is it the local authorities job, now it is your job to be involved else it wont happen. Scary.
Thirdly it has to be wide ranging to swamp the community with the need for action. As we all know there are always those stalwarts that step up to the plate and tackle those task for the benefit of all while the majority keep their heads down, content taking benefit, freely criticising but not offering that needed helping hand. If we are to ever escape for our past subservience to power and control from above, we all have to be prepared to play a part and to confront those shirkers. There are a raft of roles waiting to be filled, not everyone is a leader, or committee fodder, but there is role for everyone. Hence to confront the complacency of phoning for the person from the council to sort it out, we need to be inundated with task that do threaten our comfort, security and peace of mind.
Fourthly by people having to come out of their private contented shells to participate in the arrangement and organisation of the every day functioning of their social lives they meet and have to engage with other members of their community. This engagement creates a wider network of known people within the community and as a direct consequence accountability arises. You, and the members of your home group, can no longer pass faceless along the edges of society. You are full on in, known and accountable. You have to conform to your communities mores.
Clearly not a one step panacea, a host of problems and difficulties at every turn, but, and a very big but, if we find this way to re-engage with each other then all the problems and difficulties are solvable. Whilst we a talking with each other there are solutions that will be found. Never can it be more true that the combined whole is so much greater than the sum of its individuals. This is the real core of society, not the application of authority and control from above.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)