I think you have pretty much pinned it. All of the above … and my 2 cents worth: there is an underlying thirst for elitism in all its guises based on a lust for the 3 P's -- power, pride and privilege. P2P relationships are often the espoused mantra but when we look at the investment in mass media and entertainment for promoting the hero cult there is a huge effort to propagate the leader-cult.

As an espoused alternative: I’ve been keeping an eye on developments in Latin America that are not based on the 'western' model of jock-strap 'leadership' ... rather the continued suggestion of emerging indigenous patterns and relationships – this example of da Silver is a positive sign in my opinion – it’s starting to sound like adult behaviour:

"Despite all of Brazil’s accomplishments in surging ahead of Venezuela in Latin America, Mr. da Silva has eschewed being labelled a leader in the region. “We are not trying to find a leader in Latin America,” he said in the September interview. “We don’t need a leader. I am not worried about being the leader of anything. What I want is to govern my country well.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/world/americas/07brazil.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp)

Sic 'em Rex!

All of the above, but I'd add that a lot of the resistance is because people don't see a role for themselves in this "new future" or if they do, they don't see how it pays the mortgage they took out 5 years ago.

And to some extent, I think there's a genuine apprehension there. The use of technology and the devolving of decision making in manufacturing industry has largely led to lower employment and lesser pay for those who did survive. As we tear down the bastions of "expertise" it's clear how the organisation as whole benefits, but not always so clear how the individuals do so.

Hi Dave

Some factors that contribute to 'stodgidity' within and across national and local government organisations (I include here health trusts and some of the national voluntary sector organisations (which behave more like Councils every day)) include:
- an absence of 'evolutionary pressures' in the environments where they operate (e.g. in the commercial sector businesses compete for market share; to develop a better product etc). There are not parallel pressures for government and public services to evolve to adapt to a changeing environment (I discount entirely Government retorhic about 'Modernising Public Services' - just a self-delusion and example of sound bites and cozy politicks)
- a vast majority of elected/appointed 'leaders' in government and public services are actually frightened insecure little bullies (there are joyous and joyful exceptions - but their innovation can often be stifled by lumpen middle managers resisting change) - who fundamentally lack a capacity to 'contain' unorder and complexity. An outcome of this is a displacement of such anxiety into ever more strict and detailed focus/ordering of what they (believe they) control
- a fundamental assumption is that 'leaders' at the top of government and public services are committed to improving things for local communities and service users. Actually in most cases their drive for what rc (above) calls the 3Ps is far greater than my Wire Haired Pointer's hunt instinct (difficult to believe, but true)
- in almost every case, Chief Officers and Senior Managers are deeply entrained within a particular discipline - for example 95% of Directors of Children's Services in England left school (as a pupil), went into teacher training, went back to school (as a teacher), became Headteacher, became an Advisor/Inspector in the Council, became Chief Advisor/Inspector, became Director of Children's Services. I know they should, but what is such people's capacity and competence to conceive of an alternative? (A useful metaphor - the shadows on the wall from the Cave in Plato's Republic).

Anyhow, hope these observations on the state of public services in England doesn't come over as too jaundiced. Best Wishes

Dave

The issues you highlight, Dave, are also central, in my opinion, in what is wrong in ‘aid land’ (international development). This relates directly to wonky notions of accountability, which swings wildly between no/little rigour in accountability and excessive demand for irrelevant detail that no one looks at. The focus on being accountable to source of money is central in the debate on learning in international aid. In fact, it is usually posited as a ‘learning vs accountability’ debate, which I think is a misguided distinction that is perpetuating various red herring debates and erroneous notions. For example, that learning and accountability are the same order of magnitude as ideas. Regarding the latter, accountability is one reason for which learning processes are needed (there are others such as operational improvement, strategic innovation, etc). Hence I believe accountability information needs and processes should be part of an integrated 'learning challenge'. It would be very neat to start envisaging how international aid might need to change in order to emulate "a networked, distributed model of management in which control is an emergent property of interactions".

I find it fascinating that some people just can't get away from the top down paradigm. I'm not sure why people need it? It could be control, the conventional issue of authority. Equally there is a strong patronising theme to many of these approaches, a sort of mother(or rather father, this is patriarchal) knows best. Maybe its much simpler, people just don't have the imagination to do things differently? Shifting from hierarchical management, the tyranny of experts and stodgidity (yes I made that word up but I rather like it) of committees is hard for people who have spent most of their adult lives in those environments.

They need a mindset change fast not only for their own sake, but more so for those they govern. The consequences of failing to realise that we are moving into a networked, distributed model of management in which control is an emergent property of interactions will be disastrous for society.

I don't want to over-simplify nor gum up your comments section with an over-long explanation, but when discussing aspects and finer points of what I call "wirearchy" I sometimes find it useful to use examples from the theory of Transactional Analysis (more popular in the 70's). It's relatively straightforward to demonstrate that hierarchical management and the stodgidity (yes, fun word) of experts and serious committees are often much like the Parent "shoulding" the Child with little or no respect for questions or alternative points of view while networked distributed management involves quite a bit of Adult-to-Adult negotiation of what needs to get done and why, who is going to do what parts of what needs to get done and how is the network and each individual in the network going to hold the network accountable for delivering on what needs to get done.

With a hat-tip to socio-technical systems thinking and self-directed teams / work group theory.

And of course I'd like to add that I am in no way denigrating the value of expertise or seriousness, just not buying into the notion that there isn't a lot of expertise and serious intent and engagement within networks of people who do not have acknowledged and "certified" status, position and power.

I am sorry, but i hold a slightly different view. The scenario we ought to look at, is somewhere between complete centralization, and complete decentralization!

Maybe i am missing something, or the implications of the networked model you are mentioning here are escaping me. I do understand that a large part of the network can actually deliver far greater value than the typical command-and-control system can, because it can tap into the skills of all the folks properly, much like outsourcing can, by getting work to the people who are best suited to do it, but at some level, there must be an overall picture, strategy, whatever you call it?

Cheers, Atul.