Happy Holidays everyone. I am certainly having a great time. Now that I have a bit of rest I have been thinking about what has changed over the last 25 yrs. I would say the big changes have been in the last 12 to 20 yrs. There have been many but the clearest to me has been in management and managers attitudes. This has been not just in change of managers (which I have seen a lot of) but also people I knew very well who changed over time in management. Years ago managers had varied styles and views but today it is pretty much the same view. Let me explain the current views.
First there is this universal belief that management is very different from the workforce in that they are privy to the realities of the world and that the workforce is sheltered and simply does not understand the ways of the world. To be specific I am told consistently by managers that the non-managers have a naive view of the work world and believe that there is some inherent quantity called excellence, value, true purpose, or truth. The workers also believe they are special or smarter, and cannot be replaced or that the whole institute itself cannot be replaced. A management mantra is that everything really is nothing more than perception, building perception, and maintaining perception. We have to flow and mold with the current perceptions
and to attempt to counter such perceptions is foolish in two ways, (1) that in the end there really is no truth so you will ultimately have nothing to stand on. (2) That the people in charge such Congress and to an extent the American people will not, cannot and have no desire to understand the truth even is such a thing existed. Therefore in order for the labs to survive we must embrace these realities. Ideas installed into graduate students and postdocs of great science or engineering simplistic and will not lead to successful survivability. I have tried to nicely argue with a few of the managers and usually get the argument that my view is just not consistent with modern world or that you just don't get it do you.
Now in the "old days" the managers had also sorts of views some of them pretty harsh. but none of them had this sort modern view.
To me this seems like a postmodern worldview that there are no objective truths at all and everything is political.
I may indeed by naive but do modern corporations also believe this kind of stuff?
First there is this universal belief that management is very different from the workforce in that they are privy to the realities of the world and that the workforce is sheltered and simply does not understand the ways of the world. To be specific I am told consistently by managers that the non-managers have a naive view of the work world and believe that there is some inherent quantity called excellence, value, true purpose, or truth. The workers also believe they are special or smarter, and cannot be replaced or that the whole institute itself cannot be replaced. A management mantra is that everything really is nothing more than perception, building perception, and maintaining perception. We have to flow and mold with the current perceptions
and to attempt to counter such perceptions is foolish in two ways, (1) that in the end there really is no truth so you will ultimately have nothing to stand on. (2) That the people in charge such Congress and to an extent the American people will not, cannot and have no desire to understand the truth even is such a thing existed. Therefore in order for the labs to survive we must embrace these realities. Ideas installed into graduate students and postdocs of great science or engineering simplistic and will not lead to successful survivability. I have tried to nicely argue with a few of the managers and usually get the argument that my view is just not consistent with modern world or that you just don't get it do you.
Now in the "old days" the managers had also sorts of views some of them pretty harsh. but none of them had this sort modern view.
To me this seems like a postmodern worldview that there are no objective truths at all and everything is political.
I may indeed by naive but do modern corporations also believe this kind of stuff?
Anonymous said...
I too have noticed a big change in management. I would agree with the above, but with a small twist. That is perceptions are more important than substance. Managment can go a long way based solely on perceptions. They hope to move on before reality demonstrates that their "snake oil" doesn't work. If a manager can keep ahead of the destruction he causes, the new schmuck coming in behind him can take the blame
Comments
For example, at LLNL the management/employee gap mentioned is driven by three forces that may not apply in the same way to LANL.
At LLNL as the result of repeated criticism,as well as an unwelcome and inappropriate selection of a new management operator in 2007, Congressional oversight of the smallest detail has made LLNL management uber-responsive in a way that would have been judged foolhardy 20 years ago. Employees now see the application of questionable application of resources to accountability, assurances, contract provisions at the expense of more technically productive enterprizes and correctly question the decisions. All are fearful that more inappropriate punishment will fall on LLNL for the sins of others.
Again at LLNL, management is forced to operate in a environment where the sponsor, NNSA by contract, dictates that employee compensation is to be reduced substantially. This gives the employee the impression that management values them less than before, because compared the the past on a CPI-adjusted basis, they are compensated much less. The achievement of basic middle class life is no longer assured for well-educated, younger LLNL employees.
Again at LLNL, by provision in the new poorly conceived contract, LLNL management is forced to create a large number of less than productive organizational structures to meet reporting or contractual requirements. This increase in overhead is balanced by dropping useful overhead provisions such as training, conferences and supervision. The absence of these useful activities is felt in its loss by employees.
The result of these missteps is a deterioration of the status of Congress's minions and LLNL management in the eyes of LLNL employees, as well as a real, ongoing loss of compensation.
There is a sense that management increasingly distrusts the workforce. They see them as, different, buffoonish, and needless. They do not understand the role of the workforce, what they do, why they are needed, and what role do they play. The setbacks the befall the lab are always due the the workforce so the management necessarily see that workforce as a problem. The purpose of the labs is the management not the workforce, the workforce is simply an obstacle that must be overcome.
He has a point, management is not here to make you happy. Management is here to do the bidding of the contract which is the right and correct way things are to be done. The workforce in many ways contributes very little to the contract, however they can take away huge chunks of the contract by messing up. It is no wonder that management has such a low opinion of the workers. Managers also see the workers as pretty much expendable and that anyone can do the job.
December 27, 2012 3:57 AM
Very insightful. Even though companies like Google and facebook are trying to keep their employees happy and are very successful, we don't want to do this with the national labs. No , unhappy employees are the most productive ones. And why do you think this is the best job we will ever have? You probably work for Bechtel.
"Very insightful. Even though companies like Google and facebook are trying to keep their employees happy and are very successful, we don't want to do this with the national labs. No , unhappy employees are the most productive ones. And why do you think this is the best job we will ever have? You probably work for Bechtel.
December 27, 2012 2:14 PM"
I have to at disagree with the idea that the lab management attitudes are only Bechtel people. Most management are home grown lab people and I have seen people change once they are in management. In the last 10 years every manager I have seen who has stepped down on their own accord where outstanding managers. After they stepped down they continued to be excellence scientists or engineers, or whatever type of job they formally did. In contrast I have never seen a single bad manager step down...not one. One guess is they can no longer or never really could do real work. After talking with a few I get the sense that they are rather frightened since they feel trapped. They can no longer do regular work so they have to stay in management until they retire.
Although I have seen a lot of staff members leave for academic positions or other labs outside of the NNSA I see very few managers that ever leave. Again the sense that they are trapped and the only concern they have is that of survival since for them it really is survival. Perhaps this is the
the reason they say "this is the best job you will ever have" as for a bad manager it is the best job they will ever have. Since it is about survival they view excellence as a completely subjective subject and become hostile to workers who seem to demonstrate some form of excellence as defined by the standard metrics of research endeavours. By marginalizing the whole concept of excellence they protect themselves. Conversations I have with managers have become increasingly postmodern in tone with terms such as survivability, transformation, change agents, and ,mealiability. If pressed on the meaning of these things they cannot answer in a cognitive way but say the wold is changing, new realities, the way of the world, we need to catch up with the corporate world.
"There is a sense that management increasingly distrusts the workforce..."
If the author is refering to LLNL, I do not agree. Most management and supervision values the workforce, but is given many less meaningful tools to show it. Salary freeze, few training and conference dollars, no funding for first line supervisors limits face time available. Poorly concieved by NNSA. So what else is new?
I'll wager the author of this post has never seen the Livermore Valley.
Quality Troll
The "quality troll" is most likely a lab insider. Maybe we can get some specifics from Monsieur Quality Troll.
I can come up with Los Alamos examples too if you would like to keep this up.
*************Tomas is *************
B A C K!
YA, YA, YA, YA, YA, YA