The Dethroning of Reason

For 60 years we have been arguing about how rational we are….It was 1959 when Charles Lindblom published an article entitled The Science of ‘Muddling Through’  disputing the view that strategic decision-making in organisations did (or even should)  consist of an exhaustive process of optimisation - and arguing instead that strategy was more akin to “a never-ending process of successive steps in which continual nibbling is a substitute for a good bite”.

Lindblom’s writings were more focused on government but “struck a chord” in the business world too. Cyert & March’s A Behavioural Theory of the Firm (1963) explored this idea from a number of angles, but one of the first clear articulations was by Henry Mintzberg in his publication Patterns in Strategy Formation (1978). Here Mintzberg framed the ‘adaptive mode’ in sharp contrast to a ‘planning mode’ which was considered a “highly ordered, neatly integrated [approach], with strategies developed on schedule by a purposeful organisation.”

By that stage, I had ten years of political experience as an elected Councillor under my belt. First in the shape of the community action I encouraged - inspired by the work of not only of Saul Alinsky but of the anarchist thinker Ivan Illich whose Deschooling Society I would frequently call into play. And then, in 1971, came the chance of some managerial responsibility when I became (for 3 years) a Chairman of the new Social Work system then being established in Scotland….

It was a tension I not only recognised but celebrated in a paper I wrote for the Local Government Research Unit I had set up in 1971 – “From Community Action to Corporate Management”

In 1980, James Quinn published Strategies for Change in which he studied how companies actually went about formulating strategies. He found that they proceeded by trial and error, constantly revising their strategy in the light of new learnings, which he called “logical incrementalism”. Critics felt this sounded suspiciously like just having no strategy, but Quinn strongly denied this, arguing that there were great benefits to formalising the process.

In 1985, Of Strategies, Deliberate and Emergent, Mintzberg honed his views on what he now called Emergent strategy. He playfully argued that strategies should grow initially like weeds in a garden, not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse. That the process can be over-managed and

 “sometimes it is more important to let patterns emerge, than to force an artificial consistency upon an organisation prematurely”.

 Mintzberg contributed more than anyone over the years to this idea, later referring to it as “The Learning School”

At this time I had enrolled in the country’s first (part-time) course in Policy Analysis – at Strathclyde University and led by Lewis Gunn – in which Lindblom figured as a major character. Indeed my thesis was on “organisational learning” – just a few years before Peter Senge’s seminal “The Fifth Discipline” (1990)

The “Policy and Society“ journal devoted a special issue in 2011 to Lindblom’s “Incrementalism at 50” and the debate continues as you can see in “Policy Failure and the Implementation Gap”. 

Indeed the growth of Behavioural Economics since the millennium was at one stage the most promising evidence that we were developing a more balanced view of the role of reason (click the phrase and, from p219, you will get a 25 page list of the most popular books on the topic!).

But then fake news came into the picture – and we quickly lost any remaining sense of what was real; and to scorn anything that smacked of rationality. Kurt Andersen is one of many who would argue that this is the inevitable consequence of post-modernist thinking

William Davies’ “Nervous States – democracy and the Decline of Reason” has just come into my hands and looks an excellent analysis of how feelings seem to have taken over our mind.  

schools and what they do to you

Here ‘s a nice job – wandering the streets of different European cities and taking photos to illustrate the fashion styles! You can catch the result on Face Style.In fact, I do very much enjoy looking at the theatre which faces in streets give us and sometimes wish that I had the camera with me and was able to catch a face surreptitiously. So well done the Guardian!
A nice example in the Observer of how a serious but well-worn subject can be brought to life with satire and good writing. In this case, the subject is the respective value of schools and universities.
Mitchell has a jaundiced view of schooling and some sympathy apparently with parents who do their own schooling. Inevitably he gets a high response rate to his article (everyone is an expert on education!) – and some good points eg

School teaches you to cope with boredom. It helps you to appreciate your free time. It introduces you to the idea of a working day from an early age, and gives you structure and (important for kids) stability. It teaches you how to deal with conflict, who to avoid, how to cope with really horrible situations then go home afterwards. School (especially with regard to uniform) is a great leveller, and, valuably, is often so rubbish that you're actually glad to reach adulthood.

Personally school was a valuable experience for me. I had the feeling that 1955-60 was the end of a golden period for state schools. We still had streaming – with an examination at age 11 determining whether you went to a the prestige high school – or the secondary modern. Teachers there wore gowns and most commanded fear and respect - even (or particularly) the characters amongst them eg the great English teacher who would frequently raise high his desk lid in front of him to seek solace in a whig of whisky! Classes were small - and almost all the members of our final group went on to make something of their lives eg a national theatre director (Bill Bryden), a star Chelsea footballer (Charlie Cooke), a BBC designer (Alex Gourlay), a paedetrician (Cameron Shepherd), an American academic (Rhoda Urie) etc
Of course, streaming was unfair and wasteful of national talent – and was abolished in the 1960s. And I did later develop an enthusiasm for the anarchistic ideas of Ivan Illich – as set out in his Deschooling Society. And, if you want more on this fascinating writer of the 1970s I have just noticed a festschrift.
The painting is by a Russian realist - Bogdanov Belsky