Is this modern management?

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“Within large organisations there is often a culture that encourages “managing upwards” and the creation of “good news managers”. In order to advance or gain preferment in such organisations, displays of competence and effectiveness count for little; visibility and networking are all. Ambitious people in lower tiers of management quickly identify what senior managers prefer – good news, because “the bringer of unwelcome news hath but a losing office”. The “good news” is not necessarily positive; if there is negative information concerning someone who is out of favour, that is good news to the receptive ear. Senior managers unwittingly become isolated, increasingly reliant upon the bringers of carefully filtered welcome news, and consequently have a distorted and narrow view of their organisation. It is a difficult syndrome to overcome because all the participants, senders and receivers, connive to maintain it.

Encouraging managers to manage “by walking about” and to ask probing questions, have been the most demanding tasks in my role as a consultant in management and organisational development. (Robert Richards, organisational development consultant.” London)

A good manager has his finger on the pulse, talks to customers (who pay the salaries), knows and talks to the staff, picks up complaints and dissatisfactions, handles complaints and has antennae that tell him if the enterprise is healthy or not. Yes?

Actually, no. All too often the reality is that a modern manager hides in his office, allows juniors to field questions and complaints from customers, and arranges for email “surveys”, with which every customer is burdened, however minor the purchase. Then he goes home dead on time, none the wiser. If you run your own small business you get the down-to-earth pretty quickly – do the job properly or look for another one. I know whereof I speak.

Should God have a sex change?

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Followers of important trends may have missed the debate within the Church of England on the question “Does God, the Almighty Creator of the Universe, have to be male?” A group of leading female clerics campaigned to change the language with which God is described in the Christian liturgy. Their idea was to refer to the Almighty as “she”, and “God the mother”, pointing to passages in the Bible that describe God in feminine terms. In Deuteronomy, God gives birth; in Isaiah, She breastfeeds; and in Luke, She is a girl hunting for a piece of lost jewellery. These images, though they may be few and far between, show that God is not definitively male, so why should the language of the liturgy be? Female worshippers want “to know that they are made as much in the image of God as any man”.

In opposition, the Reverend Kate Bottley replied in The Guardian, pointing to the absurdity of the argument: “God is not a woman. God is not a man. God is God”. Damian Thompson (in the Daily Mail) pointed out that throughout the Gospels, Jesus refers to God as “Father” or “Lord”, words that generations of church-goers have grown up with. And so alarmed was former archbishop Lord Carey that he warned that the Church “could be extinct in 25 years’ time”. The last thing the Church needs, he opined, is another trendy linguistic “gimmick” that “will make worshippers squirm. Nothing empties pews faster than that.” (original report by Reverend Sally Hitchiner, The Daily Telegraph).

Those of us who endured interminable chapel services growing up in the Church of England, sat puzzled at many of the unexplained words and concepts in the bible and the book of common prayer, and wondered if the clerics who pontificated at us understood these things themselves. Now, as adults, we ask why is it important to establish whether God is male or female when manifestly he or she seems to be either uninterested or powerless to frustrate the knavish tricks of the wicked, the cheats, the plunderers, the greedy, the selfish and the violent.

Epicureans were not popular with the establishment in ancient times

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One of the main things that distinguished the Stoics from the Epicureans was that the Stoics embraced public service and politics with enthusiasm and the Epicureans certainly did not. The extrovert Stoics were out there socializing, networking, competing for honor and advancement on the one hand; the introvert and cerebral Epicureans, were content to be in the Garden, literally and metaphorically, enjoying a more stress-free life among a small group of friends. It is understandable that the extroverts, apparently more popular and in demand (and in charge), should look down on the more retiring Epicureans, who rejected the polis and involvement in politics. Meanwhile, the bulk of the Greek population was illiterate and preoccupied with survival during a time when Greek hegemony was collapsing, and had no access to the teachings of Epicurus. It was the elite who rejected Epicurus.

Under the Roman Republic politics were relatively more responsive to the people. After the advent of the emperors and the assumption of military rule the regime became increasingly threatening and unpredictable. Independent thought and comment could result in death. As a result, Epicureanism became hugely popular and many people retired to the countryside, eschewing public life. Epicureanism was thus alive and well until the time of Constantine and the emergence of Christianity as a state religion. Thereafter, Epicureans were anathematized as anti-establishment and atheist, despite the fact that Epicurus was no atheist. Gods, he thought, existed, but they did not reward or punish humans, thus eliminating anxiety about angering them. Epicurean ideas on the after-life, however, were in stark contradiction to the fundamental belief of the Christians. It has to be pointed out that Epicureans were not picked on exclusively; many groups, including “heretical” Christian groups, ceased to be tolerated.

Smart, these technical people

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Following months of trouble with both telephone and internet connections, British Telecom engineers noted that David Critchard’s password was overdue a change. And so they helpfully changed it. “I was sent an email to tell me that it had been changed, containing the new password,” writes David. “But of course I couldn’t access their message because I didn’t have the password.”

Customer services at BT simply couldn’t understand why this was a problem. “Finally somebody with a grasp of logic told me I should have used the ‘change password app’ on my phone to change my password yet again, so that I could log in and find out why my password had changed and what they had changed it to.” (Reported in New Scientist)

Dealing with telephone companies may shorten your life. For ataraxia, be like me – I don’t phone anyone, and certainly not telecom companies. I don’t have the patience to keep entering the endless string of numbers as they attempt to find out what you want. Why can’t you tell a human being? (Just joking. They don’t employ any any more)

10 year old denied abortion

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A while ago a ten-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped by her stepfather, was denied an abortion in Asunción, Paraguay. The child’s pregnancy was discovered at 21 weeks, when she was taken to hospital suffering from a stomach ache. Her mother demanded an abortion for her child, but the authorities refused because the procedure is illegal in Paraguay unless the pregnancy can be shown to be life-threatening. Critics have said that forcing the girl to continue with an unwanted pregnancy is “tantamount to torture”, and that Paraguay’s “restrictive” abortion laws violate international law. The girl’s stepfather went on the run, while her mother was thrown into jail on suspicion of failing in her duty of care. (The Week)

What sort of religion countenances such inhumanity? “Sanctity of life at any cost” is still the teaching of the more extreme parts of the Catholic church. The Pope is trying to humanize the doctrine and blur the edges, but history tells us that there is always a conservative reaction to reform. I’m sure Epicurus, faced with this incident, would be compassionate and use common sense. Probably, the same could be said of Jesus. Where were the priests and bishops? Praying, on supposes. Meanwhile, the ten-year-old lost her childhood and is faced with bringing up a child – at ten years old. For those who are outraged at events like this, simply espouse the rational, kind and humane ideas of Epicurus, who believed in love and charity, without forcing his ideas on the people through legislatures.