Chapter 11 Operational control
Today two entities exist to control the proper functioning of individuals, businesses, administrations, associations. On the one hand, investigative journalism, whose role is to shed light on what was hidden without being of a private nature, that is to say, to fight against dissimulation. On the other hand, the police justice couple, whose role is to fight against cheating. We propose to add operational control to these two structures, the aim of which is to promote the application of the state of the art. Operational control fights against incompetence and decision-making on an inept methodological basis, as seen in Chapter 4. It is the keystone of the whole edifice.
Functioning
Operational control is exercised periodically over all organizations. It is carried out by a small group of external people, chosen at random taking into account geographical constraints, from among those with the required skills and without a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest can be reported either by the controlling person or by the controlled organization. In the controlling group, we must find 50% of people who have already carried out the activity of the controlled organization, 50% others. The controllers can interview, in private if it seems desirable to them, whoever they want in the controlled organization.
The control aims to evaluate each of the following points separately: 1. The interest for the community of the reason for being of the controlled organization, formulated by its president. 2. The completeness and sincerity of the content of the journals of problems and strategic reflections. 3. Alignment of activities and resources with the purpose. This concerns the functions of treasurer and president. 4. Organizational effectiveness, particularly via the problem log. This particularly concerns the director. 5. Possible transfers of work to unpaid third parties, for example by requiring them to enter data online that cannot easily be automated, or to come and collect information. 6. The allocation for each strategic study of study resources proportionate to the issues at stake. This particularly concerns the president. 7. The quality of implementation of the results of strategic analyses. This particularly concerns the director.
Note that we have purposely used the term operational control, not audit. Indeed, the objective of control is to verify the relevance and methodological quality first of all of the strategic analyzes that have been carried out, and not to carry out these strategic analyzes and propose solutions. The basis was described in Chapter 7, in the section 'The conditions for a reliable decision-making process'. However, it seems useful here to recall the following point, even if it means repeating ourselves: this is a methodological evaluation aimed at ensuring that the four conditions of serious reasoning have been met. In particular, control must be very vigilant in considering all forms of methodological conformism as invalid. By methodological conformism we mean the application of a recipe which does not really work, under the pretext that it is the standard, and therefore 'we cannot be blamed'. The use of social support to validate an unsupported solution is also considered a form of methodological conformism. Finally, operational control must encourage reasoned risk-taking. The objective at this level is clearly to fight against the myth which replaces reason, as described in the article by Meyer and Rowan mentioned in chapter 3.
Following the general assessment of the company, the control group: 1. Assigns scores to strategic analyses, which adjusts the strategic rating of their authors. This is where the link is made with the analysis of the mode of reasoning that we proposed in Chapter 7. 2. Optionally adjusts the scores of older analyzes based on their consequences once they become visible. 3. May decide on the mandatory allocation of resources to certain existing or added strategic issues. 4. Can make suggestions for improvement, but not just to do well.
May decide, following a second inspection which would confirm the conclusions of the first: 5. To permanently dismiss the president, director or treasurer. 6. The split, if single-level management is not effective, the workforce is large and there is no obstacle linked to a critical size essential for the activity. 7. The dissolution of the structure, in the event of a major dysfunction from a qualitative point of view. When the first inspection reveals serious shortcomings, leading to the application of points 5, 6 or 7, the second inspection will be entrusted to people with a higher strategic rating. A bit like in the case of a court of appeal. Furthermore, a second check is also carried out on a portion of the checks taken at random, to assess their quality.
Is it worth it?
When we combine the formalism of the journal of strategic reflections imposed on each organization (previous chapter) with the organization of all the associated controls, we arrive at something quite cumbersome to implement. It therefore becomes legitimate to ask the question: Is all this really worth it? To answer this, several elements must be taken into account. First of all, Marx already noticed that industrialization generates much more complex interactions between organizations, which is even more true following the second digital industrial revolution. So carefully weighing decisions becomes more important than previously, because the indirect consequences are heavier. This is why we have made it clear that this new formalism must be imposed with all the more force as the stakes of the decision to be taken are high. On the other hand, at the beginning of this work, the chapter on cognitive dissonance showed us that 'the natural reason of individuals' does not exist. This is all the more true since the people who perform best in the management functions of companies in the current capitalist system are those who are more inclined towards action and power games than towards reflection. Hence the fact that it is important to impose a mechanism which allows a posteriori control of the arguments leading to the decision, and the establishment of the strategic rating of individuals, so as to ensure that the decisions are actually taken at best, by the fittest.
In addition, we considerably underestimate the effect of the second industrial revolution, that of digital technology. In chapter 6, we saw that in Marx's time, the boss was able to get a fairly precise idea of u200bu200bthe actual situation of his production tool by a simple tour of his workshop, and that this is no longer true as soon as digital comes into play. In fact, with the massification of digital, we have gradually shifted towards a boss who makes decisions, often just by looking at PowerPoints presented by salespeople. Then, when concrete problems arise, he tells his employees that production must go out at all costs, therefore that they must 'make do', often accompanied by the specter of unemployment, i.e. an argument like if you can't do it, others are waiting at the door to take your place. This is formulated with more or less tact depending on the character of each person, but always on the same unacceptable basis: the dissociation of decision-making from the associated responsibility. This drift is found in the practice of operational objectives that teams are asked to achieve, or even to set beforehand in the most perverse cases of management. An employee, from the moment he is subordinate, that is to say does not make strategic decisions, is bound by a duty to make resources available to the company, that is to say his work force, his time, his knowledge and his loyalty. He cannot be held to a duty of result. However, this unhealthy shift took place, but gradually, so that individuals resigned themselves to it as it progressed. However, although progressive, under the effect of the complexity of digital processes, the drift has reached a shocking level, so it is high time to put things back on track. We cannot ask people to assume the consequences of decisions that were taken lightly, without taking into account the reality on the ground, because after a while, it is trust in the social organization that disappears, therefore the return of everyone for themselves, of the simple balance of power, and ultimately of populism. However, having decisions made democratically by people on the ground, as in a cooperative enterprise, or within the framework of participatory democracy, is not the general solution to this problem. Indeed, when problems become complex, operational staff are not always mentally capable of anticipating future problems on paper. They are just able to notice them once the decision has already been made and the new system has been put in place. Hence the importance of ensuring that the decision will be taken following a study of an adequate level with regard to the consequences, by individuals who have demonstrated their specific aptitude for carrying out strategic studies. The final goal is confidence in the 'social contract' resulting from confidence in the quality of the decisions taken.
To return to the cost of the formalism imposed for strategic decisions and their operational control, the structure of organizations that we described in the previous chapters also has the effect of limiting the undesirable effect of Parkinson's law, i.e. -say the multiplication of unproductive hierarchical levels. So in the end, what we are doing is transferring a non-productive and destructive additional cost of confidence in the social system into a constructive additional cost, mainly by improving the indirect consequences of decisions taken in each organization.
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