The Conditioners

From Robber Barrons to Conditioners - in the end it's all about the Abolition of Man. What have we gained C.S.?

New Way of Measuring Contracting

The budget is a contract between the policymakers and municipal departments. The budget also may be viewed as a contract between the citizens and the municipality. That is, the citizens have agreed to pay taxes so they can receive certain services from the municipality.

Civility and the New Order

Dave Limardi did a presentation this summer at the WCMA conference that introduced most of the ideas discussed in my recent blogs. Nice work Dave.
Tent 2
Affirm the dignity and worth of the services rendered by government and maintain a constructive, creative, and practical attitude toward local government affairs and a deep sense of social responsibility as a trusted public servant.

The Group

Lately, it has been become fashionable for politicians to make fact-free attacks on hard-working public employees. Unjustified attacks on public employees’ at meetings and work about their character, work ethic and very existence have become sadly common. Prolonged and systematic attacks on any group in an effort to take away their rights, voice, and respect in society are a hallmark of the bullying style now defining American politics.
The bullying style seeks to disparage a selected target so thoroughly as to deny it prestige or sympathy, render it a pariah, and rebrand it as a threat to the common good.
The bullying style derives in part from prejudice, in part from opportunism. Adept at exploiting stereotypes and fears about job security and the economic status, its tools are ridicule, scapegoating, blaming targets for their own mistreatment, and raw use of power to downgrade social standing.
The bullying style has penetrated mainstream politics in a fashion long relegated to extremist movements, such as the anti-government, and anti-immigrant groups. More associated with the coffee shop than the hallways of state, it is now a defining aspect of political leadership and governance, even as its practice frustrates both leading and governing.
Recognize that although bullies’ comments are personal, they are a tactic. The intention of the bully is to provoke and cause managers to make mistakes. The attacks are the bully’s worldview, not the manager’s. Their comments are intended to provoke reflexive action. For a manager, it does not make sense to counterattack or withdraw. The manager needs to acknowledge the context and move to the facts and to the purpose of the meeting.

An Older Manager Told Me

Everything we do, no matter how simple or straightforward, entails some sort of conceptual underpinning -- some grounding in a belief or system of beliefs. Most of us believe in a solid, enduring, independent "self" -- an "I" that requires a good deal of maintenance. It takes a lot of effort to maintain a belief in a "self" and "others."
Civility brings together the belief in a “self” and “other.” Civility requires self-control, especially in dialogues with others with whom we disagree. We tend to view “self” and “other” in society along lines of race, social-economic groups, religion, age, politics and special interests. The “self’ can be hostile to the “other” and resort to bullying tactics. A bullying tactic is shame. Shame is used to establish dominance.
One of the most challenging emotions we have that involve managing “self” and “other” is embarrassment. Embarrassment and shame can be unpleasant to experience, but are emotions that allow us to adapt our world to the “self” and “other.” When we were children, shame allows us to stay out of harm’s way, and as adults, shame keeps us from tearing apart our social fabric.
Biologically, we are all wired for shame, an emotion experienced as an interruption to positive emotions. We can feel a little bit of shame as a twinge of self-consciousness or an immersion in shame as profound humiliation.
As manager’s, we must learn to manage our shame similar to anger and hate. Tolerance is the name of the civility game.

A Civil Affair

The individual wants the truth as long as it is comfortable and safe, but if it is inconsequential or harmful he or she is apathetic or hostile towards it. An ideologue will examine other groups relative to his or her own particular group, especially with concern to ideas about language, behavior, customs, and religion.
Ingroup/outgroup identity is about essential identity. Because members of the ingroup are essentially good, the same behavior on the part of the ingroup is good, and the outgroup is evil. The essentially good nature of the ingroup is a "precommitment," meaning it is prior to and protected from discourse—no number of counterexamples will change the person's perception that the ingroup is good.
And it makes no difference if they are liberal or conservative. They believe their way of thinking is the truth because it is comfortable and safe, they fail to give any consideration to others views. Rather, they attack the other side because the ideology of their side is always defensible and must be defended to the end, even if they would (and/or have) engaged in the very same unreasonable behavior they are attacking the other group about. Civility is gone.

Gov't Assistance

The money of the people lent to capital to encourage investment use to have some expectation of return tied to the relationship - now we just hope it trickles down.

Discarded Image

C.S. Lewis writes about how people use images of things and over time discard the image for a new image as the old image no longer provides full and accurate information. The discarding of the image isn't as hard as fitting into the places that still use the old image. It's similar to the problem where the running of a constitution is harder than framing one.

Today's Quote

The sinews of war are infinite money. Marcus Tullius Cicero

To Ponder

Today many government employees feel as unloved as the tax collector. Lets light a candle for St. Matthew.

Creating Public Value by Mark H. Moore

Somewhere between the neutral administrator directing democratically enacted legislation and the Nuremberg directive to resist injustice and corruption lies the modern manager searching for public value. This manager lives on the "razors edge" balancing competing political, ethical, and organizational issues in a daily search to create public value through the organization. The psychological pressure of these complex demands requires a great deal of poise and balance. As a manager you may have the administrative skills, but do you have the moral capacity? It can be a long lonely road to seek justice and oppose corruption.

Annoying and Harassing

More than ever before, I feel pressure to purify politically the "dialogue of public discourse . . . in which we decide, collectively, who we are, what our values are, and what ends we will pursue." There is a religious fervor to the political sides of every issue at all levels.