It’s also worth pointing out that conflicting institutional loyalties are a huge source of conflict. The “standard” practice in organizations is to collude with your direct management against their management—do things that favor your boss over your boss’s boss. Coward is doing things the ‘honest’ way, favoring his boss’s boss (i.e. the university as a whole) instead of his boss (the math department), which leads to both the conflict and his expectation that he’ll get support by making an ‘internal affair’ public.
But, of course, that also means he has lots of ready-made allies, regardless of the facts on the ground. We’ll see how this shakes out when more voices and details are added.
favoring his boss’s boss (i.e. the university as a whole) instead of his boss (the math department)
Favoring the “goals” of the organization as an abstraction over the actual punishment/reward structure of the living, breathing, and interacting cogs of the organization.
I’ve come to look at bureaucracies as parasites on the host organization.
Aligning the goals of the bureaucracy with the goals of the org is actually a very hard, very interesting, and very important problem.
It’s also worth pointing out that conflicting institutional loyalties are a huge source of conflict. The “standard” practice in organizations is to collude with your direct management against their management—do things that favor your boss over your boss’s boss. Coward is doing things the ‘honest’ way, favoring his boss’s boss (i.e. the university as a whole) instead of his boss (the math department), which leads to both the conflict and his expectation that he’ll get support by making an ‘internal affair’ public.
But, of course, that also means he has lots of ready-made allies, regardless of the facts on the ground. We’ll see how this shakes out when more voices and details are added.
Favoring the “goals” of the organization as an abstraction over the actual punishment/reward structure of the living, breathing, and interacting cogs of the organization.
I’ve come to look at bureaucracies as parasites on the host organization.
Aligning the goals of the bureaucracy with the goals of the org is actually a very hard, very interesting, and very important problem.