Governance versus Management
Management: the judicious use of means to accomplish an end (ref. Webster's), often synonymous with authority, accountability, command and control. Corporate environment depend upon the delegation of authority to professionals in the front line.
Governance, on the other hand, which is more clearly apparent at Level 5, is found in a different place in the dictionary for a reason. Though the corporate environment may have latched onto the term "Governance", it is often implemented as simply a senior level management model. The more subtle aspects of governance can easily be lost.
Governance entails "exerting a determining or guiding influence in or over" (ref. Webster's). Governance (vice management) treats preservation of autonomy, delegated authority, and morale. It recognizes the reality that the knowledge workers are in the front line. A senior committee is there to guide and stimulate, not overtake and conquer.
Public Culture in a Private Culture Stereotype
We turn to that age old question in public management — "why won't these people do as they are told?" Of course, in public governance networks, versus the corporate network of Level 4, there is the notion of social engineering. Though Level 4 networks contain people that should subscribe to a common corporate ideology, this luxury does not exist in Level 5. Projects at Level 5 are even more dynamic and thus more elusive for this reason.
Level 2 in a Level 3 World - simpler than possible
"Shoe horning" a dynamic complexity problem into a detailed complexity framework can be done — it just won't play out as intended. Also, in under-targeting the response, our preferred tool distracts us from the greater issues to be addressed. We, in essence, relinquish control of the main point of the endeavor to the whims of nature.
A Level 2 tool in a Level 3 world is also convenient for approval stakeholders. It provides a depiction that maintains the illusion of greater control of resources and respect for deadlines. In fact, approval stakeholders often demand life be made simpler than it is through the requisite application of the classical project management model — an application that his both highly appealing and wrong!
|
Open System vs. a Closed System Stereotype
