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Ethics and the art of Management

by Simon Longstaff

Ask people to suggest a list of occupations in which an ability to be creative is essential and I doubt that too many will mention management. Until recently, the typical manager was widely imagined to be a grey functionary who keeps the wheels of industry and commerce turning by overseeing the exertions of those who stoke the fires of the economy.

In our post-industrial condition, the ‘information age’, the stereotypical manager is pictured as a faceless technocrat, sitting behind a console and endlessly calculating ways of maximising the extent to which wealth can be extracted from homo economicus.

Many people involved in the reality of modern management would want to argue that images such as these are clearly mistaken. At the very least they are a caricature of the complex reality of management in the modern world. Yet, in some senses, the mistake is understandable and even excusable. After all, it is little more than an exaggeration of a tendency to describe management as if it were a science.

This view of management (as a science) finds some of its purest expression in the work of theorists like Taylor, his collaborators and successors. Some would argue that the concept of scientific management has had its day.

However, recent developments suggest a revival of interest in the basic theses. For my part, I think that this paradigm is fundamentally flawed. Indeed, I would argue that its popularity flows from a desire to cloak management in the respectable garb of scientific method, technological innovation and calculable certainty.

The key to understanding the attraction of a scientific approach to management is constructed of two related elements. The first of these is a psychological tendency to adopt the garb of successful endeavours. Science has been spectacularly successful in delivering improvements in the way in which most people live.

The second element relates to an underlying need for certainty. In a world of constant change, people cling to any approach that seems likely to improve their capacity to control the physical and social environment. Allied to this need for certainty is a fear of anything that does not allow for precise measurement and calibration. An exclusive focus on the bottom line generates a narrow perspective in which 'soft systems' (like ethics) are regarded as an optional extra. However, in generating a precise vision of that which can be calculated, an essential aspect of the world can be lost from sight.

A superficial understanding of science would seem to invest its distinctive approach with particular authority. The power of this unfortunate paradigm helps to explain why it is that the distinctively human dimension of business has been subsumed by a technical approach that tends to treat people as if they were resources able to be ordered up and manipulated like any other kind of 'stockpile'.

Let me be clear; I am not wishing to suggest that all or most managers behave as if they were masters of a distinctive technology. Most management practice is far too lacking in systematic development for this to be so. However, I believe that there is a fairly deep-seated yearning for the kind of respectability conferred by science. Hence the willingness to tolerate the kind of one-dimensional caricature that was outlined above. Even so, it seems to me that images of the 'manager as scientist' should be swept away and replaced by those related to the idea of the 'manager as artist'.

What might follow from a conscious acceptance of the claim that management is an art - much as is the practice of medicine, the law and so on? The first thing to note is that, like all artists, the manager will need to be true to the substance with which he or she works.

For example, the potter throwing a pot at the wheel needs to have a feel for the clay. As such, the artist needs to be aware of both the possibilities and limitations inherent in the material being worked. Clay needs to be worked with a certain kind of care. Consistency must be preserved, the glaze adroitly applied and the kiln fired to just the right temperature.

The analogy with management will be fairly obvious. Rather than working with clay, managers work through the medium of other people. Thus, they need to be true to the nature of the individuals who make up the organisations which they serve. They need to ensure that each and every person is treated with respect and never merely as a means to the organisation's end.

It will also mean having to recognise and accept ambiguity of a kind traditionally faced by artists when trying to define the bounds of the aesthetic. It is at this point that the link between traditional artists and managers becomes most obvious. Just as aesthetic questions are notoriously difficult to resolve, so the ethical dimension of life is akin to a landscape that is mostly drawn in shades of grey rather than the stark tones of black and white.

This is not to say that it is legitimate to claim that “anything goes”. Despite the problem of finding a widely acceptable definition, we all recognise the difference between art and pornography. In a similar fashion, I believe that people develop a fair sense of what is acceptable practice in management.

Distinguishing between obvious alternatives is fairly easy. It is far more difficult to make a correct assessment of distinctions along the border-line. This is because there is no 'sixth sense' that is naturally refined to a degree sufficient to guide a person along the right track. Just as an artist needs to develop an aesthetic vocabulary under the guidance of a master, so a manager should develop a mature sense of the ethical through trial and error under the guidance of someone who possesses practical wisdom.

Seen in this light, the art of management calls forth extraordinary acts of creativity on a daily basis. Not only is there a need to respond to an ever-changing environment in which the issues to be addressed are in a constant state of flux. Managers are also required to do their best in nurturing and guiding the most plastic of materials - the mercurial temperament of other people.

Given that the manager-as-artist works with the human dimension, there is a pressing need for managers to equip themselves with an ability to discern the line along which healthy relationships can be developed. This, of course, is to become closely engaged with the ethical dimension of business and the professions.

Hence the accent on wisdom rather than mere knowledge. Hence the need to move beyond a naive view of science which has dominated management thinking for most of this century.

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