Management by Objectives - Feudal Aspects
"Management-by-objectives" as a feudal structure:
By Robert Jackall, âMoral Mazesâ?, 1988, in fact a in-depth anthropological study of the modern entreprise format:
"When managers describe their work to an outsider, they almost always first say: 'I work for [Bill James]' or 'I report to [Harry Mills].' and only then proceed to describe their actual work functions . . . The key interlocking mechanism of [modern corporate culture] is its reporting system. Each manager . . . formulates his commitments to his boss; this boss takes these commitments and those of his other subordinates, and in turn makes a commitment to his boss . . . This 'management-by-objective' system, as it is usually called, creates a chain of commitments from the CEO down to the lowliest product manager or account executive. In practice, it also shapes a patrimonial authority arrangement that is crucial to defining both the immediate experiences and the long-run career chances of individual managers. In this world, a subordinate owes fealty principally to his immediate boss."
Moral Mazes goes on to describe how bosses use ambiguity with their subordinates (and other more-or-less unconscious subterfuges) in order to preserve the power to claim credit and deflect blame, which tends to perpetuate the personalization of authority. Unlike a straight, Max Weber style bureaucracy, which is procedure-bound and rule-driven, a patrimonial bureaucracy is a set of hierarchical fiefdoms defined by personal power and patronage.â?