Summary of Contrasting Ideas from Various Readings

 

Many of the readings that we have discussed in class suggest a contrast between different approaches, not only to management, but also to human beings and what we consider "knowledge."

 

We can identify several of these contrasts across many of the readings. The phrases in brackets indicate terms that are suggested, but not explicitly stated, by the author.

 

Contrasting Ideas		Source
Scientific Management	Humanistic Management	Described in Micklethwait and Wooldrige
Mechanical Model of Management	Organic Model of Management	Petzinger
Brute Force	Metis	Homer, Iliad
The shortest time	The best time	Video on The Art of War
Scientific Reasoning	Moral Reasoning	Campbell
Psychology of Information	Psychology of Form	Burke on Form
Science	Magic	Burke on Admin Rhet
Descartes	Vico	Palmer's Introduction to Vico
Mathematics	Rhetoric	Vico
Occam's Razor, making divisions	Vico's Magnet, seeing connections (Ingenium)	Vico on Ingenium
Abstraction	Concreteness
Eloquence as mere plaster added to a framework of more stable qualities	Eloquence is the desire to make a work perfect by adapting it in every minute detail to the appetites	Burke on Form
Language is a natural growth	Language is an instrument which we shape for our own purposes	Orwell
Reason	Myth	Robertson
Logic	psycho-logic (literally, "the reasoning of the soul")
Information	Ideas	Roszak
[Corporate America]	Poetry	Whyte
[Mind]	Soul	Whyte
Economies of Scale	Economies of Time	Petzinger

 

These contrasts reveal an alternative to the typical management model that allows for significantly greater efficiencies and motivational potential. However, the best way to summarize these contrasts is not to say that the skillful manager should choose one over the other, not that humanistic management is better than scientific or that form is better than information, but rather that the skillful manager will choose from either column what is necessary to accomplish his goals. In other words, the best management is neither scientific nor humanistic, but rhetorical, choosing the best means of persuasion from all the available options. As Kenneth Burke says in his discussion of Machiavelli, "by treating the book [The Prince] as a manual of 'administrative rhetoric,' we can place the stress where it belongs: on the problem of the orator’s [or manager's] ability to choose the act best suited to the situation, rather than choosing the act best suited to the expression of his own nature."