managers who hide

A manager in music store in Alexandria several months ago berated his staff member when the staff member did the right thing. He had mucked up a series of credit card transactions for a customer. In the end he thought he had corrected the problem. The manager, instead of looking over his work and confirming that he had indeed corrected the problem told him that he did not want to know. The manager wanted to live in a world where ignorance is bliss and avoidance of responisibiltiy is the name of the game. If the staff memebr stuffed up then he could blame the member of staff. What he should have done was make sure that the lesson was learned and the mistake not repeated. The fact that it happened int he first place may be an indication of a lack of good management.

the benefit gained from decpit and deception

There is a major driver in the business world toward deceit and a major requirement for honesty and transparency. What we have here is a fundamental conflict that is part of the powerhouse that drives forward the economy and society.

Rambling commentary:

If one is in a car crash, and you know you made a mistake, you are told to lie about your liability. Or at the very least deny by omission. This is to limit the damages you may have to pay. It is also dishonest. The tax department would be very unhappy if you did this to limit your tax liability. So would the police. But it is ok to do it to non-government groups. Maximize your gain. Limit you losses. This is how the business world works. Hidden knowledge is beneficial to the profit statement. Yet this sometimes goes very wrong. For instance when the tobacco industry hid their knowldege of the health effects of tobacco, this can have deadly effects. It is in the benefit of too many people to change the rules. So they deflect the criticism to some bunch of people who are not powerful enough to fight back. For example, I saw a major catholic priest here in Sydney the other day quoted on the front page of a paper to say that we should ignore the problem of bad priests (his problem) and concentrate on another. When in reality we should concentrate on both. It is up to the society to determine what is bad and take appropriate action. But powerful vested interests direct the changes to ares where they are not involved. Another example: the recent slavery issue in China. This is what happens when an authority supresses questioning and say shit like you cannot question what we say and do because you will be considered to be disloyal and persecuted. You need to question and look. Ask the question why. I think the Germans understand only too well the need to question. So there is a force for disclosure, and there is a force saying, do what you are told and maintain deception. Complete disclosure does not work. Complete deception does not work. The trick is to know when which is appropriate and why.

More to come on this topic. It is very simple, yet has very complex results.