Dr Paul Thomas

January 13. 2008 22:58

It is expected during my work with companies bring forth a new way of thinking and doing that the majority of people respond with fear, trepidation and anxiety, all normal when they do not full understand the concept of change or the vast theory behind it. It is however disappointing that the ‘Head’ of Wales Management Council should respond with the same and demonstrate a clear lack of understanding to the process, thinking and challenge not to place Wales as an ‘also-ran’ but as world leaders as DNA seeks. The Welsh DNA academics and industrialists are committed to supporting organisations in Wales, to drive forward a new kind of business thinking and sustainable development for the 21st Century and beyond. There is a strong recognition in all others except Wales Management Council it seems, that in Wales 20th Century thinking about management, leadership will not allow the desired success for the future in Wales.

We only have to consider the Manufacturing sector in Wales provides jobs to around one in seven of all employees to fully understand our problem. 14% of the Welsh workforce is employed in manufacturing compared to 11% in England. These figures indicate the important contribution manufacturing brings to the wider economy, with 63% employed in ‘public services’. If we look at the concentration of manufacturing for South Wales the figures show a marked decrease with a fall of around 6% from 1998 to the present date. When Mr Ward makes the statement that everything must be better in Wales because management is one of the top 3 growing occupations in Wales is a ‘good thing’, is a shameful claim. Shameful especially in light that 80% of management time is spent in meetings and not adding value. A huge extravagance one we cannot afford in Wales, when manufacturing is in decline, Business bankruptcies are increasing and Wales poor shamefully the highest in the UK! Can you imagine the amount of money reinvested back into companies and organisations if the 200,000 managers quoted by Mr Ward were put back in to good use at the frontlines or to create new products?

What do we do that Mr Ward find so unpalatable it seem to me is that DNA aims to question and challenge traditional and current management practice and thinking, to improve organisational performance by, not managing. Simply at the start of changing an organisation in removing the title manager and its role in the organisations the people will see and understand how natural, human systems such as people and organisations operate while accepting an element of uncertainty. ‘Managers’ need then to contribute to the organisation and how their interactions influence the design and direction of the whole organisation from a customer perspective by adding direct value.

We only have to look at the NHS to see the waste in such a view it has on the patient care in Wales. Target setting, managers salaries and increasing bureaucracy created by ‘managers’ has doctor’s and clinicians morale at an all time low and police absenteeism levels are at an all time high, despite vast sums of money placed in for managers and management consultants. Managerial medalling is bringing industry and public services to their knees by a desire to control and treat staff as robots or cogs in a clock and worst still like children, is limiting staff and our economic growth.

My view of Welsh management is not that we have the wrong sort, indeed the ‘wrong sort’ is seen throughout the world simply by managers trying to be managers in the traditional sense. My view is that by removing managers in welsh companies we will replace them by having more managers throughout the organisation. That is everyone will be a manager. The ‘managers’ role will be taken by those voted into the position by the staff who respect the person they want to listen to, and who won’t interfere with their job.

Some managers and CEO’s are prepared to look at things differently and ensure Wales becomes number one in the world market place. By empowering and trusting staff became more creative in developing new business, indeed one company increase monthly turnover by 150%. Adopting a democratic approach is initially difficult but pays back dividends in the long-term with motivated, engaged, passionate, employees who enjoy and look forward to going into work. Plant earnings in one rose by 300% in 7 months, productivity by 45% in one company. In another accident rates fell by 95% and absenteeism went from 11% to 1% in 3 months and has remained like this for the past 18 months. Impressive, especially when you realise that this was done in companies without ‘managers’ in the Mr Wards traditional sense. We have to question the conventional ‘command and control’ management style, and consider alternative approaches if we are to move forward in Wales. I like to draw the analogy with a flock of birds; companies need to interact like they do in a complex, adaptive system in which, there is not just one pair of eyes (the manager) but a thousand pairs of eyes (all employees) focused on the prey and competition, i.e. customers and rivals.

We have to generate insight from new forms of measurement, critical support, bespoke input from qualified people and informed resources, using education and learning from training and personal development opportunities we are able to understand this ‘new’ way of thinking. We need to develop new qualifications, which encourage critical thinking, networking, humility and diversity and rid ourselves of the traditionalist who insist on doing the only way they know and except. We cannot afford to fund bodies who don’t critically review their practice and thinking yet expect the rest of the world to allow them to move forward at their pace. It won’t happen I’m afraid and larger parts of Wales will become ‘Objective 1’ status, thanks in part to people who fail to read, research and understand current practice.

Dr Paul Thomas

January 24. 2008 18:43

Hello Mr Ward, Great to see you are now a member of DNA Wales and contributing to the serious debate of ‘management’ in Wales. Welcome.

I’m afraid the surprise has been for all it seems, but your article is directly quoted, so there is no misrepresentation. Indeed, as a matter of fairness, I place a direct link to the full article. Nevertheless, please note that its not a direct debate about you or the WMC who I am sure have influenced many leaders and managers here in Wales.

I am also pleased you quote Drucker who as I am sure you will have read stated that the biggest regret he had a year before his death, was that he didn't convince managers that they were fairly useless in the 'control' of the organisation. Please also note that ‘Complexity Theory’ and ‘Human Systems Thinking’, which is the architecture behind the DNA process, has been around for hundreds of years. There are also in fact many managers already operating in the DNA way, who don’t even know it and we take great pleasure in writing these managers up in our case studies and using their way to help in our networks! Please come along, they are mostly free and we would welcome your expertise.

DNA Wales was set-up seven years ago, as an antidote to outdated management styles, as a directly result of my contact with the LSE and Ricardo Semler, and management which is more than well known for slowing down decision-making, innovation, creativity and production. Almost everyone now realise how misguided we are in our traditional styles and thinking and to treat people in a mechanistic and traditional perspective is quite wrong. I’m glad you agree and I look forward to a new direction in the WMC and documents which support this ethos. What we do at DNA as stated above, which many find so unpalatable is to question and challenge traditional and current management practice and thinking, to improve organisational performance by not managing. In simple terms, at the start of changing an organisation, we begin the process of removing the title ‘manager’ and its role within the company. The people quickly see and understand how natural, human systems such as people and organisations operate, while also accepting there will always be an element of uncertainty in business, as in life. By removing the ‘manager’ label, role and position you instantly remove ‘power’, status and control. Replacing this with leadership, influence and democracy. ‘Managers’ role and direction need to directly contribute to the organisation and understand how their interactions influence the design and direction of the whole organisation, from a customer’s perspective, and by adding direct value. This can only be done by the removal of the traditional mindset.

In my view and many others, and a vast academy of research, removing ‘traditional role’ managers from organisations will in fact allow us all to manage the wealth and health of a company, from within, and by all staff. Managers, sorry to say Mr Ward do not lead economic development in Wales, they are simply part of the process. This process would be far more efficient if the people were also the economic drivers, something that Complexity Theory initiates.

Mr Ward you quote and continue to miss-quote, my words and use your words that management in Wales are “medieval” to describe how I see them. I do not, nor have I used this expression. All I see in the mindset not the person in management as in appropriate for today’s environment. Again we have known in Complexity academy and DNA for decades, and is the key argument against hierarchy, management structures and the growth of corporate layers is the lack of another ‘mindset’ which is organic, free and human. We have lots of 'managers' who do not think 'medieval' or act in any way other than 'organic' and democratic.

Questioning how we manage and how we are managed is a difficult process. It causes fear, uncertainty, and worry for many staff and managers alike, as they begin to realise they’re not adding value to the customer experience. Instead most managers create bureaucracy, rules and procedures that are costly and counter-productive to the success of the business. What I would encourage from you Mr Ward and the WMC is support to develop this research, thinking, even if it were to prove otherwise here in Wales. The evidence so far in the UK and world-wide is that organisations which adopt the perspective of Complexity become, quicker, more innovative and creative. By truly empowering and trusting staff in a non-mechanistic and command way, they become more creative and more involved in developing new business i.e. the take ‘ownership’.


The figures, as stated above, which I repeat as you seem to miss these, speak for themselves, one company we have worked with increased its monthly turnover by 150%. Plant earnings in one of our supported companies rose by 300% in 7 months, productivity by 45%. In another, accident rates fell by 95% and absenteeism went from 11% to 1% in 3 months and has remained like this for the past 18 months. Impressive, especially when you realise that this was done in companies without ‘managers’ in the traditional sense.

We have to question the conventional ‘command and control’ management style, and consider alternative approaches if we are to move forward in Wales. Which the WMC seem to do on the surface, as stated above but by still holding on to the ‘traditional’ notion of the manager. It will take years to change if we do this and lag even further behind, making it almost impossible to survive let alone catch-up. And why should we play the game of ‘catch-up’ when its simply a matter of unlearning the traditional and moving into the new ‘enabling structures’ of complexity. This is not blatant publicity seeking, but the realisation and passion of DNA members that Wales will be great again, and will produce world leaders in business.


Just an aside Mr Ward, as I’m sure Jean will respond to your comment about Servant leadership which is 'an' approach to leadership coined and defined by Robert Greenleaf. However I'm not sure what you point is here or what Jean has misunderstood! However, the concept is thousands of years older than this or Prof Prossors work! Chanakya or Kautilya, the famous thinker from India, wrote about servant leadership in his 4th century book Arthashastra, the role of leaders as servants to the needs of others. Prof. Prossors book is excellent, and yes he is at Glamorgan. We have many debates on this matter but this is the nature of academia and intellectual debate. A core part of the DNA Wales process, but always from a research view, not just opinion.


However, welcome to DNA, Critical Management thinking and more informed debate....you never know...A "Wales Complexity Leadership Council"...

Dr Paul Thomas

January 25. 2008 09:59

Thank you Kelly for your contribution, but defining common lanuage is not that easy as you already know.

One solution to this dilemma may well reside in how we actually understand agency, and the individual’s capacity for exercising power, notably as resistance. Which is seen for by an opposing perspective of view in the same word as ‘manager’.

To act, to be an actor, to exercise intentionality, and choose, all of which are characteristics of agency, there must be power. That is, the power to differentiate, to select. Management Identity and work is more than the overwhelming attachment of the subject to ideological language and practice, it is simultaneously the exclusion of competing possibilities, e.g. I am a man, what I am not is a woman. I am gay, what I am not is straight, I am a Christian, what I am not is a Jew. The constitution of this identity is always and inevitably invested with the power to distinguish, simply because every identity signals what it is not as much as what it is. In which case, the very ‘constitution of social identity is an act of power’ (Laclau, 1990:33), whereby the subject (individual) succeeds in affirming what they do not wish to be seen as, as well as what they purport to be. By being a manager you are not an employee. Here lies the key importance to my stance and that of Christopher.

This does not mean, however, that the individual is exercising such power from an all-knowing position. Nor that the individual has recourse to some foundational knowledge and innate understanding beyond the social. What it does mean is that the individual possesses some capacity to ‘know’ beyond the ideology, but within the limits offered them by their immediate cultural and social placing. By allowing the notion of ‘manager’ to continue, traditional or not, reinforces the notion of them and us, regardless of any good intension by WMC. Moreover, the subject is also likely to be aware that some aspects of this identity they perform, certainly the public presentations, are ultimately representative, though in the moment of their enaction it may well feel much more concrete than that. So the man that I present as me is framed and expressed, to some extent, within the social conditions which surround me and which signal how a man is; likewise to be a woman, to be a young girl, a young Black male, etc.. My performance of this representation has agentic dimensions, in so much as I have the capacity to avoid those performances which do not reinforce the validation of my identity as a manager, and express those that I consider most appropriate and representative of ‘me’. But it is not totally agentic, for there appear to reside in this process, structural properties and these have the power effect of circumscribing whom I might become.

So we are now immersed in a fine web of identification as process, wherein we attempt to understand the constitutive properties of ideological apparatus, while recognising that, in the final analysis, no two people are exactly alike. No two managers act the same nor two employee’s, but the important aspect here is not the use of the word manager, but its preserved identify and social framework which produces the ‘known’ dimension of the traditional, mechanistic, rational and reductionist. This is one of the core differences and is problematic regardless of words used.

Dr Paul Thomas

January 28. 2008 21:10

Hello Kelly,

No I think a few of saw the comment, including myself, hence my reply above confirmation to no miss-understanding or representation.

If I could just return to the original theme of my post which is still very 'live', however before I do so, let me add that this is not a contest or personal engagement with Christopher, only the WMC and DNA for which we both represent and which can be seen in our statements, both passionate about Leadership here in Wales. Albeit from differing positions.

I agree with the comment of Senge, "deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations", if not his work, which bytheway was ground breaking in the early 1990's and like Complexity in 2008 was dismissed but those who thought better! Its the assumption that we need managers in their traditional 'mindset' is what I am arguing against here in Wales. It is easier to remove the word manager and the "images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action" here in Wales and our companies than it is to get managers to 'unlearn' what they have done for 5, 10, 15 or more years...simple in theory, difficult in practice. Hence the work of DNA!

By opening this debate with the WMC, we are increasing our chance of co-evolving and changing Wales to a state in which humans are treated like adults, people want to go to work, where potential is maximised and passions for innovation released.

There are several error in the WMC argument against the stance of DNA, this is not personal, but expected given the lack of knowledge and understanding of CES but many, including some in the DNA network itself. All I wish is that we have an open and honest debate about this issue so that each side of the argument is seen, heard and developed. This will allow others to convince themselves that change is needed...urgently for Wales to succeed. I, nor do others in DNA wish to convince anyone. Its not our role, perhaps unlike WMC. Our role is to provide evidence that there is another way, to change the 'organisation' to a better way...whatever this is and to ensure the success of Wales in a Global market.

I will present further point to Christophers argument, but under various themes so that the themes here are not lost in the vast academic principles of each school of thought.

Hope this helps
Paul