I love the BBC. They don't need any more bashing from me but is there an opportunity for it to now take a completely new approach to organising themselves? Consider this short story from Kevin Carson's book, Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective:
One of the executive vice-presidents of the Union Carbide Corporation remarked in a private conversation that he and his colleagues "had no idea how to manage a large corporation." He said they simply did not know enough of the corporate workings, nor did they know what to do even if a clear problem was identified.
Sound familiar? His book makes a compelling case for organisations to dentralise and move away from a command and control structure. Other research asks the question: How much does productivity decrease as the organization grows? The answers are frankly frightening. When the size of an organisation trebles, its productivity halves.
The Economist article today, What's gone wrong on Planet Beeb, is worth a read but why no debate around the system used to organise themselves which can never be challenged? Yes find fresh blood and leaders from outside the BBC but this won't be enough to prevent fundamental knowledge and information problems in large organisations.
The fundamental problem in the BBC has been its relentless pursuit of neo-liberal managerialism, staffing with managers, marketers, etc, rather than solid journalists and technicians. The wholesale absorption of Birt-speak (as in Private Eye) where words lose their meaning and business jargon runs wild, with more 'vision' and mission statements, multi-modal strategy,....blah blah.... As for decentralise? Well, it will have to when Scotland dissolves the union in 2014. ;-)
Posted by: iain | November 16, 2012 at 21:44