Hey y'all. I found this fascinating excerpt from a talk Hugh Nibley gave in 1983. Lots here we can apply to being an administrator.
Take care,
Tim
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What took place in the Greco-Roman as in the Christian world was that fatal shift from
leadership to
management that marks the decline and fall of civilizations.
At the present time, Captain Grace Hopper, that grand old lady of the Navy, is calling our attention to the contrasting and conflicting natures of management and leadership. No one, she says, ever managed men into battle. She wants more emphasis in teaching leadership. But leadership can no more be taught than creativity or how to be a genius. The
Generalstab tried desperately for a hundred years to train up a generation of leaders for the German army, but it never worked, because the men who delighted their superiors, i.e., the managers, got the high commands, while the men who delighted the lower ranks, i.e., the leaders, got reprimands. Leaders are movers and shakers, original, inventive, unpredictable, imaginative, full of surprises that discomfit the enemy in war and the main office in peace. For managers are safe, conservative, predictable, conforming organization men and team players, dedicated to the establishment.
The leader, for example, has a passion for
equality. We think of great generals from David and Alexander on down, sharing their beans or
maza with their men, calling them by their first names, marching along with them in the heat, sleeping on the ground, and first over the wall. A famous ode by a long-suffering Greek soldier, Archilochus, reminds us that the men in the ranks are not fooled for an instant by the executive type who thinks he is a leader.
For the manager, on the other hand, the idea of equality is repugnant and indeed counterproductive. Where promotion, perks, privilege, and power are the name of the game, awe and reverence for
rank is everything, the inspiration and motivation of all good men. Where would management be without the inflexible paper processing, dress standards, attention to proper social, political, and religious affiliation, vigilant watch over habits and attitudes, and so forth, that gratify the stockholders and satisfy security?
"If you love me," said the Greatest of all leaders, "you will keep my commandments." "If you know what is good for me," says the manager, "you will keep
my commandments, and not make waves." That is why the rise of management always marks the decline of culture. If the management does not go for Bach, very well, there will be no Bach in the meeting; if management favors vile, sentimental doggerel verse extolling the qualities that make for success, young people everywhere will be spouting long trade-journal jingles from the stand; if the management's taste in art is what will sell--trite, insipid, folksy kitsch--that is what we will get; if management finds maudlin, saccharine commercials appealing, that is what the public will get; if management must reflect the corporate image in tasteless, trendy new buildings, down come the fine old pioneer monuments.
To Parkinson's Law, which shows how management gobbles up everything else, he added what he calls the "Law of Injelitance": Managers do not promote individuals whose competence might threaten their own position; and so as the power of management spreads ever wider, the quality deteriorates, if that is possible. In short, while management shuns
equality, it feeds on
mediocrity.On the other hand, leadership is an escape from mediocrity. All the great deposits of art, science, and literature from the past on which all civilization is nourished come to us from a mere handful of leaders. For the qualities of leadership are the same in all fields, the leader being simply the one who sets the highest example; and to do that and open the way to greater light and knowledge, the leader must break the mold. "A ship in port is safe," says Captain Hopper, speaking of management; "but that is not what ships were built for," she adds, calling for leadership. True leaders are inspiring because they are inspired, caught up in a higher purpose, devoid of personal ambition, idealistic, and incorruptible.
There is necessarily some of the manager in every leader (what better example than Brigham Young?), as there should be some of the leader in every manager. Speaking in the temple to the temple management, the scribes and Pharisees all in their official robes, the Lord chided them for one-sidedness: They kept careful accounts of the most trivial sums brought into the temple, but in their dealings they neglected fair play, compassion, and good faith, which happen to be the prime qualities of leadership. The Lord insisted that
both states of mind are necessary, and that is important: "This ye must do [speaking of the bookkeeping] but not neglect the other." But it is "the blind leading the blind," he continues, who reverse priorities, who "choke on a gnat and gulp down a camel" (see Matthew 23:23ff). So vast is the discrepancy between management and leadership that only a blind man would get them backwards. Yet that is what we do. In that same chapter of Matthew, the Lord tells the same men that they do not really take the temple seriously while the business contracts registered in the temple they take very seriously indeed (see Matthew 23:16-18). I am told of a meeting of very big businessmen in a distant place, who happened also to be the heads of stakes, where they addressed the problem of "how to stay awake in the temple." For them what is done in the house of the Lord is mere quota-filling until they can get back to the real work of the world.
History abounds in dramatic confrontations between the two types, but none is more stirring than the epic story of the collision between Moroni and Amalickiah--the one the most charismatic
leader, the other the most skillful
manager in the Book of Mormon. We are often reminded that Moroni "did not delight in the shedding of blood" and would do anything to avoid it, repeatedly urging his people to make covenants of peace and preserve them by faith and prayer. He refused to talk about "the enemy"--for him they were always "our brethren," misled by the traditions of their fathers; he fought them only with heavy reluctance, and he
never invaded their lands, even when they threatened intimate invasion of his own; for he never felt threatened, since he trusted absolutely in the Lord. At the slightest sign of weakening by an enemy in battle, Moroni would instantly propose a discussion to put an end to the fighting. The idea of total victory was alien to him--no revenge, no punishment, no reprisals, no reparations, even for an aggressor who had ravaged his country. He would send the beaten enemy home after battle, accepting their word for good behavior or inviting them to settle on Nephite lands, even when he knew he was taking a risk. Even his countrymen who fought against him lost their lives only while opposing him on the field of battle--there were no firing squads, and former conspirators and traitors had only to agree to support his popular army to be reinstated. And, like Helaman, he insisted that conscientious objectors keep their oaths and not go to war even when he desperately needed their help. Always concerned with doing the decent thing, he would never take what he called unfair advantage of an enemy. Devoid of personal ambition, the moment the war was over he "yielded up the command of his armies . . . and he retired to his own house . . . in peace" (Alma 62:43), though as a national hero he could have had any office or honor. For his motto was, "I seek not for power," and as to rank, he thought of himself only as one of the despised and outcast of Israel. If all this sounds a bit too idealistic, may I remind you that there really have been such men in history, hard as that is to imagine today.
Above all, Moroni was the charismatic leader, personally going about to rally the people, who came running together spontaneously to his "title of liberty," the banner of the poor and downtrodden of Israel (Alma 46:12-13, 19-21). He had little patience with management and let himself get carried away and wrote tactless and angry letters to the big men sitting on their thrones "in a state of thoughtless stupor" back in the capital. And when it was necessary, he bypassed the whole system; he "altered the
management of affairs among the Nephites," to counter Amalickiah's managerial skill (Alma 49:11; emphasis added). Yet he could apologize handsomely when he learned that he had been wrong, led by his generous impulses to an exaggerated contempt for management, and he gladly shared with Pahoran the glory of the final victory--the one thing that ambitious generals jealously reserve for themselves.
But if Moroni hated war so much, why was he such a dedicated general? He leaves us in no doubt on that head--he took up the sword only as a last resort: "I seek not for power, but to pull it down" (Alma 60:36). He was determined "to pull down their pride and their nobility"--the pride and nobility of those groups who were trying to take things over (Alma 51:17). The "Lamanite brethren" he fought were the reluctant auxiliaries of Zoramites and Amalickiahites, his own countrymen. They "grew proud . . . , because of their exceedingly great riches," and sought to seize power for themselves (Alma 45:23ff). Enlisting the aid of "those who were in favor of kings . . . those of high birth . . . supported by those who sought power and authority over the people" (Alma 51:8), they were further joined by important judges who had many friends and kindreds (the right connections are everything) plus almost all the lawyers and the high priests, to which were added "the lower judges of the land, and they were seeking for power" (Alma 46:4). All these Amalickiah welded together with immense managerial skill to form a single ultraconservative coalition who agreed to "support him and establish him to be their king," expecting that "he would make them rulers over the people" (Alma 46:5). Many in the church were won over by Amalickiah's skillful oratory, for he was a charming flattering is the Book of Mormon word) and persuasive communicator. He made war the cornerstone of his policy and power, using a systematic and carefully planned communication system of towers and trained speakers to stir up the people to fight for their rights, meaning Amalickiah's career. For while Moroni had kind feelings for the enemy, Amalickiah "did care not for the blood of his people" (Alma 49:10). His object in life was to become king of both the Nephites and Lamanites, using the one to subdue the other (see Alma 46:5). He was a master of dirty tricks, to which he owed some of his most brilliant achievements as he maintained his upward mobility by clever murders, high-powered public relations, and great executive ability. His competitive spirit was such that he swore to drink the blood of Alma, who stood in his way. In short, he was "one very wicked man" (Alma 46:9), who stood for everything that Moroni loathed.
It is at this time in Book of Mormon history that the word
management makes its only appearances (three of them) in all the scriptures. First there was that time when Moroni on his own "altered the management of affairs among the Nephites" (Alma 49:11) during a crisis. Then there was Korihor, the ideological spokesman for the Zoramites and Amalickiahites, who preached that "every man fared in this life according to the
management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius [ability, talent, brains, and so forth], and . . . conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime" (Alma 30:17; emphasis added). He raged against the government for taking people's property, that "they durst not make use of that which is their own" (Alma 30:28). Finally, as soon as Moroni disappeared from the scene, the old coalition "did obtain the sole
management of the government," and immediately did "turn their backs upon the poor" (Helaman 6:39; emphasis added), while they appointed judges to the bench who displayed the spirit of cooperation by "letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money" (Helaman 7:5). (All this took place in Central America.)
Such was the management that Moroni opposed. By all means, brethren, let us take "Captain Moroni" for our model, and never forget what he fought for--the poor, outcast, and despised; and what he fought against--pride, power, wealth, and ambition; or
how he fought, as the generous, considerate, and magnanimous foe--a leader in every sense.
(Even at the risk of running overtime I must pause and remind you that this story of which I have given just a few small excerpts is supposed to have been cooked up back in the 1820s somewhere in the backwoods by some abysmally ignorant, disgustingly lazy, and shockingly unprincipled hayseed. Aside from a light mitigation of those epithets, that is the only alternative to believing that the story is
true; nobody made it up, for the situation is equally fantastic no matter what kind of author you choose to invent.)
That Joseph Smith is beyond compare the greatest leader of modern times is a proposition that needs no comment. Brigham Young recalled that many of the brethren considered themselves better managers than Joseph and were often upset by his economic naiveté. Brigham was certainly a better manager than the Prophet (or anybody else, for that matter), and he knew it, yet he always deferred to and unfailingly followed Brother Joseph all the way while urging others to do the same, because he knew only too well how small is the wisdom of men compared with the wisdom of God.
Moroni scolded the management for their "love of glory and the vain things of the world" (Alma 60:32), and
we have been warned against the things of this world as recently as the last general conference. But exactly what are the things of the world? An easy and infallible test has been given us in the well-known maxim "You can have anything in this world for money." If a thing is of this world, you can have it for money; if you cannot have it for money, it does not belong to this world. That is what makes the whole thing
manageable--money is pure number; by converting all values to numbers, everything can be fed into the computer and handled with ease and efficiency. "How much?" becomes the only question we need to ask. The manager "knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing" (Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, act 3), because for him the value
is the price.
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Taken from:
http://speeches.byu.edu/htmlfiles/NibleySu83.html
