“Management is, in the end, the most creative of all the arts – for its medium is human talent itself. What–in the end-is management’s most fundamental task? It is to deal with change. Management is the gate through which social, political, economic, technological change-indeed change in every dimension-is rationally and effectively spread through society.
Some critics, today, keep worrying that our democratic, free societies are becoming overmanaged. The real truth is precisely the opposite. As paradoxical as it may sound, the real threat to democracy comes from under management, not from overmanagement. To undermanage reality is not to keep it free. It is simply to let some force other than reason shape reality. That force may be unbridled emotion; it may be greed; it may be aggressiveness; it may be hatred; it may be ignorance; it may be inertia; it may be anything other than reason. But whatever it is , if it is not reason that rules man, then man falls short of his potential…
Rational decisions making depends of having a full range of rational options from which to choose. Successful management organizes the enterprise so that process can best take place. It is a mechanism whereby free men can most efficiently exercise their reason, initiative, creativity, and personal responsibility.
It is the adventurous and immensely self-satisfying task of an efficient organization to formulate and analyze those options. It is true enough that not every conceivable complex human situation can be fully reduced to lines on a graph, or to percentage points on a chat, or to figures on a balance sheet. But all reality can be reasoned about. And not to quantify what can be quantified is only to be content with something less than the full range of reason…
But to argue that some phenomena transcend precise measurement-which is true enough-is no excuse for neglecting the arduous task of carefully analyzing what can be measured. A computer does not substitute for judgment any more than a pencil substitutes for literacy. But writing ability without a pencil is no particular advantage.
Modern, creative management of huge, complex phenomena is impossible without both the technical equipment and technical skills which the advance of human knowledge has brought us.”
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Youtube: ABC News – Robert S. McNamara Dies at 93
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K9_AYoRoRo&feature=related
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