Monopoly is ability to provide something essential that nobody else can provide. Power is ability to control. If you have acquire certain resources that people depends on, then you can manipulate the people by making them accepting your conditions. The resources you have acquired must be both essential and un-substitutable.
At a distance, bowmen have power on swordsmen because bowmen have ability to hit. Governments work on monopoly by making it illegal for masses to do certain things like having a private army, issuing currency, having independent foreign policy or provide justice. Managers have power on workers because only managers can write the periodic performance-evaluation reports on which salary, promotion etc of workers depends. If some non-government agency such as local committees start providing justice or independent security firms starts providing security etc then government loses control. If directors interfere by starting consulting workers directly then managers lose power.
Power comes by being in minority. Majority never have power because majority never have monopoly. Its always a selected few that control the essential resources. This is why democracies are essentially broken. Masses never have power because they are replaceable. Its the few talented ones that controls. Their talent can be in giving speeches, in administration, in gaining sympathies, in winning wars, in making economic systems more efficient etc but its some talent to the extreme that nobody else in country have.
Battles are won by acquiring some unique position like higher ground. If there are multiple equivalent higher grounds then nobody wins. Skirmishes are won by acquiring the unique position where you can hit and the enemy is unable to hit, like in aircraft dog fights at the tail of the enemy aircraft.
Communist Revolution was successful by taking control of military which is an essential resource. Taking control of masses is never enough because masses are not essential resource and therefore can easily be replaced. This is why uprising of 1906 failed.
Mughals ruled in india by having hundreds of replaceable amirs therefore preventing power going in the hands of amirs. Occasionally amirs do get some power when at the death of a king multiple princes fight for the throne. Princes in such situations are multiple, therefore replaceable. This is the same principle by which leaders have power. A leader have to have some unique and essential ability that none of the sub-ordinates have. If leader has no such ability then there is no value addition and soon people seek somebody else.
Globalization breaks monopolies because although certain entities can have local monopolies almost no entity has global monopoly. It means that although in a small region certain company or individual has some unique ability its very hard to have that uniqueness globally.
Monopoly in skills comes in two dimensions: intensity and extensity. While its essential to acquire deep working knowledge of a certain field its also helpful to have knowledge of multiple fields. Since knowledge is easy to get at start and get tougher as one goes deeper (the 80 20 rule) its more efficient to have middle level knowledge of many things than to have very deep knowledge of a few things. This is not a suggestion against speciality. Speciality is needed but usually only middle level. A few deep experts in entire planet in each useful field is enough. For all others its ok to stop at middle level expertise and move on to some other field. The monopoly would then come by the combinations.
Caesar had the unique combination of winning wars, gaining masses' hearts by spreading wealth and managing budget all at the same time. Mark Anthony could win both wars and hearts but was never good in balancing budgets. Octavius was expert in maintaining budget only. Its like when a leader dies, the replacing generals each have some of the qualities of the leader but none has the combination. Also none of the replacing generals reach same level of expertise in any of the subset of qualities.
Out of the 4 wheels of a car none has monopoly because the work done by any of the wheels can be done to some level by the 2 adjacent wheels. Same goes for walls in a room. This do not hold for a tent in which the center pillar is on which the other 4 rest, so the center pillar has monopoly.
All contracts are means of getting monopoly. For example the job contract limits employments rights of the worker, the nationality contract limits loyalty rights of citizens etc.
Governments work by enforcing monopolies on masses but themselves avoid monopolies by having multiple agencies doing the same work. Examples include military, border guards, rangers doing the same essential function, multiple spy agencies doing the same essential function, multiple levels of judiciary doing the same essential function etc. Even inside a government agency multiple workers are present for same job in order to break monopoly. Monopolies in essence are never efficient but are very effective. Private companies while gaining efficiency over-depend on a few critical workers whose exit can easily bring the entire company at its knees.
Ability to take war to another dimension where enemy cannot go is monopoly. For example if one army is entirely ground-base and another army is both ground-based and air-based then the chances of winning of second army are very high. Same goes for the first nation that takes war to space which for all practical purposes is another dimension entirely.
Essence of winning wars is to hit the enemy where it cannot strike back. This is why guerilla wars are usually won by the militias and very seldom by the regular armies. If the enemy cannot hit back entirely, that is there is one hundred percent guarantee that enemy cannot strike back in that particular field then chances are very high that the enemy would simply surrender. Such is the case of japan surrendering after the nuclear attacks.
27 March, 2013
Be Industrial
If you want to make large things (systems) you have to start from small things (parts). A part is a simple process that takes in some input, do some work on that input and produces some output.
A part is like a mathematical function, a machine, a worker etc. The work can be transformation, selection, observation, consumption etc.
Some parts take input directly from environment, others from other parts of the system.
Parts can be of different types. Parts of each type can have to be made, run, repaired and replaced in a different way requiring different skills.
Parts are the doers like the action-words the verbs in a sentence.
A system is nothing but interacting parts. The interaction is simply outputs of some parts becoming inputs of other parts.
Feed back loops make systems complicated. A feed back loop is when outputs of higher level parts become inputs of lower level parts. Higher level parts are those whose input is output of lower level parts. So if a normal flow is A -> B then a feed back loop would be B -> A. Feed back loops do exist in nature such as in some chemical reactions, in climate etc.
When you make a system, try to avoid feedback loops. That is to say avoid multiple flows.
Also reduce central parts. These are the parts that combine outputs of other parts and send its own output forward. Its like a sentry on the gate, materials have to pass through it. Its ok to have several small central units but having one large system-wide central unit is complicated, though cannot be avoided in some systems such as an aircraft in which the central unit is the engine. However the single-point of failure can still be avoided by making multiple units acting together to make the central unit. In case of engine these are the individual cylinders. If one cylinder fails the others can still be operational. In politics this is the central committee (national assembly, central advisory committee etc). In business it can be the board of directors. In CPUs it can be the individual ALUs. Parallelism is needed for this to work properly. A tree-like structure such as file system is not appropriate for achieving parallelism, a forest-like system such as having multiple drive is appropriate for this purpose because of having multiple roots.
Case in point: Wings in an air plane. Both wings are single-point of failure because if any one of them is damaged, the entire plane is doomed. A better engineering solution is to have multiple wings at each side so the plane as a whole has multiple pairs of wings.
Case in point: Wheels in an automobile. No single-point of failure. Loss of any of the wheels do not stop the car.
Case in point: Single point of exit from a room. Single-point of failure. If the door is not functioning due to lock, rubble etc then the people trapped inside could suffocate and very easily die. Solution is to have some back door or back windows which could be opened. Fire exits in buildings and cinemas are examples of avoiding single-point of failures.
Case in point: A webpage without javascript. Such webpages requires available internet connection and web server for every task because nothing happens at client side. Solution is to use javascript so that some of the work for example validating user input, sorting columns, calculating totals etc could be done at client side.
Case in point: Farming without raising animals.
Have as little interactions between parts as there can be. Less interaction, less complexity, less cost, more scalability.
Combining parts into components into systems is less complicated and requires less effort than making parts. More than half the effort should be used in making parts. Improvements come often at start and one should not be afraid of implementing those improvements by upgrading parts but a few words of caution: do not upgrade when already in war unless you have a large number of parts to spare or victory is highly unlikely using current parts. Frequent upgrades of parts during war time disturbs the whole system and can easily lose an almost won war. War or peace, whenever upgrade is done, keep the old parts while moving in streams of new parts, replace the old parts only when the load is sufficiently carried by the new parts.
A part is like a mathematical function, a machine, a worker etc. The work can be transformation, selection, observation, consumption etc.
Some parts take input directly from environment, others from other parts of the system.
Parts can be of different types. Parts of each type can have to be made, run, repaired and replaced in a different way requiring different skills.
Parts are the doers like the action-words the verbs in a sentence.
A system is nothing but interacting parts. The interaction is simply outputs of some parts becoming inputs of other parts.
Feed back loops make systems complicated. A feed back loop is when outputs of higher level parts become inputs of lower level parts. Higher level parts are those whose input is output of lower level parts. So if a normal flow is A -> B then a feed back loop would be B -> A. Feed back loops do exist in nature such as in some chemical reactions, in climate etc.
When you make a system, try to avoid feedback loops. That is to say avoid multiple flows.
Also reduce central parts. These are the parts that combine outputs of other parts and send its own output forward. Its like a sentry on the gate, materials have to pass through it. Its ok to have several small central units but having one large system-wide central unit is complicated, though cannot be avoided in some systems such as an aircraft in which the central unit is the engine. However the single-point of failure can still be avoided by making multiple units acting together to make the central unit. In case of engine these are the individual cylinders. If one cylinder fails the others can still be operational. In politics this is the central committee (national assembly, central advisory committee etc). In business it can be the board of directors. In CPUs it can be the individual ALUs. Parallelism is needed for this to work properly. A tree-like structure such as file system is not appropriate for achieving parallelism, a forest-like system such as having multiple drive is appropriate for this purpose because of having multiple roots.
Case in point: Wings in an air plane. Both wings are single-point of failure because if any one of them is damaged, the entire plane is doomed. A better engineering solution is to have multiple wings at each side so the plane as a whole has multiple pairs of wings.
Case in point: Wheels in an automobile. No single-point of failure. Loss of any of the wheels do not stop the car.
Case in point: Single point of exit from a room. Single-point of failure. If the door is not functioning due to lock, rubble etc then the people trapped inside could suffocate and very easily die. Solution is to have some back door or back windows which could be opened. Fire exits in buildings and cinemas are examples of avoiding single-point of failures.
Case in point: A webpage without javascript. Such webpages requires available internet connection and web server for every task because nothing happens at client side. Solution is to use javascript so that some of the work for example validating user input, sorting columns, calculating totals etc could be done at client side.
Case in point: Farming without raising animals.
Have as little interactions between parts as there can be. Less interaction, less complexity, less cost, more scalability.
Combining parts into components into systems is less complicated and requires less effort than making parts. More than half the effort should be used in making parts. Improvements come often at start and one should not be afraid of implementing those improvements by upgrading parts but a few words of caution: do not upgrade when already in war unless you have a large number of parts to spare or victory is highly unlikely using current parts. Frequent upgrades of parts during war time disturbs the whole system and can easily lose an almost won war. War or peace, whenever upgrade is done, keep the old parts while moving in streams of new parts, replace the old parts only when the load is sufficiently carried by the new parts.
15 March, 2013
Elites - Part 2
There are five layers in society and in organizations:
1) Executives: Royal family, premiers i.e. kings, presidents etc.
2) Elites: CEOs, directors, managers etc.
3) Specialists: Accountants, technicians, supervisors, traders, craftsmen etc.
4) Workers: Farmers, factory labor.
5) Penny-Less: Immigrants, unemployed, refugees, prisoners, slaves, beggars, disabled etc.
Lets start from bottom. Penny-less are those people that are so poor they practically have no possessions. They include the beggars, the new immigrants who are unable to bring any possessions, refugees, unemployed, slaves etc. These people are responsibility of other people to feed and cloth. They are outside the economic system, slaves are also outside the economic system because usually they are used for personal services, not for economic services. The healthy proportion of this class is less than 10% of population. Once it reaches double figures obvious problems begins and at 20% the entire economic system is a run away system which can't be repaired or recovered by normal human actions. Collapse comes later, at 25% when the economic system breaks down and a new system emerges.
Whatever could be done humanly can be done before the 20% level. After it nothing short of a miracle can prevent the collapse. Note that the problem accelerates as it increases, so its a short time duration between 20% and 25%. French Revolution came when 25% population of Paris consisted of beggars and shortly before that the number was 20%.
Increase and decrease in this class comes from the worker class. As economic conditions deteriorate, more and more workers go out of work or can't feed or cloth themselves even when working, so the penny-less class increases. In a cruel system where workers are not paid enough it can be that the entire worker class is non-existent as they are all practically in the penny-less class. These system are inherently unstable and a small uprising can collapse the entire system.
For a stable economic system, the workers have to be fed and cloth properly. Hunger is not tolerated for more than half a week and within a matter of a week or month the system stops running. Both Russian and French revolutions came at time of enough food in stocks but unavailable to the worker class due to high prices. Those prices were high due to inflation induced by government. Government induced that inflation to finance war or war preparation.
War is a dangerous thing because of its ability to bring down not just the economic but also the political system very quickly even in case of victory if too many resources are spent. If war abroad is getting too expensive and reduction in war budget risks defeat at front, its better to retreat back to one's own territory and then get attacked by enemy army in one's own country. Its because usually people are willing to sacrifice more for defense than for offense.
If workers are not paid enough, they would join the penny-less class and if enough of them join that a revolt is imminent and collapse very likely. If workers are paid above a certain level they could stop being workers and join the specialists class. If enough of them join the specialists class then elites do not get enough income. If elites do not get enough income then military suffers and country can be easily defeated militarily at front. A way around to that is taxing the specialists but due to the very nature of their work specialists can easily shift most of their economic activities in the undocumented, shadow economy therefore paying little tax. Also a large specialists class depending on a small worker class is like an inverted pyramid resting on its tip, very unstable. Food and goods shortages can come very quickly killing the specialists class.
The elites needs workers to produce food and goods. Note that workers are not supposed to produce services. Some services are public, things like education, medical, judiciary, security, record-keeping etc and must be provided by government for free. Some services are commercial, things like transportation, trade, hair cutting etc, and must be provided by specialists.
Elites are supposed to use workers to produce goods and services so that:
Elites have to be countryside-based, means not live in cities. This is needed because:
When war happens, we need both continued, even increased production of food and goods, for fighting as well as for repairing, and soldiers to actually fight at front. The proposed system make it duty of the same elites to do both. Since the same elite cannot be at two places at the same time, we have to have either two types of elites, one economical and one military, or set only a few mandatory days of military service on elites. The few mandatory military service days is not going to cut it because wars can be long and we might be needing all of the elites at front. Also the elites can be martyred at front then who is going to manage the estate for production?
One way is to have elites in charge of estates, but only like lions, means all the work is done by administrators and the elites just watch and tweak things and re-engineer business processes once in a while but do not interfere in normal running of the system. Since during wars we cannot afford to experiment new business processes we cannot re-engineer the business processes till war is over so elites are basically free to go to front.
When elites get martyred at fronts, some other elites have to take care of the family of the martyred elite, till one son of the martyred elite grow up to handle the estate. This cannot be much burden on elites because elites do not have to interfere with administrative tasks anyway. Also some of the martyred elites can be quickly replaced by brothers or sons who are old enough to handle the estates.
In this situation, the administrators can get very powerful once war starts and elites are gone to front. This can be handled by having large elite families in estates, that can stand with wives of elites in case of internal uprisings. This has its own problem of putting two elites at same estate, even if they are brothers, each elite would want complete control and elite families would have inner fights and power struggles.
One way is to have auxillary families around the elite family in each estate. These can be friends or relatives or neighbours, people well known and trusted by the elite. The auxillaries would have to be freely fed and cloth and provided a living standard higher than workers but lower than the elites, so that they side with the elites. The auxillaries can act as trusted guards and private armies of the elite family. This is other than the normal private army the elite would support on expense of government. The auxillaries have to be supported by the elite from his personal income.
The auxillaries need not be friends or relatives or neighbours, they could be slaves or servants, loyal to elites. For this system to work, some safeguards must be put in place:
1) Executives: Royal family, premiers i.e. kings, presidents etc.
2) Elites: CEOs, directors, managers etc.
3) Specialists: Accountants, technicians, supervisors, traders, craftsmen etc.
4) Workers: Farmers, factory labor.
5) Penny-Less: Immigrants, unemployed, refugees, prisoners, slaves, beggars, disabled etc.
Lets start from bottom. Penny-less are those people that are so poor they practically have no possessions. They include the beggars, the new immigrants who are unable to bring any possessions, refugees, unemployed, slaves etc. These people are responsibility of other people to feed and cloth. They are outside the economic system, slaves are also outside the economic system because usually they are used for personal services, not for economic services. The healthy proportion of this class is less than 10% of population. Once it reaches double figures obvious problems begins and at 20% the entire economic system is a run away system which can't be repaired or recovered by normal human actions. Collapse comes later, at 25% when the economic system breaks down and a new system emerges.
Whatever could be done humanly can be done before the 20% level. After it nothing short of a miracle can prevent the collapse. Note that the problem accelerates as it increases, so its a short time duration between 20% and 25%. French Revolution came when 25% population of Paris consisted of beggars and shortly before that the number was 20%.
Increase and decrease in this class comes from the worker class. As economic conditions deteriorate, more and more workers go out of work or can't feed or cloth themselves even when working, so the penny-less class increases. In a cruel system where workers are not paid enough it can be that the entire worker class is non-existent as they are all practically in the penny-less class. These system are inherently unstable and a small uprising can collapse the entire system.
For a stable economic system, the workers have to be fed and cloth properly. Hunger is not tolerated for more than half a week and within a matter of a week or month the system stops running. Both Russian and French revolutions came at time of enough food in stocks but unavailable to the worker class due to high prices. Those prices were high due to inflation induced by government. Government induced that inflation to finance war or war preparation.
War is a dangerous thing because of its ability to bring down not just the economic but also the political system very quickly even in case of victory if too many resources are spent. If war abroad is getting too expensive and reduction in war budget risks defeat at front, its better to retreat back to one's own territory and then get attacked by enemy army in one's own country. Its because usually people are willing to sacrifice more for defense than for offense.
If workers are not paid enough, they would join the penny-less class and if enough of them join that a revolt is imminent and collapse very likely. If workers are paid above a certain level they could stop being workers and join the specialists class. If enough of them join the specialists class then elites do not get enough income. If elites do not get enough income then military suffers and country can be easily defeated militarily at front. A way around to that is taxing the specialists but due to the very nature of their work specialists can easily shift most of their economic activities in the undocumented, shadow economy therefore paying little tax. Also a large specialists class depending on a small worker class is like an inverted pyramid resting on its tip, very unstable. Food and goods shortages can come very quickly killing the specialists class.
The elites needs workers to produce food and goods. Note that workers are not supposed to produce services. Some services are public, things like education, medical, judiciary, security, record-keeping etc and must be provided by government for free. Some services are commercial, things like transportation, trade, hair cutting etc, and must be provided by specialists.
Elites are supposed to use workers to produce goods and services so that:
- A regular supply of these items is guaranteed.
- Elites and by extension government can have a stable stream of income.
- In war supply of essentials is ensured, even when producing them is uneconomical.
- Specialists can be supported. Merchants need stuff to trade. Specialists need stuff.
Elites have to be countryside-based, means not live in cities. This is needed because:
- Farms, forests and mines are primary source of production for entire economy. Everything that is produced comes from there. Since these things are at country-side, out at open, elites must live nearby to control workers efficiently.
- This implies that factories must be in estates, not in cities. This reduces pollution, diseases, crime rates etc in cities. Since these factories are specialized in whatever farm, forest or mine is nearby its more efficient to produce finished goods there than bringing the raw materials to cities and producing there then getting rid of wastes.
- In era of air raids, air bombings, missiles and nuclear attacks, putting factories at country-side has more chance of survival of industrial base during wars.
- Young men of small cities and villages have no more need of moving to cities as respectable work is provided where they are.
- Putting industrial base in villages have unavoidable side-effect of decentralizing industrial base. This do result in less control of central government but helps in faster growth as very little regulations can be applied from so far. Also each of the estate can develop its own business processes well suited to its unique needs, this is better than a few buerreaucrats sitting in center city making empire wide decisions having little knowledge of situation on ground.
- The very nature of system is that those same elites that are responsible for production are also responsible for fighting wars for the empire. When they go fight they fight not just for the empire but for their very own estates as well.
When war happens, we need both continued, even increased production of food and goods, for fighting as well as for repairing, and soldiers to actually fight at front. The proposed system make it duty of the same elites to do both. Since the same elite cannot be at two places at the same time, we have to have either two types of elites, one economical and one military, or set only a few mandatory days of military service on elites. The few mandatory military service days is not going to cut it because wars can be long and we might be needing all of the elites at front. Also the elites can be martyred at front then who is going to manage the estate for production?
One way is to have elites in charge of estates, but only like lions, means all the work is done by administrators and the elites just watch and tweak things and re-engineer business processes once in a while but do not interfere in normal running of the system. Since during wars we cannot afford to experiment new business processes we cannot re-engineer the business processes till war is over so elites are basically free to go to front.
When elites get martyred at fronts, some other elites have to take care of the family of the martyred elite, till one son of the martyred elite grow up to handle the estate. This cannot be much burden on elites because elites do not have to interfere with administrative tasks anyway. Also some of the martyred elites can be quickly replaced by brothers or sons who are old enough to handle the estates.
In this situation, the administrators can get very powerful once war starts and elites are gone to front. This can be handled by having large elite families in estates, that can stand with wives of elites in case of internal uprisings. This has its own problem of putting two elites at same estate, even if they are brothers, each elite would want complete control and elite families would have inner fights and power struggles.
One way is to have auxillary families around the elite family in each estate. These can be friends or relatives or neighbours, people well known and trusted by the elite. The auxillaries would have to be freely fed and cloth and provided a living standard higher than workers but lower than the elites, so that they side with the elites. The auxillaries can act as trusted guards and private armies of the elite family. This is other than the normal private army the elite would support on expense of government. The auxillaries have to be supported by the elite from his personal income.
The auxillaries need not be friends or relatives or neighbours, they could be slaves or servants, loyal to elites. For this system to work, some safeguards must be put in place:
- Incomes of elites must be large enough to support those auxillaries.
- Auxillaries must have some training for fighting, militia level training is enough. Need not be trained like regular soldiers because they are not expected to fight a regular army.
- Wife of the elite must be capable enough to command the auxillaries.
- Auxillaries have to be other than regular soldiers also provided by estate. Those soldiers are one of the specialists, means not included in worker class, means do not do any production work.
- Threat is from only one person, the administrator. One way is to have multiple administrators, so that they can be played against each other. Also the seat of elite must be at a separate place, away from the estates in control of the adminstrators. This implies that each elite has multiple estates which is needed anyways because of the fixed size of estates and higher officers getting multiple estates.
- Administrators must be kept away from all military exercises.
- One way is to not have any fighting militia slaves or servants, just have regular slaves or servants. In war ofcourse not all of the elites can be sent to front. Typically atleast one quarter of them need to be stayed behind, to protect against air raids, paratroopers, spies etc and also to help elite families in case of administrator mutinies.
- Administrators actually do get some fighting force, the police. Controlling workers needs some police and regular army cannot be wasted in that. We have to make sure that police do not get any fire arms and work with sticks only. Still the administrator can train them in hiding, get access to estate armoury and get some weapons, invade the elite's house.
- In case of mutiny by administrator, air raid, paratroopers, spies etc, safety of elite family and that of workers and specialists depend on a strong house. This is the house of the elite. This has to be near the houses of workers and specialists. Penny-less do not live in houses. Factories and farms must be at some distance so when they get blown away lives can be saved.
- In no way rule of administrator on estate in any case is accepted. So even if an administrator do get hold of an estate, as soon as news reach the nearest army head quarter a force is sent and administrator is captured and quickly hanged.
- To protect against air raids, paratroopers, spies its great to have estate at country side. The large number of estates, each having a small factory makes it non-practical for enemy to destroy the industrial base by bombing. Too many targets for enemy. An enemy plane is fight is under threat of getting fired whenever it passes an estate below. Paratroopers and spies can be detected easily because of strangeness.
14 March, 2013
Elites - Part 1
This is a new series of articles for elites.
Elites are the nobles and the gentry.
Elites are the middle layer of society, between premiers i.e. kings, presidents and labors i.e. farmers, factory workers etc.
Elites control masses both by using them in production of goods, services and also prevent uprisings, revolts.
The elite class itself has many layers starting from the lowest level managers and go all the way up to the ministers, generals, CEOs etc.
An elite is somebody who do not have to do the same work it takes from its sub-ordinates, therefore supervisors who are usually expected to participate in work at critical times (when shipment date is near etc) are not included in this class.
Typically an elite has:
Its wrong to call elites specialists because even if they have background in technical fields such as accounts or engineering and are promoted after years of experience as specialists, since now being elites they do both technical and administrative duties therefore the dedication to the technical fields is gone. Depending on the level, an elite can spend anywhere between 50% to 0% time in technical duties. Note that if a person has to spend more than 50% time in technical field, yet have sub-ordinates, then that person is not a manager yet, he is still just a supervisor. Supervisors are typically expected to spend 75% of time in technical duties such as troubleshooting machine problems and 25% time in administrative duties. Having said that, its preferred to have former specialists in the elites, people such as accountants and engineers and doctors etc, because at extreme times like in war they can handle a lots of technical tasks themselves and being coming from the technical side they know what can be achieved and can figure out efficient methods of achieving targets.
Team leads in a software company, captains at a battlefield, supervisors in a factory, senior clerks in an office, older workers in any field etc are examples of supervisors, not managers. Its because they are expected to do the same work their sub-ordinates do, though at a higher level. Managers are more involved in administrative duties.
Administration is one key to efficiency. Another is leadership.
Administration is making sure that existing business procedures (standard operating procedures) are running smoothly. If they do not run smoothly then there are some problems which needs to be solved, and its the duty of an administrator to solve those problems. Such problems includes non-cooperation from other departments, unavailability of supplies, bottlenecks due to slow workers or processes, not having full staff, not having proper work place, destruction of finished goods before shipment etc.
An administrator works to open blocked arteries to make sure that blood is properly circulating. Typically more than one problem arises simultaneously and all needed to be solved but at different priority levels. Also a new process typically have a lots of administrative problems at start but proper administration in conjunction of leadership (see below) stabilizes the situation resulting in decreasing frequency of problems till a time come everything runs smoothly and without trouble.
One sign of a good administrator is that he does almost nothing. Almost all of the problems are already solved, duties assigned, disaster recovery plans put in place. However if an administrator is found busy it might be due to a new process which takes its time to stabilize or problems which can't be solved etc.
Another sign of a good administrator is calmness in times of trouble. This calmness is a must to keep head clear. An administrator in panic is worse than no administrator.
Its not duty of an administrator to create or alter processes. Those are duties of a leader. Leaders by definition move group to new and higher grounds where some of the existing traditions and norms are no longer needed. For e.g. expanding from a small company to a big company requires radical changes in business processes which requires deep insight and wisdom, normal forecasting and intelligence are not enough.
Managers are elites and managers by their very nature periodically visit business processes to find bottlenecks, loops, short cuts etc. Managers are agents of change.
A quality of elites is constant learning. Elites are not afraid of trying beneficial new things and learn from mistakes. Elites are practical and risk-takers. Elites are not afraid of making big decisions.
In feudalism, elites are knights, barons, earls, nawabs, ameers etc. In capitalism, elites are CEOs, executives, directors, department heads, managers etc. In socialism, elites are soviet chairmans etc. No system works without elites. Elites are responsible for achieving targets. On their disposal elites have both labor and specialists and have to know how to use them in harmony.
Elites have to have atleast 1 deputy that is capable of running the system for sometime in absence of the elite. Its normal for an elite to be not present at seat half of the time because of meetings, vacations or some high-level technical stuff even sub-ordinate specialists can't do. Since an elite has both specialists and labor as sub-ordinates, a specialist naturally takes place of a deputy.
Specialists are available and handle most of the usual technical works, sometimes some high-level technical work comes which are beyond the expertise of specialists. This is the time the elite has to blow dust from his technical side and find some technical solution. This usually do not happen in statusquo but by nature an elite looks for more efficient solutions which requires technological breakthroughs and such technological breakthroughs are outside the abilities of specialists.
Elites are the nobles and the gentry.
Elites are the middle layer of society, between premiers i.e. kings, presidents and labors i.e. farmers, factory workers etc.
Elites control masses both by using them in production of goods, services and also prevent uprisings, revolts.
The elite class itself has many layers starting from the lowest level managers and go all the way up to the ministers, generals, CEOs etc.
An elite is somebody who do not have to do the same work it takes from its sub-ordinates, therefore supervisors who are usually expected to participate in work at critical times (when shipment date is near etc) are not included in this class.
Typically an elite has:
- An office. The terms officers and elites are at its roots one and same. The office can be a separate room altogether but not necessarily. What visually distinguishes it from work place of an ordinary office worker is some furniture in addition of table and chair. That could be a side table, cupboard, visitor chairs etc. Note the extra furniture has to be dedicated for the officer to distinguish it from common furniture of office workers. Therefore nobody else has keys or can use them.
- Dedicated staff. For office other than labor or office workers, such as a peon at the lowest level but quickly adds assistants, secretaries, drivers, guards etc as level increases.
- Atleast 1 deputy who is capable of running the system in absence of the elite.This absence can come when the elite is out on vacation, is busy in meeting with other elites (inferiors or superiors) or in some high-level technical work.
- Authority on hiring, firing, promotion, leaves, late sittings etc. It could be complete authority means nobody can object or question it but in most cases its near-complete authority requiring formal approval of some superior. Those superiors usually manage many such elites and do not have enough time to double check each and every suggestion each and every time so mostly the elite's words are practically final.
- Authority of distribution of work. Its both right and duty of the elite to decide which assignment is best suited to which worker and switch assignments as needed.
- Superior mode of transportation as compare to workers. Usually its an organization provided car whose type depends on what level in elites class the elite is in.
- Both more job security and opportunities of promotion than a typical worker. Greater the position of a person in the corporate / bureaucrat ladder, harder it is to fire that person, as per the law and norms of the organization and society. Also at higher level there is less competition so more chances of growth. A supervisor may be managing 40 workers but a manager would only have 5 or 6 supervisors under him.
- Strength against superiors. While a worker has little power to hold decision against the supervisor, an officer can comfortably go his own way in some situations inspite of open confrontation with boss. Therefore higher the level of an elite, less robotic he can afford to be. A general for e.g. can deny most of the orders from president while still holding office.
Its wrong to call elites specialists because even if they have background in technical fields such as accounts or engineering and are promoted after years of experience as specialists, since now being elites they do both technical and administrative duties therefore the dedication to the technical fields is gone. Depending on the level, an elite can spend anywhere between 50% to 0% time in technical duties. Note that if a person has to spend more than 50% time in technical field, yet have sub-ordinates, then that person is not a manager yet, he is still just a supervisor. Supervisors are typically expected to spend 75% of time in technical duties such as troubleshooting machine problems and 25% time in administrative duties. Having said that, its preferred to have former specialists in the elites, people such as accountants and engineers and doctors etc, because at extreme times like in war they can handle a lots of technical tasks themselves and being coming from the technical side they know what can be achieved and can figure out efficient methods of achieving targets.
Team leads in a software company, captains at a battlefield, supervisors in a factory, senior clerks in an office, older workers in any field etc are examples of supervisors, not managers. Its because they are expected to do the same work their sub-ordinates do, though at a higher level. Managers are more involved in administrative duties.
Administration is one key to efficiency. Another is leadership.
Administration is making sure that existing business procedures (standard operating procedures) are running smoothly. If they do not run smoothly then there are some problems which needs to be solved, and its the duty of an administrator to solve those problems. Such problems includes non-cooperation from other departments, unavailability of supplies, bottlenecks due to slow workers or processes, not having full staff, not having proper work place, destruction of finished goods before shipment etc.
An administrator works to open blocked arteries to make sure that blood is properly circulating. Typically more than one problem arises simultaneously and all needed to be solved but at different priority levels. Also a new process typically have a lots of administrative problems at start but proper administration in conjunction of leadership (see below) stabilizes the situation resulting in decreasing frequency of problems till a time come everything runs smoothly and without trouble.
One sign of a good administrator is that he does almost nothing. Almost all of the problems are already solved, duties assigned, disaster recovery plans put in place. However if an administrator is found busy it might be due to a new process which takes its time to stabilize or problems which can't be solved etc.
Another sign of a good administrator is calmness in times of trouble. This calmness is a must to keep head clear. An administrator in panic is worse than no administrator.
Its not duty of an administrator to create or alter processes. Those are duties of a leader. Leaders by definition move group to new and higher grounds where some of the existing traditions and norms are no longer needed. For e.g. expanding from a small company to a big company requires radical changes in business processes which requires deep insight and wisdom, normal forecasting and intelligence are not enough.
Managers are elites and managers by their very nature periodically visit business processes to find bottlenecks, loops, short cuts etc. Managers are agents of change.
A quality of elites is constant learning. Elites are not afraid of trying beneficial new things and learn from mistakes. Elites are practical and risk-takers. Elites are not afraid of making big decisions.
In feudalism, elites are knights, barons, earls, nawabs, ameers etc. In capitalism, elites are CEOs, executives, directors, department heads, managers etc. In socialism, elites are soviet chairmans etc. No system works without elites. Elites are responsible for achieving targets. On their disposal elites have both labor and specialists and have to know how to use them in harmony.
Elites have to have atleast 1 deputy that is capable of running the system for sometime in absence of the elite. Its normal for an elite to be not present at seat half of the time because of meetings, vacations or some high-level technical stuff even sub-ordinate specialists can't do. Since an elite has both specialists and labor as sub-ordinates, a specialist naturally takes place of a deputy.
Specialists are available and handle most of the usual technical works, sometimes some high-level technical work comes which are beyond the expertise of specialists. This is the time the elite has to blow dust from his technical side and find some technical solution. This usually do not happen in statusquo but by nature an elite looks for more efficient solutions which requires technological breakthroughs and such technological breakthroughs are outside the abilities of specialists.
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