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: 

• 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.

An important point to note is that there are non-elite office workers in between the labors and the elites. These includes accountants, technicians and other specialists. Since these specialists do not have any authority on workers, yet they are not labors themselves, therefore they stay in between. Later on they can be promoted to the elites class.

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.