[ethanbond]

All the way down to the person managing a single grill on the kitchen line, everyone is managing something. Their ability to steer the org toward their own quality of life improvements is dependent upon the scope of their management, but indeed everyone holds the exact same objective.

[Nowado]

Surely that was the intended meaning. When one says 'managerial class' it's clearly referring to those managing grills.

[ethanbond]

Where does the author say managerial class in relation to this statement?

When one says “social system,” as this author actually does, do you think he arbitrarily excludes people below a certain pay grade?

[visualradio]

> A corporation that fails to provide an adequate return for their investment to its employees and customers is just as likely to fail as one that does not reward its shareholders adequately.

Author distinguishes corporation from employees in following sentence, so managers likely refers to employers which employ the employees. Employees are those who are employed by employers, the managers are those employers.

[ethanbond]

Person A is an employee with no managerial responsibility. Person B is the direct manager of Person A and no one else.

Is your interpretation of the author’s argument that Person B and all of her superiors hold the same objective of improving the quality of their work life, but that Person A does not hold this as their objective?

[visualradio]

The format of the article was that of a critique. The author described how systems currently operate in a manner he viewed as deficient and then suggested ideas for improvements.

When the author states "the principal function of most corporations is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize the standard of living and quality of work life of those who manage the corporation", the author was implying that this is wrong.

They then stated that "Employees have a much larger investment in most corporations than their shareholders. Corporations should be maximizing stakeholder, not shareholder, value to employees, customers, and shareholders."

Thus the author semantically implies that "employees" are a separate group of persons from "those who manage the corporations". If employees and "those who manage the corporation" were the same group of persons or part of the system, then it would not have been necessary for the author to claim that corporations should also maximize value for employees, they would have only mentioned customers as the excluded group of stakeholders.

[thewakalix]

The objective of a corporation is a distinct concept from the objectives of the people working in the corporation. They may or may not align, depending on which person you're comparing it to.

[Nowado]

Huh.

I did reread that part and I was clearly wrong. You are absolutely correct, it refers to a wider category.

Now I kinda want to take person up the comment chain on their bet.

[ethanbond]

I haven’t read any Ackoff but I’ve read a decent bit that is clearly in the intellectual orbit (e.g. Weick) and you would win that bet.

The entire basis of their analysis is that these arbitrary distinctions people propagate in common parlance are not real.

[visualradio]

The basis of systems thinking is considering the relation of parts to the whole, and the relation of the whole to the parts. Classically it was simply referred to as 'geometry'. The author distinguishes 'corporation' from 'employees and customers' in following sentence. This implies that corporate managers, employees, and customers are separate parts of a larger system and that use of term manager likely referred to the employers which employ the employees and not also to the employees which metaphorically employ the equipment.