Table Of ContentTHE MANAGEMENT BARRIER
For most managers there is no time to learn the modern numerate techniques
specially designed to improve business performance. Yet it is exactly these
techniques which could aid the hard-pressed manager. In larger firms there
are highly numerate specialists employed precisely to assist the manager,
but often this is where the problems start. This book deals with the barrier
that exists between the manager and the analyst - and how to overcome it.
In a lively and debunking style Graham Tarr gives practical advice to
both sides of the managerial fence on how to dissolve the traditional
barrier. He does this by leading the reader gradually into a cybernetic way
of thinking about and controlling his/her organisation. Methods of formu
lating and discussing problems and of choosing the simplest and most
effective numerical techniques are described. Graham Tarr's wide exper
ience is distilled in an unusual chapter on problem-solving philosophy,
including the difficult question of implementing solutions. This is backed
up by an easy-to-understand guide to optimisation and other numerical
techniques, and by a final chapter on how to control a problem-solving
team.
This book is for both the large number of managers who have not had
recent formal training in modern business science and those who have but
want to strengthen their performance.
Graham Tarr is a senior United Nations Adviser. He began as a technical
officer in the British Army, managing equipment repair workshops. He
spent several years researching development in communications, data
processing and defence systems engineering and then moved into informa
tion systems. Before becoming a UN Adviser he was chief executive of a
consulting firm.
He is the author of The Management of Problem-Solving, also published
by Macmillan.
By the same author
THE MANAGEMENT OF PROBLEM-SOLVING
THE MANAGEMENT
BARRIER
Graham Tarr
© Graham Tarr 1983
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1983 978-0-333-35133-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1983 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-06796-1 ISBN 978-1-349-06794-7
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-06794-7
There is a barrier between the manager and the analyst which
blocks their search for solutions. The barrier can be lowered if
the manager learns to be more ambitious and the analyst more
humble.
Contents
Preface ix
1 The Difficult World of Management 1
2 The Causes of Inefficiency 13
3 The Numeracy Barrier 22
4 Your Organisation as a System 37
5 The Communication Barrier 55
6 Choosing a Technique to Fit the Problem- and
Vice Versa 75
7 Working with Mathematical Models 94
8 Problem-Solving Philosophy 108
9 More about Numerate Methods 125
10 Managing the Problem-Solving Project 150
Index 164
vii
Preface
When I wrote The Management of Problem-Solving in 1972 (published by
Macmillan in 1973), I did so because of my continuing disappointment
with the quality of much consultancy work, and in particular with the
ineffective way in which it was being managed and implemented. I spoke
from a background which alternated between being a consultant and a
client, although predominantly the former. I was gratified that, although
the book was addressed mainly to the problem-solving community, several
of my management colleagues said that they felt it identified more with
their own viewpoint than with that of their consultants.
Since then my experience has continued to alternate between giving
and receiving consultancy advice, although this time predominantly the
latter. I am not sure whether in the intervening ten years there has been
any significant change in the quality of management of problem-solving.
But there has been, I think, a growing exasperation amongst many
managers that although life was getting steadily more complicated, they
were unable either to do the necessary numerate analyses themselves or to
get answers that they could easily use from professional analysts. There
seemed to be a barrier in the way.
I expect that by the turn of the century, or even before, this problem
will have solved itself as computing power reaches every manager's desk
and numerate training for managers has become universal. But in the
meantime planning and performance suffer.
This book tries to find out what causes the barrier and how it can be
lowered. It is addressed to those on both sides - the managers who want
better answers, and the analysts who want to see more of their solutions
implemented.
Geneva GRAHAM TARR
ix
The anecdotes described in this book are fictitious compositions based on
various elements of the author's experience. Individuals and organisations
should not try to identify themselves with any of these anecdotes.
Graham Tarr is a staff member of the United Nations. The views expressed
in this book are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of the
United Nations.
X
1 The Difficult World of
Management
These are much deeper waters than I had thought.
Sir A. Conan Doyle,
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Standing in the way of good management decisions is a barrier that looks
very much like the one between theory and practice. It is a double barrier:
misuse of numeracy and faulty communication.
The first chapter is aimed at convincing those on both sides of the
barrier how important it is to try and climb over it and in the long run
demolish it completely.
I hope to persuade you, the analyst, how difficult it is actually to
manage a modern operation compared with finding systematic solutions
to its problems; and to persuade you, the manager, of how valuable the
modern analyst's methods could be if only you could find out how to
work with him.
And I hope to convince both of you how vital it is to find time to
understand each other and to speak a common language about the dif
ficult world we live in.
It is the speed of change that is making the management task so com
plex. Maintaining competitive performance in the face of major shifts in
the pattern of trade, an unstable money climate and radical changes in
social attitudes would have left its mark on Henry Ford himself. And the
swing over to ever more capital-intensive operations makes each decision
more critical.
The mechanisms of management are having to become more sensitive
to society's own shifting mechanisms. Enterprises have for decades been
fighting an intensifying commercially competitive battle; now they are
operating in an environment which is itself so complex as to be barely
controllable and certainly not fully understood.
The complexity started to build up in the industrial revolution, but the
