Integrated problem solving | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    Has anyone ever heard of Chester Barnard?? Probably not, so I'll tell you who he was. He was the President of New Jersey Bell a long time ago. Actually he went to work for Ma Bell in 1907. (American Telephone and Telegraph which became AT&T but finally died several years after the breakup of the AT&T conglomerate) He became President of NJ Bell in the mid-twenties. So now you know who he is.. He also turned out to be a respected author in the area of management

    He wrote a book entitled Functions of the Executive. In it (among a lot of other things) he suggested that as a manager if your employees do not give you any authority, you don't have any. I believe it's just as true today as it was then. It is not a large leap of faith to accept the notion that as long as your cohorts go along, you have authority to do all manner of things. The other side of that argument is that if they don't, you don't.

    We see the Anointed One moving more and more to ruling by Executive Order. If he doesn't like a particular law, he has a Executive Order drafted that overrides the legislation. Additionally, his administration frequently "reinterprets" legislative requirements to conform to their liberal view. As long as we continue to let him rule by fiat, you can be assured that he will continue to do it. Something to think about... Barnard was right.

    Has anyone ever heard of Mary Parker Follett?? Probably not; so I'll tell you about her also. She was a Social Worker turned management theorist a long time ago; long before those of the female persuasion were "equal". But that didn't stop her. As it turned out, she was more than equal then and remains so to this day.

According to Wikipedia,

    Follett was born in Massachusetts and spent much of her early life there. In September 1885 she enrolled in Anna Ticknor's Society to Encourage Studies at Home.[3] In 1898 she graduated from Radcliffe College, but was denied a doctorate at Harvard on the grounds that she was a woman.

    Sounds almost as though Harvard may not always have been at the forefront of liberalism. Of course she wasn't allowed to vote either at that point in time. Harvard wasn't alone in their treatment (mistreatment??) of folks of the female persuasion. Hmmm...

    Be that as it may, one of the things about which she wrote was "conflict resolution". In my opinion she handled the subject better than anyone before or since. No one has even come close.

    She touted what she called "integrated" solutions to disagreements. (That was when "integrated" meant something other than busing kids to school.) In her approach, a truly integrated solution results in a "win - win" outcome.

    Her hypothesis was that instead of arguing about what to do, we need to back away from the problem and focus on what we are trying to achieve.

    Once what we are trying to achieve has been clearly identified, we are on the way to some constructive decision making.

    Think about John Boehner and the Anointed one. The Anointed One insists on raising tax rates applicable to the so called rich to the point where according to him they are paying their "fair share" (which neither he nor any of his henchmen has so far defined - beyond suggesting that it is more than they are currently paying.) Boehner argues that the $250k threshold proposed by the Anointed One (as being the lower range or "rich)" will catch many of the small business entrepreneurs (S Corporations, partnerships, and Schedule C filers), result in their being unable to grow their businesses, add to the unemployment problem, and should not happen. They are clearly at loggerheads.

    Boehner has, likely without even thinking about Ms Follett's theses, however, suggested increasing the amount of taxes the rich pay (although I have not heard him say that out loud in so many words) by limiting the deductions they are allowed to take on their tax returns. The result is higher taxable income. Higher taxable income means higher taxes. Higher taxes means more revenue from the rich. A rose by any other name... The anointed one does not seem to have made a noticeable effort to come off his position. If he is truly interested in increasing the share of taxes paid by the so called rich you would think he could at least show some interest in the Boehner proposal. Instead, without identifying the amount of revenue he anticipates will result from increasing tax rates, he asks Boehner for hard numbers to back up his position. It is not difficult to imagine that the Anointed One is more interested in class warfare than he is in increasing federal revenue by the pittance (everything is relative) likely to result from increasing the marginal tax rates on the rich.

    The fact that the Anointed One seems to have his head up and locked on the issue of increasing the marginal tax rates paid by the rich makes one wonder if he really is trying to increase revenue or whether, instead, he is trying to foment class warfare. Considering that "divide and conquer" is very likely one of the first strategies taught in Community Organizing 101, we can only wonder if that is what is going on. Apparently the Anointed One in all his high powered educational experiences studied Cloward and Piven but was not even exposed to Mary Parker Follett. That is truly unfortunate. (Of course, maybe women at Harvard don't count for much unless they have - or claim to have - Native American forbears or a husband.)

    D'ya think??