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The Business of Care
One does not fit the other
As a first-line manager for over thirty years, supporting people with mental health needs within local government, I was always disheartened by the amount of bullshit management models that we were expected to follow. Most were not fit for purpose. Yet time and time again a message came from on high that this was what we were expected to do.
Everything had to be measured and targeted, pinned down by performance indicators. The documents often took hours to complete yet they were entirely useless to me as a frontline manager. The idea that completing these documents would help me fulfil my management responsibilities was farcical. Management at ground level was through my interactions with people. I’d take action based on this plus my own experience. It was not done by shutting myself in an office, pouring over documents that no one would read except, maybe, my senior manager and inspectors. And even then, it would only be if an incident occurred, and the first thing they would do is check my paperwork. My level of vulnerability would be determined by this.
I remember learning about something called ‘systems analysis’ in a management course, many years ago. To pass the module we had to apply it to out own work environment. That is, use systems analysis in an identified project so the goal may be completed as…
