As well as having to cope with one’s own subjectivity,

As well as having to cope with one’s own subjectivity, it must also be recognised that

much of the data which is available within organisations is subjective or actually

misleading. Most people working in organisations are likely to be concerned with the

pursuit of truth, but people in organisations, as in life generally, are under a valiety of

pressures to highlight some things and not others. There are also pressures to view

events in a particular way. This means that a manager, as well as being aware of the

pressures on him to see things in a

‘particular way, and to report selectively, needs to evaluate carefully the information that

is being fed to him. One of the themes of the TV comedy series Yes Minister is that

information is fed to the Cabinet Minister by his Permanent Secretary in such a way that

the Minister thinks that he is taking the decisions himself. One strategem is that the

options are put so that the Minister is bound to choose the one preferred by his

Permanent Secretary. It is also necessary to be careful to evaluate the information that

this fed down the line. For example, one

have found. that if one examines carefully the policy decisions that are actually taken by

their own Local Education Authority, they bear little relationship to many of the

interpretations that work their way down the structure to individual College departments..

Selective reporting and misunderstanding are not phenomena confined to upward

reporting. COlToboration of the existence and nature of these problems is given by a

former civil servant, John Carswell, in a Sunday Times article.