Police Authorised To Use Common Sense

Someone once said The weird thing about common sense is...it isn't. The good news is that at last one organisation in the UK The Surrey Police Force is trying to change all of that. In a bid to unlock themselves from the handcuffs of obsessive managerialist thinking Surrey and three other UK police forces seem to allowing integral thinking into their management.

So often organisational decision makers gullibly assume that there is a magic bullet or a singularly effective way of managing and controlling complex, dynamic entities and events. This managerial approach, typified in many cases by the underpinning philosophy, language, and concepts of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) has dominated much of the political pressure placed on public service organisations.

In this philosophy there is no place for professional judgement, what you measure is what you get, what you measure is what get's done, and what you reward get's done first. The same is true of education. You can't use professional judgement because that is 'subjective' and the positivistic philosophy that drives managerialism says that only dispassionate 'objective' facts can be used to base decision making.

Utter rubbish! Human beings are social animals that are equipped and to a large extent depend on navigating complex interpersonal situations by 'reading' feelings context and meanings. Rapport and relationships depend entirely on these skills. I am utterly confident that the Surrey Police approach will be hugely successful and that it is a tremendous example of thought leadership.