How do you feel at work if you were suddenly given access to a stack of sensitive corporate information you didn’t need for your job?
Probably as nervous as carrying a Tesco bag of banknotes up the High Street to the bank – unless you expect a directorship.
Otherwise you’d not want the responsibility, though you’d probably be flattened for being trusted with it.
In the command and control organization, everything is predictable and planned in advance.
Everyone has watertight job descriptions that don’t overlap with anyone else’s and the job descriptions determine the information each person needs.
The structure of the information systems mirrors the tree like reporting structure of the organization chart and access to information is only assigned on a ‘need to know’ basis.
This is because of people lower down were trusted to know as much as those higher up, the status and power of those in the upper levels would be undermined, threatening the whole structure.
Information means power and influence; at all levels, mangers only release it when it benefits them to do so.
Everyone knows what it feels like to work in that environment, because we all experienced it as children.
At home and school, parents and teachers had absolute power and knew everything, while we were powerless and supposed to know only what we were taught.
The world is changing fast but organization very similar to this stereotype still survive today.
Working for them is not all back: life is simple You are not responsible for anything outside your job description for a number of hours each month and in return you get paid a foxed salary.
Information and Responsibility
