Pragmatic + Management = PragManagement
PragManagement refers simply to a pragmatic approach to managing and leading. Pragmatic + Management = PragManagement. The content of this site is posted here for the benefit of managers and leaders, of organizations large or small, public or private. Some of the ideas you’ll find here come from managers and leaders; others from researchers; some from still other sources. ‘Pragmatic’ means that the value of these ideas, methods, tools, critiques or whatever else is posted here, is determined by their usefulness, not whether they’re right or wrong, and according to those who use and apply them to solve a problem, or capture an opportunity.
Pragmatism offers a potential ‘third way’
‘Rigor or relevance’ is an old, binary and, in my view, rather worn-out discussion about a tradeoff between knowledge or information being either ‘rigorous’ or ‘relevant.’ Rigorous generally means, for example, scientifically derived, generalizable, but also often complex, while ‘relevant’ refers to knowledge or information that’s less generalizable, “anecdotal” (another worn-out, near-useless word) but also more expedient, useful and fit for purpose. You can have one or the other, but not both–so the old idea goes.
Pragmatism offers a potential ‘third way’ forward, for this and numerous other situations framed in a binary way–e.g. right/wrong; yes/no; nature/nurture; student/teacher; practitioner/researcher; red state/blue state. Some situations call for accurate, precise information before making a decision, even if it takes longer–that’s when ‘rigorous’ is better. For other situations, when you need to act quickly, using whatever’s at hand, and when ‘close enough’ is good enough–‘relevant’ knowledge or tools are better. The pragmatic choice is the one that’s most useful for a given situation. A pragmatic choice is not constrained by the binary–either side, or a synthesis of the two, or something altogether different may be what’s called for. ‘It depends.’
Pragmatism is relativistic, and can threaten established structures
Some don’t like, or downright hate pragmatic thought or action, because it’s relativistic. ‘Situational ethics,’ for example, is a phrase used to describe, often disparagingly, those who determine what’s ethical on a case-by-case basis, rather than according to fixed and absolute moral standards. From a pragmatic perspective, overly-strict adherence to fixed views can devolve to being simply dogmatic.
Pragmatic thought or action does not privilege one way of acting over another, or one form of knowledge over another–at least not in a pre-determined way. An experienced manager’s or leader’s ability to sniff out what’s really going on, based on a hunch, can be threatening to (and perhaps not respected nor trusted by) researchers or others who advocate a more methodological or analytical approach–i.e. their approach. And the opposite is true as well.
These biases, and the privileging of one’s methods and knowledge over others’ are alive and well. Try pitching some theoretical, nuanced idea to the people on the proverbial ‘shop floor’ of wherever it is you work, and see how that works out–probably not well. Conversely, but a bit more contrived, because these situations occurs far less, try using a ‘common sense’ rationale, born of experience, as the basis for your recommendation to researchers or academicians. These situations occur far less often, because managers and leaders give first priority to the result itself, and less priority to how, or by what knowledge or method, the result was achieved. That means managers and leaders are much less likely to leave the work site, and visit the academicians and researchers to say ‘this is how it works.’ Academicians and researchers, in contrast, do this all the time, with the research articles they publish, offering theories and recommendations for how things should be done, and for ‘what works best.’ But those recommendations are published in journals (including the so-called ‘practitioner journals’) that are are seldom read by busy managers and leaders. So this is not really some head-to-head battle, but more like two groups, talking past one another, and with different purposes, methods and language. This is unfortunate, of course, because both groups have much to offer the other. So one goal of a pragmatic approach is to try and stay respectful of and open to the ideas of both, and to decide which tool to use, depending on the situation at hand.
Two useful quotes–pick one or both: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” (Kurt Lewin). “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.” (Yogi Berra).
About me and PragManagament
Currently I’m a faculty member in the school of management at a large public university. My career has unfolded in a kind of reverse order. I completed a doctoral dissertation and entered academia at 46, having spent the first 20 years of my career in industry. I made this career move in the hopes of finding answers to some questions that had accumulated over the years–questions about managing, leading and organizations–which the pace and pressure of managerial practice had never allowed me to answer.
This experience has taught me that indeed academia has much to offer practicing managers and leaders, and that the converse is true as well. It’s also taught me, unfortunately, that the divide that separates the two very different worlds of practitioner and researcher is real, pervasive, deep and wide. Another and more positive way to frame the very same situation, however, is that the opportunities and the potential of our combined efforts is limited only by our individual and collective imagination.
The objective of PragManagement is not to ‘bridge’ the gap between these various groups–the ‘bridging’ of any gap can also propogate/prolong the gap itself. The objective of PragManagement is to help managers and leaders solve problems, and/or capture opportunities. PragManagement puts problems and opportunities in the center, and welcomes–from wherever or whomever they may originate–any and all information, action, analyses, methods or wild ass guesses that are useful for solving or capturing them.