Strategic Thinking Essential Managers:

The middle manager I referred to above turned adaptation to this 'fungible' reality it into a fine art. He asserted with full confidence a story about the college and its future one day -what the implications of the inspection were likely to be; what senior management was thinking; then literally the next day would happily propound a story that directly contradicted what he previously said. There was never a question of his repudiating the previous story; it was as if he, only dimly remembered there ever being another story. This, I suppose, is 'good management'. It is, also, perhaps the only way to stay healthy amidst capitalism's perpetual instability. On the face of it, this manager is a model of beaming mental health, his whole being radiating a hail-fellow-well-met bonhomie. Such cheerfulness can only be maintained if one has a near-total absence of any critical reflexivity and a capacity, as he had, to cynically comply with every directive from bureaucratic authority. The cynicism of the compliance is essential, of course; the preservation of his 60s liberal self-image depended upon his 'not really believing' in the auditing processes he so assiduously enforced ...»