The long-established view of management communication starts from the assumption that the meaning of a particular event, change or policy, etc. is determined by the relevant manager(s) and transmitted to staff through a variety of methods. This formal, structured view sits at the heart of most approaches to organizational communication, with its primary focus being on “getting the message across” to those involved. When done well, this can provide an important informational backcloth to what follows. But, of itself, it communicates nothing. In practice, it serves as an ‘invitation’ for people to communicate with each other about what they’ve heard or read, what they believe it means for them and how they might respond.
Communication is a relational process, and it is this joint sense-making that ultimately determines how people act and what happens overall. Every conversation is a co-creation forum. That is to say, organization is continuously (re-)emerging from the widespread interplay of people’s small-group and one-to-one interactions. Two other things that we can say about this are that most of these conversations take place informally, without the relevant manager being present; and that this practice is occurring throughout the organizational hierarchy, whatever form that might take.
Against this background, it's important for managers to reframe their understanding of their communication role; exposing the limitations of the standard view and shifting their practice to better reflect the complex social dynamics within which they and everyone else are immersed. In particular, this means foregrounding the crucial role played by their ongoing interactions with members of their team and others. For managers, the conversations are the work. Or, as I argued in Informal Coalitions, 'talk' is a manager's most important action tool.With this in mind, the Leadership Communication Grid provides a simple sense-making framework that seeks to raise awareness of, and offer guidance on, the various ways in which managers can communicate with members of their teams. In particular, it highlights the power that informal and unstructured modes of communication have on what happens in practice.
In brief:
“If you’ve decided that you don’t want to be a role model, you’ve just decided to be a bad one.”
Effective communication here is about the manager becoming aware of, and taking responsibility for, the effects that their own actions and interactions are having on people's perspectives, practices and performance.
In summary, the Leadership Communication Grid calls for a new understanding of what organizational communication is really about, together with the foregrounding of communication practices that take seriously the complex social reality of organization. The aim is to encourage managers to review their patterns of communication regularly – ensuring both that they have ‘all the bases covered’ (C1-C4), and that, in particular, they are placing sufficient emphasis on the unstructured modes of communication, C3 and C4, which have the biggest impact on what emerges overall.
More on this can be found in the Reframing Communication chapter of Informal Coalitions - Mastering the hidden dynamics of organizational change. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), as well as via the Consultancy.
See also, The U'I at the heart of communication
Most people view the COVID-19 pandemic as a rare outlier of normal events. An aberration. It is important to recognize, though, that the process through which it emerged as a pandemic was not extraordinary at all. On the contrary, the direct and indirect transmission of the virus between people was a particularly vivid expression of the complex social process of everyday human interaction. For the most part, of course, this involves small-group and one-to-one conversations, rather than the exchange of potentially deadly, airborne particles! However, if we were to take our own and others' experience seriously, we would recognise that the pandemic brought into sharp focus our inability to predict and control what happens as a result of the widespread interplay of people's interactions, both locally and across the world. It is through this continuous, interactional process that we are all perpetually creating the future together - in all of its richness and beauty; ugliness and poverty; hope and despair.
Sadly, despite this graphic illustration of the unavoidable complexity of everyday human life, the fundamental belief remains that those ‘in charge’ should have been able to predict and control what happened. Whilst critics continue to argue that those orchestrating the UK's official response got it wrong, there is no agreement at all as to what, when and how they should have done things differently. All decisions are political (with a little ‘p’), in that these unavoidably require balances to be struck between competing demands, and trade-offs to be made, in what is always a continuously emerging and unknowable future. To compound the problem, the advice that decision-makers received from their various scientific advisors and other experts was itself contested by others; people whose own views were offered with little if any acknowledgment of the partiality and potential fallibility of their own judgements.
So, regardless of the popular rhetoric, nobody knows what would have happened if different choices had been made along the way. Nobody knows, in the unique context and history of (in this case) the UK, how things might have turned out, if apparently successful elements of the widely diverse approaches taken by governments across the world had somehow been cobbled together into a supposedly ‘best practice’ strategy. From here on in, the focus needs to be on the future. That is, on gaining actionable insights from past experience, which will aid the practical judgement of those called upon to deal with any equivalent threats that might emerge.
If useful lessons are to be learnt from the management and support of the UK-wide response to the pandemic, this requires those involved to be willing, able and allowed to openly discuss their recollections of what happened at the time. And, most importantly, to share the contributions that they made to what emerged — warts and all. Crucially, this requires them to be a willing to admit to their own mistakes, lack of preparedness, well-intentioned failures and the like, alongside what they judge to be more successful interventions. In particular, they need to be encouraged and enabled to participate in ways that reflect and acknowledge the real-world messiness and unknowability of the context within which they and everyone else were participating.
The Public Inquiry
Against this background, what can we say about the UK's formally constituted COVID-19 Inquiry?
It seems to me that the current arrangements have little chance of reaching meaningful conclusions as regards the complex social reality ("wiggliness") of what actually went on. Less still the implications of this for future ways of working, which are not simply reduced to a mechanistic and context-free set of formally imposed procedures, checklists, targets, etc. With this in mind, it is likely that arrangements that would have encouraged and facilitated more reflective practice, along with open dialogue between those in the know and relevant others, would have been much more conducive to this than a pseudo court of law..
Some of the issues that I see are:
Although commenting on Inquiries in general, rather than this specific example, I think that Johnnie Moore put it perfectly in a comment on his blog from 10 years ago. In it, he challenged the presumption that we are able to model the dynamics of real-world interaction:
"It seems a default setting in this country to demand enquiries, led by authority figures and typically lawyers. These take a long time and produce dense, thick detailed written reports. It all sounds sensible, but I think the whole grammar and style of these things is seriously disconnected from the way people actually function in the real world ... We get seduced by the idea that if we work hard enough, we can produce a sufficiently detailed model of the system and figure out what’s wrong."
He calls this "the tyranny of the explicit".
We were all on the pitch, playing
The big difference between the inevitably flawed efforts of those charged with making the decisions, and what the assembled masses of scorekeepers, commentators and the rest of us were engaged in, is that the former were caught-up in the practical realities of dealing with the challenges of governing moment-to-moment. Those who saw themselves as reporters and commentators need to recognize that their own, post-event words and actions unavoidably contributed to the very factors and situations that they were reporting and commenting upon. They, too, were active participants — and often very influential ones. They were (and still are!) on the pitch, playing’, so to speak, not ‘sitting in the stands’, as objective observers of other people’s actions. What they said, and how they said it, served to clarify, reinforce and — on occasion, no doubt — undermine official efforts to deal with the implications of what was happening at the time.
And in the end...
Johnnie Moore's notion of "the tyranny of the explicit" is spot on. It echoes the theme that underpins the wiggly world image at the head of this post. That is, it counters the mainstream belief that it is possible to 'catch the wiggliness of the world in a net' - in this case, comprising the six modules of the COVID-19 Inquiry. As the philosopher Alan Watts said, "… the real world slips like water through our imaginary nets. However much we divide, count, sort, or classify this wiggling into particular things and events, this is no more than a way of thinking about the world: it is never actually divided.”
And so, in prepararing for, and responding to, any similar catastrophe that might arise in the future, all that those in charge can do is to muddle through the complex social reality within which they — indeed all of us — are continuously immersed. Their ongoing challenge then becomes one of seeking to do so with purpose, courage and skill.
Several years ago, I agreed to take part in a workshop looking at the nature and dynamics of organizational change. The central question revolved around the relative merits of taking either a revolutionary or an evolutionary approach; with the case in favour of each being put by two other contributors. I'll call them Tom and Harry.
Anyway, when I was asked by the session organizer which side of the fence I would be on, I told her that there was only one place that I could be – and that was on the fence. Or, to be more precise, on both sides at the same time.
When my turn came, I shared the above brief exchange with the workshop participants before continuing as follows...
On reflection, that sounds as if I'm arguing in favour of taking the best bits of Tom’s and Harry’s arguments and blending them together in some way. Either that or I’m hedging my bets. Instead, I want to argue from a different perspective altogether. So a better way of putting it might be that, if we think of Tom and Harry as sitting on opposite sides of the table, then I’m looking at things from underneath it.
The implicit assumption in the debate so far is that managers can choose the best way to effect change; and that, having made that choice, everyone else will follow, provided that the formal changes are implemented as intended.
Armed with this assumption, managers across the world spend hundreds of millions of pounds each year in trying to bring about organizational change by design. Whether that’s through restructuring, cost reduction programmes, M&A, new systems developments, cultural change programmes or whatever. And yet, despite their best efforts, what happens in practice often falls well short of the sought-after benefits.
Not only does this affect the competitiveness and viability of commercial enterprises, or the successful delivery of services provided through the public sector, it also drains people’s energy, breeds disaffection and cynicism amongst staff, undermines managers’ credibility, and so on.
Shifting the patterns
So can we do anything to change that? To improve the odds? My answer is “Yes”; but only if we are prepared to challenge some of our cherished assumptions about how organization works and what role managers play in this process. And this means paying attention to the micro-level of organization – that is, to the everyday conversational interactions that are taking place continuously. It is here, in the give and take of people's everyday exchanges, that they make sense of what’s going on, make choices and take action - or not. And it’s through the widespread interplay of these 'local' (i.e. small-group and one-to-one) interactions – both within and beyond what are thought of as the formal organizational boundaries – that what whatever happens, happens.
For the next few minutes, therefore, I want you to think about this conversational process that is taking place continuously in all organizational contexts. Some conversations occur in formal settings (‘above the table’, so to speak) with structured agendas and people acting out their formal roles and relationships. Most, though, take place informally; or 'under the table’, as I’m calling it here..
These informal conversations might relate to specific formal events (such as agreeing positions in advance of a meeting; discussing what one really thinks about things during breaks in the formal proceeding; or replaying earlier exchanges, by making eye contact at key points during the session itself). At other times, they will just reflect everyday aspects of organizational life (such as informal working relationships, social cliques, gossiping, networking, political influencing, chance interactions, private one-to-ones, and so on). Although none of these informal ("shadow-side") dynamics are reflected in structure charts, reported in official documents, or referred to in formal meetings, they have a powerful effect on what actually gets done, how it gets done and what arises from it. Crucially, from today’s perspective, none of the conventional approaches to change take account of this – wherever these sit along the spectrum from Tom’s form of revolution to Harry’s evolutionary approach.
Am I bovvered?
But do we really need to bother with this?
Many managers might reasonably argue: "We already have clear strategies and plans that set out what we intend to do – or, if we don’t, we can develop them and (that awful phrase!) 'roll them out'. We’ve got objectives, milestones and dashboards to enable us to focus attention and monitor progress. In Tom’s case, we have highly sophisticated programme- and project-management systems, to help us implement change in a structured and controlled way. We have role descriptions, competency frameworks, behavioural standards, personal performance and development plans, and team- or personal targets to keep individuals and teams on track. And so on … Surely, they might argue, we already have enough things in place to ensure that changes are implemented effectively. All we need to make sure is that we do them better and get the right!
It’s true that 'in our right hand’, so to speak, we’ve got barrel-loads of models, tools and techniques that have been designed with the aim of helping us deliver planned organizational change. The problem is that these are based on conventional wisdom about how organization works and what this means in relation to management practice. And, as I’m arguing here, this approach is seriously flawed.
To begin with, this focuses solely on the formal, rational, structured aspects of organization. And it ignores the hidden, messy and informal bits over here, 'in my left hand', through which outcomes emerge in practice. Many of the conventional tools [RIGHT HAND] might work okay for matter-of-fact changes in the design and development of structures, systems and procedures. But, in terms of organizational change and performance, this is only part of the story – and rarely the most important part.
Yes, it makes sense for managers to make best use of any formal systems and procedures that might be 'in play' [RIGHT HAND] – although ‘less is more’ might be a useful rule of thumb to use here! But ,however well they do that, they will not succeed in any meaningful sense unless they get to grips with the informal ‘under the table’ stuff as well [LEFT HAND]. Too often, the right hand doesn’t know what the left-hand’s doing. Or doesn’t want to know. Or doesn’t think that it matters.
So where does that leave us – and what can we do?
If we continue to imagine that my RIGHT HAND represents the formal, rational, structured elements of organization and my LEFT HAND the hidden, messy and informal dynamics, let’s think about what typically happens when change is formally introduced according to conventional wisdom.
At one extreme, Tom has argued passionately and eloquently for a revolutionary approach to change; commanding and controlling its introduction at speed, with very little up-front involvement of people more broadly, and using a highly structured methodology to programme- and project-manage the change. At the other end of the spectrum, Harry has put forward a powerful argument in favour of more participation and greater flexibility in the methods used and the outcomes that are achieved. And both Harry and Tom have emphasised the importance of keeping people informed as to what changes are taking place and why.
These formal, structured elements are often carried out very well, in a technical sense. And it’s true that, as Tom’s examples illustrate, these can also be carried out very quickly; provided, that is, that the need for involvement advocated by Harry is discounted. However, the change is not complete when the new structure has been announced and the structural boxes filled; or when the new systems have been installed and formal training carried out; or when two merging companies become a new legal entity; and so on. In terms of our left and right hands, we’ve only reached this point … [HEELS OF HANDS IN CONTACT, WITH PALMS AND FINGERS APART].
Change can't be considered to be in any sense successful, until people are fully 'tuned-in' to the new requirements as regards their own contribution, and have integrated any required shifts in perspective, practice and performance into their own ways of working ... [FINGERS INTERTWINED]. And this can’t be achieved simply by relying on the formal approaches over here [RIGHT HAND]. It means managers actively engaging with what’s going on over here [LEFT HAND]. Otherwise, people will still carry on interacting with each other and making sense of what’s going on; but they are likely to do this in ways that serve ends other than those relating to the formal change agenda. In some cases, it might spur them and others to go off in a different direction altogether; as they coalesce informally around particular organizing themes that emerge from the new arrangements.
The problem for managers from a conventional viewpoint (whether as advocated by Harry or by Tom) is that they are 'in control' of these things [RIGHT HAND] - in the sense of being formally in charge - but they are not in control of these [LEFT HAND]. The response of some managers, when outcomes don’t match what was supposed to happen, is to do more of the ‘right-hand’ stuff to try to gain control. This is the ‘do it better and get it right response’: “If I do more stuff over here – more controls, more detailed procedures, extra targets, etc – I shall be able to overcome the problems we’ve had with implementation and get things back on track. This is an understandable response, perhaps, given the sometimes quasi-religious belief in order, predictability and control that dominates conventional management 'wisdom'. But all that this is likely to do in practice is to stoke up more activity over here [LEFT HAND]. And this is just as likely to reinforce the behaviours that caused the initial disconnect between what management said and what actually happened on the ground, as it is to achieve the sought-after outcome.
In other words, it’s not what managers introduce formally that matters, it’s how people make sense of what's going on and act into the future. And this is based on what they see, hear and feel, etc, as shared through their everyday conversations and interactions. It is what happens in these constantly shifting conversational networks that determines what emerges in response to management initiatives – not the initiatives themselves. And it’s here, in the give and take of everyday conversations and interactions, that we can see the roots and dynamics of evolutionary change, revolutionary change and everything in between.
So what do I mean by this?
As the content and patterns of conversations change, so do the actions that flow from them and so do all things organizational. In some cases the ‘change’ that takes place is simply a reinforcement of current thinking – deepening the sense-making channels, so to speak, and increasing the likelihood that similar sense-making and action-taking will occur in the future. At the same time, although these established patterns tend to channel sense-making down familiar, culturally acceptable pathways, the possibility exists that novel outcomes will emerge from this same conversational process. This might happen, for example, because of a simple misunderstanding, a chance event, a humorous remark that triggers a new perspective, the coming together of a diversity of viewpoints, or deliberate leadership attempts at reframing. So evolution (or flow) is continuous and inevitable – as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “You can’t stand in the same river twice”.
But what about revolution?
If the themes that dominate everyday talk reflect those in the formal, ‘above the table’ organization, it is likely that outcomes will be largely in line with plan [FINGERS INTERLOCKED]. If, however, the conversations are out of kilter with the official line, then it is very unlikely that things will turn out as planned. Instead, people will naturally act in line with these different themes, leading to different actions and different outcomes [SPREAD FINGERS – LEFT HAND DOMINANT].
In some instances, informal coalitions will form deliberately around ‘left-hand’ themes that challenge the established position. If these seemingly ‘subversive’ perspectives gain sufficient momentum and support, they will eventually emerge from ‘the shadows’ as formal propositions. At that point, one or more of these might radically shift the existing strategies, policies, power bases, and so on. That is, lead to a revolutionary change. This is, after all, the very way that formal plans for change – whether by Harry-style evolution or Tom-style revolution – emerge in the first place.
So, however well – and in whatever way - managers plan, organize, co-ordinate and control the formal side of organization [RIGHT HAND], it is the hidden, messy and informal dynamics of organizational life [LEFT HAND] that will determine what happens in practice. Leading change is a ‘contact sport’; it can’t be reduced to an arms-length management task, using formal communication programmes, Gantt charts, dashboards, scorecards, and the like.
As John Lennon put it: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” And so, managers need to focus their attention here [LEFT HAND], in the rich experience of everyday organizational life, if they want to increase the likelihood that formally initiated changes will be realized in practice. This means actively engaging with these dynamic conversational networks, so that they can help to shape the way in which people make sense of events and take action - whether the broad aim is one of evolution, revolution or something else altogether!
As a youngster, I used to play a card game called "I Commit" (above), which was originally devised in the 1930s. During the game, players competed to collect sets of three cards which would enable them to ‘commit a crime’. I should add that, to redress the moral balance, they also strove to collect 'policemen' to thwart the criminal activities of their opponents! In essence, before a player could say "I commit ...", they needed to show that they had the motive, the means and the opportunity to do so.
So, what has a 1930s parlour game got to do with 21st century organizational life? Well, if people are – figuratively speaking – to say "I commit", in relation to their everyday roles, relationships and results at work, they similarly need the motive, means and opportunity to do so. From this perspective, the task for managers – from CEO to the front line – becomes one of helping to foster a work climate in which people have the motive, means and opportunity to excel. That is, one in which they are encouraged, assisted and enabled to contribute their time and talents to the full.
With this in mind, a number of relevant factors are set out in the framework below. These are intended to help managers and others to reflect on their own local circumstances and practical experience, so that they can make sense of some of the challenges that this presents, and participate in ways that`are both organizationally beneficial and personally resonant.
A caveat
The danger is that what follows might be mistakenly viewed as a ‘do this and you’ll get that’ way of achieving the desired outcome Instead, as with all sense-making frameworks, it offers an abstract re-presentation of relevant aspects of the complex social reality of organizational life, within which managers and everyone else are perpetually immersed. Its aim is to stimulate reflection on some of the challenges involved in mobilizing people’s commitment; as well as provoking new perspectives and suggesting otherwise unasked questions. It is only useful to the extent, and in the ways, that it helps managers and others to make better sense of what’s going on than they might otherwise have done, and to respond imaginatively and creatively to whatever emerges As such, it should be used pragmatically, to reflect the particular circumstances that apply at the time.
As always, it is the conversations that flow from the use of the framework that matter, not the framework itself.
Areas of Focus
Motive, means and opportunity can be thought of as the ‘primary colours’ of commitment, which blend together to produce shades that match individual needs and organizational circumstances. As illustrated in the figure, the interplay of these three elements points to key aspects of the work environment that are likely to affect people’s level of commitment. In brief, these are:
People are likely to perform better, where the contribution required from their individual and collective roles align with their personal motivations and developing capabilities, etc. In support of this, using outward-focused CONTRIBUTION STATEMENTS1 to define the aims and objectives of the role can help people to escape from the “activity trap”2 of rigid job descriptions and procedural straight-jackets, which too often constrain performance, undermine creativity and limit ambition.
To encourage, assist and enable beneficial shifts in contribution and commitment, paying attention to the context within which people are working is crucial. This includes increasing the opportunity for people to become progressively more self-sufficient, self-directing, self-controlling and collaborative in their approach to work; with the nature and relationships of roles shifting naturally over time, in line with their developing experience, capabilities and confidence, etc. ‘Managing the boundary’ between challenge and capability is central to this; seeking to avoid mismatches between the challenges that people face and their ability to deal with them. This is about UNLOCKING ORGANIZATIONAL TALENT in all of its dimensions. As well as working to foster an enabling culture and climate within which people are participating – and which is continuously re-emerging from their ongoing interactions.
For people to be willing and able to commit their time and talents to the full, as they participate within the real-world wiggliness of organization, adequate opportunity should exist for the creative self-expression of their personal knowledge, skills and motivations. This is about encouraging and enabling improvisation and practical judgement ‘in the moment’, based on the individual and collective expertise of those involved, ahead of the rigid application of mechanistic, stepwise procedures.
The above three factors are important for managers to bear in mind when designing and/or developing organizational structures, management systems and work roles, etc. Most particularly, these should also guide the nature and content of their everyday interactions with members of their teams. However, these are insufficient on their own to create and sustain a climate in which people have the motive, means and opportunity to excel. Two further aspects of the working environment are also important. These are:
Commitment is likely to be undermined, if people’s thoughts and feelings of what’s going on differ from the formally stated position. Crucially, managers cannot not communicate. As soon as they become a manager, they become a role model – whether a good one or a bad one! Everything that a manager says and does – together with everything that they don’t say and don’t do (!) – ‘sends messages’ to members of their teams about what is and isn’t important, how things should and shouldn.t be done, how they personally are viewed, and so on. However, it’s the people who observe their words and actions that decide what these ‘messages’ mean, not the managers themselves.
In practice, these encounters are all MOMENTS OF LEADERSHIP TRUTH
In the main, people make sense of what they see and hear through their ongoing, conversations with their colleagues and others. Staying connected to these dynamic conversational networks, and tuning-in to the organizing themes that are emerging from such interactons, is therefore an important aspect of a manager’s "mobilizing commitment" agenda. As is providing vision as part of everyday engagement. That is, helping people (including themselves!) to ‘see better’, through everyday engagement. Shifting the emphasis of LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION towards the informal, unstructured modes of everyday conversation is central to achieving the required sense of congruence between rhetoric and reality.
Commitment is both threatened and potentially enriched by organizational change. Leaders can help to sustain the motive, means and opportunity to excel by adopting an INFORMAL COALITIONS approach to organizational change, and to addressing the continuing challenges that emerge along the way. This might include such things as:
By using the MMObilizing Commitment framework as part of their personal practice theory, coupled with other enlightened management practices and a complexity-congruent understanding of organizational dynamics, managers will be better placed to foster conditions in which people have the motive, means and opportunity to excel.
Notes
1. Where appropriate, other proprietary sense-making frameworks are identified in the text using small capitals.
2. Management and the Activity Trap – George S. Odiorne (1974)
The recent controversy concerning the performance of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), in the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, is the latest in a catalogue of incidents involving the increasing dominance of the technology in the professional game. Most tellingly, although the eventual decision made by the VAR favoured his own team, the 'Spurs manager, Ange Postecoglou, was scathing in his condemnation of its use. His concerns appear to be shared by other managers; with England boss, Gareth Southgate, reputedly having said that the game was better pre-VAR.
As a one-time engineer, I appreciate the value of technology. But only when it is applied in an appropriate context. The fact that a particular technology exists doesn’t mean that it automatically adds value - less still that it leads to ‘correct’ decision-making in the context of association football. The game is a complex, fast-moving process. VAR is not simply flawed in its practice but in its basic concept. Things that happen in football are not reducible to pseudo-scientific decision-making. Apparently, many onfield decisions are so clearly and obviously mistaken that it often takes several minutes for those operating the technology to reach their decisions. As part of this, they use slow-motion replays and views from multiple angles that bear no relationship to the complex social reality of the in-the-moment interactions that took place on the pitch.
The only thing that is clear and obvious to me is that it is not simply the way in which the technology is being applied that is flawed. Its very use is fundamentally ill-conceived.
Drawing a line under VAR
There is only one aspect of a football match that can be answered definitively. That is, “Did the ball cross the line between the goalposts?”. All other happenings in the game are a matter of opinion. And the only opinion that should matter is that of the referee; supported by their on-field assistants.
The referee’s in-the-moment decision-making - questionable or otherwise that it might be in a specific instant - is as much part of the emerging action as the brilliantly or poorly executed skills of everyone else on the pitch. If the referee rules a goal onside, it is onside. Even if everyone else in the stadium (or, at least, the opposing manager and supporters) have a different opinion.
The only line that should be drawn in relation to offside is the metaphorical one under the referee’s decision. If anything underlines the farcical nature of VAR it has to be the imaginary line that appears on the screen during reviews of offside decisions. Because it is impossible to model the complex interplay of what is actually happening in the moment of the referee’s decision-making, the meaning of the offside law is dispensed with and the rule reconstructed to suit the limitations of the technology.
So we end up with an imaginary line being drawn across the screen to detect solely whether a part of the goalscorer’s anatomy (or kit) happens to be fractionally closer to the goal than that of the second-last defender. Sorted! Except, of course, that this has nothing to do with offside per se. The sole purpose of the rule is (or was!) to prevent the attacking team from gaining an unfair advantage. Now we have decisions being made that are entirely devoid of any sense of this. Even if the attacker had their back to the goal when the ball was passed to them and, in all common understanding, was in line with the last defender, they can be ruled offside simply because some ‘techie’ can demonstrate that the heel of their boot was ‘in an offside position’. How can we possibly have managed without such sophisticated decision-making for so many years?
Getting out of 'arms way
Similarly with handball in the penalty area. No doubt to the annoyance of the powers that be, footballers have arms. Given the speed and unpredictability of the motion of the ball, it is inevitable that it will come into contact with a defender’s arm or hand from time to time. The important question is (or used to be), “Was this the result of deliberate action by the defender, to prevent a goal, or simply an accidental outcome of the natural dynamics of the fast-moving game?” Once again this is a matter of judgement and, once again, that judgement can only sensibly be made by the on-field officials, who are similarly immersed in the in-the-moment action.
Yet again, though, VAR can’t model the complexity of what happened, so the rules of the game are changed to accommodate its limitations. If the ball hits the hand and this is judged(!) to be in an “unnatural position” (whatever that means) it’s a penalty. In response, attackers should perhaps learn to ‘play the percentages’, as they say. That is, if no better option presents itself, they should hit the ball as hard as possible into any available mass of defenders and bet on it hitting the arm of at least one of them.
One inevitable consequence of all of this will be descent into the pit of technology-first decision-making, as the on-field officials lose confidence in their own ability to rule on the emerging action. One example of this, that has already been 'baked in' to matches with VAR, is the requirement for the onfield assistants to delay raising their flag when they judge a player to be offside until the attack dies out or the ball enters the net. This is supposedly in case they make a 'mistake'.- which the VAR technology can't be used to rule upon, until the move is complete and the game has been stopped.
It's not Cricket
To support the use of VAR, reference is often made to the technology-assisted reviews in other sports; in particular, cricket. There is, though, a significant difference between the way that technology is used in other sporting contexts and its application in football. In all cases (other than off-the-ball offences in rugby) the technology is used to track the motion of the ball and the positioning of a player’s foot (or bat) in relation to fixed lines on the pitch. The only parallel in football (unless they decide to review the ball crossing the touch line or goal line for throw-ins and corners) is the question of whether or not the whole of the ball has crossed the goal line between the posts. Even with corners and throw-ins, the most significant question is still a matter of judgement, as to who touched the ball last. So the situations are not comparable.
The contentious (and frequently inconclusive) discussions that used to take place week-in-week-out in tv studios between supposed experts pre-VAR should have been warning enough of the chaos that would ensue if the technophiles got their way. But clearly not. This hasn’t stopped, of course. It’s just that now the arguments focus on the simplistic, right/wrong judgements based on the limitations of the technology, rather than on the onfield incidents themselves.
And the decision is...
Sadly, it’s unlikely that the decision to use VAR will be reversed, even if it ends up sucking the life out of the game. Perhaps we should look forward to a time when human beings - with all of their inconvenient idiosyncrasies and complex, in-the-moment actions and interactions - aren’t involved in the game at all. With computer simulation being the order of the day.
As a final thought, the logical position for the advocates of VAR to take would surely be for them to argue that all statistics relating to games played during the era of ‘fatally flawed’ pre-VAR decision-making should be erased from the record books.
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Postscript - Lessons for organizational management
The farce surrounding VAR should give cause for concern about the rapidly increasing introduction of technology into the organizational sphere. This is again based on the seemingly unquestioned assumption that certainty can be achieved through the increasingly intensive application of advanced technologies, process modelling and in-depth data analysis. In reality, however sophisticated the approach appears to be, it can never account for the complex social dynamics through which organization is enacted and outcomes emerge in practice. Worse still, as has happened with VAR, the impossibility of modelling the complex reality of organization is likely to result in the simplistic distortion of what's actually going on, and how this is evaluated, to suit the limitations of the technology.