Someone’s in My Class Today. On Bud Goodall.

Today is the first day of class at East Tennessee State University, a regional institution of higher education nestled in Johnson City at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It is of course a time of new beginnings, fresh new faces, a new excitement, and a time to renew the commitment to the teaching part of the triad that makes being a professor such wonderful work.

There is, this year anyway, a silence, a loss for those of us who are – and desire to be - great teachers and researchers in this discipline we call Communication. That, of course, is the loss of Bud Goodall.

I could spend an inordinate amount of time discussing Bud’s work. As one of the early narrative ethnographers he helped break new ground, proving that research doesn’t need use objective writing wherein the author can hide. Nope. Not Bud. When you read Casing a Promised Land: The Autobiography of an Organizational Detective as Cultural Ethnographer you can hear Bud’s distinctive voice. When you read Living in the Rock n Roll Mystery: Reading Context, Self, and Others as Clues, you can feel Bud in his words on the pages. This continued throughout his narrative ethnographic writing, all the way through to the end...when he was writing on his blog, called The Daily Narrative.

* * * *

The first time I met Bud I was so uncomfortable and out of my depth. I was a communication pup - a mere first year Master’s student at Saint Louis University brought "backstage" at NCA. I entered this hotel room and there was Bud with Nick Trujillo, Bob Krizek, Kathy Miller, Paaige K. Turner, and a few others I cannot recall. I think Eric Eisenberg was there too.  The guitars came out. Singing commenced. The songs were classic rock and I could almost imagine Bud on the road living that rock n roll mystery. Bud, however, could tell I was feeling out of my element. Shoot, I was out of my element! As I was leaving he said, "Don't worry about it Andrew, soon enough you'll be on this side of the stage." Funny. I hadn't made up my mind to get my doctorate at that point. But he - he knew - he knew before I did.

* * * *

Bud was more than just a narrative writer though. He was a teacher in every sense of the word. His texts Writing the New Ethnography, and Writing Qualitative Inquiry: Self, Stories, and Academic Life are exemplars of – and for – a type of dialogical writing that consumes the reader through engagement.

* * * *

The second time I met Bud was when he came to Saint Louis University to give a talk while he was doing research on A Need to Know. His voice filled the room – when he started by saying “I’ve written this and I read what I’ve written, so I hope you don’t mind if I read exactly what I wrote.” It was endearing that a man who made communication his life, was so protective of his words, that he did not want to deviate. And we graduate students listened, enraptured.

Well, not all of us. Not quite. When he was finished he asked for questions. One of my peers (whom I adore to this day) asked, “How is THAT research?” I cannot recall what Bud said. All I can remember is “how” he said what he said. He was gracious and kind. He was open hearted and embracing. He was big and grand and full and wonderful to this student who did not agree with him. They went back and forth a few times. 

She never came around to his point of view about personal narrative research. And he was OK with that. He never wavered. Moreso, he never attacked, never raised his voice, and never disconfirmed her as a person. Put simply, he was Buberesque. 

* * * *

The next time Bud and I met, I was in 2006 at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. I was just finished with my second year in my doctoral program. A little background will help. Once I started my dissertation research my friend and MA thesis advisor Bob Krizek would tell me “Get it done. The only good dissertation is a done dissertation.” He would call me and tell me that. The would paste it on my Facebook wall. “The only good dissertation is a done dissertation.” This had become something of a running joke. From my notes of the conference:

“We are coming to see your panel,” Paaige Turner says.

“You are?”

“Yeah. Hey Goodall is signing his book in the registration room. He wants to see you,” Bob says.

I head over to the registration room. Bud is sitting there behind a table talking with a middle-aged woman. As I walk up, he’s talking.

“…I didn’t know the story very well. I knew bits and pieces. Hey Andrew.”

“Hey Bud.”

Bud continues talking about his son Nic and scholarships and how to get him into school. Mitch Allen comes up to me.

“You want one of these books.”

“You bet.”

“Then I want 20 bucks and your address.”

“Well the 20 bucks I can see, but the address I dunno.”

“Well the CIA needs to take it,” Mitch says laughing. I hand Mitch my cash, and then I fill out the forms.

“Andrew. Do you want it A-N-D-R-E-W?” Bud asks.

“Yeah. How you doing?

“Quite Well. And you?”

“Good. Really Good.”

“Are you going to be doing your dissertation or are you gonna get sidetracked?”

“Aww. Have you been talking to Bob?”

“Who me?” We start laughing.

“Yeah, butt in the seat all fall and spring.”

“Good. That’s what I want to hear, because the only good dissertation…”

Uh-oh!

“…is a done dissertation.” We laugh, Bud with his hearty laugh and big smile.

“I can’t believe I’ve got the final product here in my hands,” I say. “I’ve seen this in so many forms, but I’ve got to split. I’m presenting in a few minutes…”

“Right, you’re doing narrative ethics.”

“Yeah. But I’ll be at the panel tomorrow where we can all bow down and worship you for the God you pretend to be,” I joke.

“If that happens, I’m leaving!” We laugh and I chuckle my way back up the stairs. I’m being mentored in multiples.

* * * *

The last time I really spent any time with Bud (oh...if only I had known!) was at NCA in 2007, for the reunion tour of The Ethnogs. It was a charming reunion with Gory, Dougie, Dick (Bud), and the paradigm-switching Wolfie. Dick came up to me and asked if he could borrow my fedora. I handed it over. "Hats don't usually fit on my fat head," he said, "But your head is as big as mine!" They played their unplugged reunion tour. We all chatted and went back to the doing what conference goers do. If I had only known....

* * * *

That wasn't, however, wasn't the end of our friendship, even tough we didn't see each other again.

Bud was a mentor and a life coach. Not merely to his students, but to others trying to make a way through this thing called academe. I was one of the latter. (I recently found out he was to my buddy Art Herbig too!)  When I was struggling as a Ph.D. without a tenure-track job I was too ashamed to talk with my advisor Art Bochner. (You can ask me about it sometime. But don't do like I did. Always always always maintain a great relationship with your advisor!!) I didn’t reach out to Bud. Rather, Bud reached out to ME. That’s the kind of man he was. When I was bitter and scared and about to throw my academic life down the toilet, he recognized it. He saw it.

What did he do? He reached out and asked if he could read something I was writing. I sent him “Fear and Loathing in Urbana: Confessions of a Disgruntled Ethnographer.” When it came back to me, it was torn to shreds. His notes read: 

“This it whiny!” 

“Stop interrupting your own narrative.” 

“Who cares what that guy says?” 

“Get on with it.” 

“Quit griping and get back to the story.” 

“From story comes theory.”

 That original bitter piece was completely transformed into the recently published “’Criteria Against Ourselves?’ Embracing the Opportunities of Qualitative Inquiry.”

Here’s the thing. Bud DID NOT need to do that. He did not have to ask to see my piece or ask about me. This is the kind of man that he was, that he took upon himself the responsibility to help struggling young scholars. He was not only able to help, but he was willing.

* * * *

Today, I'm going to walk into my first class of the semester - Organizational Communication - for the first time. I’m using Eisenberg, Goodall, & Trethewey. The focus of the class on organizational ethnography, and we will be reading quite a bit of Bud’s work. I hope and pray I can do you justice. I know, in spirit, you will be there as provide my students the passion, the intelligence, the good humor, and the graciousness that you bestowed upon me.

You are a mentor to me. 

You are a scholarly influence.

You are a life coach. 

Most of all, you are my friend. 

Thank you Bud Goodall. 

For everything.

The Horror of the Mets. Time for a Bloodbath.

If you are a fan of the New York Mets, the world has become nothing more than a horror show. At this rate they will not be the worst team in the league, but they have a fighting chance to be as close as humanly possible. It’s been a monstrously horrible second half, the kind of second half that makes one forget there ever was a first half, never mind a very good first half.  At the All-Star break the Mets were 46-40 a few games behind the stunningly terrific Nationals and in the hunt for a playoff birth. 

Now they are a team with more emotional, mental, and physical disorders than Freddy Kruger, Hannibal Lector, Michael Meyer, Norman Bates, and the machete-wielding Jason combined. In honor of horror movies and the horror the Mets have become, here’s my take. Warning, it will be a bloodbath.

Should we start with the bullpen? Yes, let’s. There’s nothing good there.  They have an ERA over 5.00. They have lost 24 games of their own accord. This is not pitching in relief. This is called mass murder.  Send Jason and his machete into the bullpen, and let him slice, and gouge, and hack away until there’s no one left. Let the guts pour, the heads split open, and the blood run like the water ran into the bowels of The Titanic. Just let Jason loose and do all the damage he can, murdering with aplomb, gutting the bullpen like a seasoned fisher guts a catfish. Acosta and his over 10.00 ERA can go first with machete chop through his cranium. In front of a mirror, slit open Francisco’s neck, so he can watch himself bleed to death. He’s barely a pitcher, never mind a “closer.” Rip off Parnell’s arm - with it’s five blown saves – and beat him to death with it. Just slaughter the rest of them, letting only Rausch escape the madness of the hockey wearing madman.

Send Freddy Kruger into the outfield. He can gut Jason Bay, and watch his intestines and other internal organs spill out with an oozing splat. Given his .154 batting average, ripping his guts out would be no loss, because he lost them long ago. The Mets should swallow his contract, the way Bay swallows his last breath as a Met: in one big gulp of blood-strewn deliciousness. Andre Torres was supposed to be a solution, but now Freddy will be our solution, as his metallic fingers rip out Andre’s spine. Luckily “Captain Kirk” is injured and survives the bloodbath, as does the “Baxton” platoon.

While Jason and Hannibal are hacking and munching respectively, Michael Myers can take a trip into the infield. Behind home plate, he stabs Shoppach repeatedly, making room for a seasoned catcher, since Thole doesn’t have the makings of an everyday catcher. Unless Ike Davis learns to hit lefties, he needs to be suffocated with a Sunday New York Times, or platooned with a seasoned veteran who can. Wright, Turner, and Tejeda manage to escape, while before fade-out, Murphy was being stalked by the kitchen-knife wielding Meyer, and may succumb to the bleeding from his defensive wounds. Anyone else can be split open under Michael’s cold blade.

Hannibal Lecter – with his discriminating taste – heads to the mound on a sunny day with a plate of fava beans. He can skip over Pelf, because that corpse rotted in the sun long ago. To go along with his nice Chianti, he can begin his meal with Hefner’s liver. As he attempts to go after R.A., the pitcher confounds him with a crazy kuckleball and takes flight. The youngsters – McHugh, Harvey, and Wheeler – all hide, knowing Hannibal is going to take his time, and his delight in the meal he’s prepared. To go along with Hefner’s liver, is a side of fresh Chris Young gall bladder, eaten in one big gulp of blood-strewn deliciousness. Hannibal turns Dillon Gee’s stomach into a delicious marinated dish of human tripe – a delicacy. Santana can be spared though the off-season, but is on the Hannibal’s menu for 2013.

Norman Bates books a room across from Citifield. When the Wilpon’s bodies are found, nothing remains except thousands of small chunks of flesh covering every inch of the floor, with grey matter splattered and blood is sprayed haphazardly all over the walls and ceiling. Norman is there sitting in the corner, smiling.

And that’s how winter of 2012 commences.

"The Whedonverse: Ten Years After Buffy"

Call for Panel Submissions

Central States Communication Association 2013 

Popular Culture Interest Group.

"The Whedonverse: Ten Years After Buffy"

2012 has been a successful year for Joss Whedon, including The Avengers, The Cabin in the Woods, and the soon to be released Much Ado About Nothing.

CSCA13, however, corresponds with the ten-year anniversary of the cancellation of Whedon’s first successful television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  This panel will explore various aspects of the Whedonverse, the fictional universe encompassing the worlds of Whedon’s television and film projects, including BtVS, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Serenity, as well as the associated novels and graphic novels including, BtVS Seasons 8 & 9, Angel: After the Fall, Fray, Spike: After the Fall, etc.

Submissions may include Whedonverse topics as varied as the use of language, character identity, growth and development, philosophical undercurrents, utilization and problematization of gender, narrative inquiries, various philosophical approaches, and related topics.

If you are interested in participating in this panel, please email a 100-word abstract with the title and your contact information, by Friday, September 21, to herrmanna@mail.etsu.edu.  Presenters/pieces that best form a coherent panel will be chosen from these submissions.

Sincerely,

Andrew Herrmann (East Tennessee State University)

Why The MBA Is Relatively Useless

I realize that I am about to review a book that is a few years old, and one that has come under a lot of criticism by others in what I call the “academic business profession” and in business circles. The reason for this is likely because Henry Mintzberg – the books author – says that a paradigm shift is needed in the way we educate managers. Paradigm shifts, weather in science, philosophy, or communication are always controversial and always attacked, because they challenge the status quo and entrenched interests. Since there has been so little change in the way MBAs are taught over the decades, it is no surprise that some people suggest Mintzberg lost his marbles.

Mintzberg’s basic problem with management education is that it is completely separate from the actual running of a business. Students are generally given a case study to analyze and come up with a solution to the case study’s company’s problem. What should an organization do with a factory that is no longer productive? What should a company do with a particular asset class?  How does a company deal with shrinking profit margins? What does a manager do with such and such employee? These case studies are about 25 pages long – and from the reading the student is supposed to come up with some solution and make a decision. That’s it. That’s what most management professors think management is – and hence what most MBA students think being a manager is.

"The trouble with “management” education is that it is business education, and leaves a distorted impression of management. Management is a practice that has to blend a good deal of craft (experience) with a certain amount of art (insight) and some science (analysis)" (p. 1)

Of course the problem is that this way of teaching management is sterile and void of any actual context. Organizations are – depending on how you want to look at them – intricate systems wherein sensemaking must happen ala Weick, or continuing cultures created and sustained by communication, practices, and performances, or places where power is both sought, fought, and transgressed. (Most organizational communication scholars will tell you it’s a combination of all these.) 

From a cultural perspective – all organizations are different cultures. Think of the differences between Apple and Microsoft. Or Starbucks and McDonalds. Or Coke and Pepsi. Or a Pentecostal church and a Southern Bapitst church. There are, in fact, as many different organizational cultures as there are organizations. As organizational communication scholars have been arguing for thirty or so years, you cannot understand an organizational culture, without studying that culture in-depth: generally through one of he many varieties of ethnographic research. 

Think about this for a moment. MBA students sit in a classroom and ‘study’ an organization on paper and are supposed to come up with a solution to some sort of organizational dilemma. This type of teaching is well-adapted to get students to do only one thing: do case studies in a classroom. Much like k-12 standardized testing, there’s no ‘there’ there. What they learn by analyzing a case study is about a useful in the real world of managing as filling in the little dots on a standardized test are to successfully going on a date. They are supposed to make a contextless decision. This is Mintsberg’s basic critique.

"An education that overemphasizes the science encourages a style of managing I call “calculating” or, if the graduates believe themselves to be artists, as in- creasing numbers now do, a related style I call “heroic.” Enough of them, enough of that. We don’t need heroes in positions of influence any more than technocrats" (p. 1).

However, businesses aren’t like that. Not at all. They are not static, but constantly on the move. They have different systems, different cultures, different values, different employees, etc., etc. etc. Hence the MBA as taught looks nothing like – and doesn’t prepare people – to actually be managers. Supposedly these MBAs with no experience can walk into an organization and just start making major decisions and taking over.

That’s somewhat crazy if you think about it. You would never let a medical student who’s only done ‘the book learnin’ perform open-heart surgery on you. However, this is exactly what MBA students are taught to think and how business teacher teach them to think. Someone without experience is not going to be trusted to make big decisions: like closing a factory or dismantling a department.

"Put differently, trying to teach management to someone who has never managed is like trying to teach psychology to someone who has never met another human being" (p. 9)

A real manager spends copious amount of time on the floor of the factory, talking with the many people that work in various departments – having conversations with both internal and external clients and customers. He might even check out other factories in his own organization to find out why those particular ones run well, while this one does not. He may check out competitor’s businesses to see how they are run differently. In other words, a real manager gets a deep cultural and organizationally significant education and understanding of the business before he makes any decision.

This is the opposite of what MBA programs teach. No ‘book learnin’ via case study is going to help. It’s like teaching. I may have an idea of how I want to teach a class – maybe a technique that’s dialogical – but the demands of, the size of, and the culture of a particular class may determine that this technique does not work. If that technique is the only one I have in my toolbox, my class is going to be a complete disaster. Embedded adaptation is key.

"In the larger organizations especially, success depends not on what the managers themselves do, as allocators of resources and makers of decisions, so much as on what they help others to do" (p. 9)

Mintzberg correctly points out that making decisions is a really small part of a manager’s job. What he doesn’t mention enough for my taste – and this is my communication bias talking here – is, well, communication. Communication takes up the better part of any manager’s job. Getting to know people, watching their performances (not performance appraisals, mind you, but the way in which people work), the stories and narratives people tell and listen too, the people who are considered heroes in the organization, as well as those considered outcasts. Managing, at its heart is all communication, and learning-on-the job, and then using what one has learned to make decisions than must be made.

“To develop a reflective turn of mind, the participants focus on them- selves, their work, and their world, to appreciate how they think, act, and manage; how they cope with the stresses of being a manager; and how they learn from experience to become more discerning—more “critical” in the constructive sense of this word” (p. 300).

So what does Mintzberg suggest? Well, here’s where he gets a lot of push back. Management education should be restricted to practicing managers. The classroom should leverage the managers’ experience. Managers have to be exposed to theories so they can learn to be thoughtful and express themselves. Thoughtful reflection is necessary. Learning is not doing. Learning is reflecting on doing. Move beyond reflection in the classroom to learning from the impact on the organization.    

However, if you consider the art and practice of managing, Mintzberg is on the right track. Which is why I think this would be a great read for #commnerds studying organizational communication. After all, culture and power and performance is what we actually study.

Marissa Mayer and the Continued Idea of the False Choice

Marissa Mayer is a powerful and successful woman who worked at Google – one of the original Googleheads, in fact – and accepted the opportunity to fix and run Yahoo! and is having a child.

The media has gone crazy over this. Forbes. The Washington Post. The Sun-Times...and...et al. As is typical, it is all the same focus when they realize a woman has attained some sort of position of power. They did it with Carly Fiorena and Hillary Clinton, and even Sarah Palin. (Mind you, I wouldn’t put Sarah with these other women in any other list. There’s no contest there.) More on Fiorena, below.

Can she do the job? Is she a bad example for "our children?" Should women hate her? Why isn’t she taking a full maternity leave? If she can have it all, why can't you? Is she a bad mother-to-be? Should parents hate her? Blah, blah, blah.

I’m waiting for TMZ to start asking questions about the size of her breasts, how much she craves chocolate, and her favorite movie. 

There is really only one thing worth thinking about in regard to her maternity leave decision: Due to her economic position, she can do it all, because she has the opportunity to do it all.

It is true that the educationally and economically disadvantaged do not have the choice to go right back to work. Hell, not merely just the disadvantaged, but most of the advantaged as well: white-middle class people. In most cases, a mother has no choice but to go back to work. Someone has to work to keep the lights on and given that wages have stagnated for 20-plus years, that someone is often BOTH parents. (Not mentioned in most of the news articles, mind you.)

Mayer gets to choose to be a new parent and be Yahoo!’s new CEO. She gets both. Why? Because she gets to choose. In the terms of capability economics she has the freedom to realize her well-being, the kind of life she is effectually able to lead, who can decide what she is able to be and able to do. She gets to choose what is her “functioning.”

Don’t lose me here; this is actually quite simple.

This capability approach to economics deals directly with the situation and the reactions to the Mayer case. To quote directly from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“Take the following functionings: (1) to hold a job, which will require me to spend many hours on working and commuting, but will generate the income needed to properly feed myself and my family; (2) to care for my children at home and give them all the attention, care and supervision they need. In a piecemeal analysis, both (1) and (2) are opportunities open to me, but they are not both together open to me. The point about the capability approach is precisely that we must take a comprehensive or holistic approach, and ask which sets of capabilities are open to me, that is: can I simultaneously provide for my family and properly care for and supervise my children? Or am I rather forced to make some hard, perhaps even tragic choices between two functionings which both reflect basic needs and basic moral duties?"

In 99% of the cases wherein people are in this situation, they are stuck. Why? Option 2 – for most people is not available. They truly do not have a choice. Not limited choice. No choice. From a holistic viewpoint, they have only one possible functioning. (Which is why when looked at separately, it appears there is a choice, even if there isn’t one.)

Ms. Mayer is not stuck in an either/or situation. She has a both/and situation. She has more ability, more freedom, more possibilities for the realization of her potentiality than the average person because of her economic status. Why does she have this advantage?

That’s called having good health insurance and health care and child care through having excellent employment and educational opportunities in her life - and taking those opportunities and making the most of them – and succeeding economically. That is the kind of opportunity making our country should provide every one. This is how a society opens up and creates and allows for its citizens to become more capable, to be more free, to have more functionings.

Whether or not others’ think she is being a bad parent and horrible mother-to-be by not taking a full maternity leave, or continuing at work - and all that other nonsense - is a sideshow to the real issue. The media is making it appear that every woman and every family has this work-maternity choice. And in this debate one simple fact is overlooked: most do NOT have this choice at all. Period. (And of course none of this would be an issue if she had a penis! Gender bias? You bet!)

She’s getting a lot of snuff for the facticity of being a woman. This media barrage very much reminds me of what happened to Carly Fiorena at Hewlett-Packard. They lambasted her in the media. It was brutal. Every move she made was under heightened scrutiny. She was heartily dissed for buying Compaq and making a number of other moves people thought were short-sighted and bad for business. Then they ousted her in 2005. In fact, they still are giving her hell, years later. 

Of course everyone discounts the historical fact that she took over just as the internet bubble was going to pop – and she got HP through that period – and the economic turmoil that followed the 9-11 attacks, as well. Turns out her moves were the right ones, but she got no credit for them. Rather, the guy who succeeded her got all the credit.

Perspective is everything and here too the media is not doing due diligence. There’s a misconception that Yahoo! is failing, but in reality it is still growing, despite all the missteps by its former management teams. It just hasn't been growing fast enough for Wall Street and much of the financial media, especially when compared to Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, with whom it is always compared. Then again, compared to those, everyone looks like a laggard. Yahoo! has $2B in cash on hand, with only $130M in debt, with a profit margin of 22%. Pretty good baseline numbers for any company. 

I expect to see Mayer dump a bunch of unprofitable stuff and go on a buying spree to acquire new technologies. Most importantly, I expect to see her shake the Yahoo management tree and watch the rotten fruit fall off the limbs. I think she has the chops to change the organizational culture - not an easy task, of course - and get Yahoo! out of its doldrums.

If a man was hired the focus would be only on the finances of Yahoo! and the moves that he would make. Bias? You bet.

I wish Ms. Mayer good luck as both a CEO and a parent.