Odie Juan Karaoke,
AAAA1111++++, excellent poster, will read again.
If I may extrapolate on this:
But ASA seem to be completely ignorant of the potential explosion in profit (if nothing else) they could achieve if they harnessed it. Some individuals in management might privately "get it" but the organisation doesn't. ASA senior managers seem to be characterised by their "conformity" - I can't think of one that is a "renegade" that challenges organisational "shibboleths" and actually leads. They seem to have two main interests. Firstly - to reduce "costs". They don't seem to understand that the "opportunity cost" of not fully utilising their means of production (their ATC's) is so much higher than they could ever recover by their present "penny pinching". Secondly - not rocking the boat in the upwards direction. In my experience in the private sector the most successful businesses almost always have a robust culture of challenging the upper echelons of the business. But far more interestingly - the upper echelons welcome it because it forces them to continually sharpen and refine their thinking. With us, it appears that any form of behaviour interpreted as a challenge is the only time ASA moves fast - to have the "challenger" escorted off the premises.
There is an old reasoning that Air Traffic Controllers make terrible managers; the reason being that they have spent the majority of their careers making instant decisions. An old and respected instructor (WonKing) once told me that the worst thing you can do as an ATC is do nothing (ATC's are selected in part on this criteria). Indecision has no place, presented with any situation, you
have to make a decision and
stick to it. The key to survival is the ability to either never make a bad decision, or the ability to
get out of a bad one. Not many can get through even 5 years and honestly say "I've never made a bad decision", and I don't expect any managers can either. The difference is how those bad decisions are managed; as an ATC, you work with it, vector 4 instead of 1, descend another, and then when you (eventually) get out think "hmm, wont do that again". Our managers seem to have carried this thought pattern past the console and into their present careers, and I'm not entirely sure it is good trait to have in those positions ("SDE, well, its going ahead because I say so..."). We need ATC's as "operational managers", the knowledge base is necessary. The problem is that not many have the ability to do both (or don't pass interviews)
Added to the fact that although the place would have an impressive collective IQ,
formal qualifications are rare. Combined with the unique nature of the job skill set (making ATC's seemingly unemployable outside the "job"), most of our managers fully realise that they could not make $160,000+/yr anywhere else. This tends to galvanise their thinking in a particular direction, i.e. whatever their immediate boss tells them, and so on, etc. The buck has to stop somewhere, but the problem is systemic.
When I first started we were a "public service", with all the associated connotations; now we are a "Government Business Enterprise".............with all the associated connotations.