In the wake of the Brexit Referendum Thursday 23 June 2016

Roger Bunce

Remember those annual Staff Surveys we had at the BBC. Once a year Staff would report that the BBC was wonderful, but that BBC Management were rubbish. The Management would respond by saying that lessons would be learned, and that they would try harder to get their message across. They would set up lots of committees, and nothing would change.

Well, I thought – What if those surveys had had the authority of this Referendum?

Once a year, the Management are told they are rubbish. There are mass resignations of senior executives, followed by a leadership contest, in which the survivors all stab each other in the back. The BBC is left leaderless and rudderless for months – while programme making and broadcasting carry on happily without them (but slightly more efficiently).

Just a wistful dream!

Peter Fox

Back in the day, before staff surveys, BBC management were kept busy fighting with the unions. ABS, NATTKE (but not ACTT) and periodically going off to ACAS. The "staff" (including management, of course) kept getting splendid payrises which were effectively cancelled out by inflation except for the fact that we were able to buy bigger houses every few years. Meanwhile, the BBC, while said managers were thus distracted, and even though we technical operators were having lots of sunny days off fixing those houses and installing central heating and so on, kept on making tons and tons of brilliant programmes, for not very much money,  and the whole country watched them and talked about them. That may seem like wistful nostalgia now but it’s also how it was.

Even the politicians were busy sailing about on their days off or, if actually forced to go into work, did exciting things like joining the EU. So who messed it all up? 

Alasdair Lawrance

Who messed it all up? Accountants, mostly.  And ‘Management Consultants’, whatever they are.

Peter Cook

Notice no ‘camera consultants’ or ‘sound consultants’! Only management cocked up often enough to need help. If we had needed consultants perhaps we would have had bigger payrises?

Dave Plowman

But that is the prime reason for the existence of any corporation: the smooth running of its management. Those who actually create the product a mere inconvenience.

Peter Cook

So much so that we went from being an investment to being a cost, almost overnight. We all know how that ended; hence all the muttering about fallen standards – programme makers being dragged down to management ideals!

Alasdair Lawrance

That is an excellent point- investment -> cost -which I hadn’t appreciated.  It explains a lot in all sorts of industries.