Don’t Jubilee’ve It!

 

   Sorry for the lack of posts last week but I was away and didn’t manage to get any posts prepared early.

And why was I way? – well in case you didn’t notice it was the dear Queen’s diamond? jubilee last week.  That meant we all got an extra day’s bank holiday, delaying the UK’s exit from recession.  And also I really didn’t want to be around.

Isn’t it time the UK grew up and became a republic?  I certainly can’t see how any HR practitioner could support the current system.  Take any aspect of organisational management that we aim to deal with and the retention of monarchy makes absolutely no sense in this (the UK) organisation:

• Organisational culture: the system reinforces the belief that people progress based upon birth or luck rather than by skill or hard work.  I don’t think it’s any accident that the US’ republican culture produces such a higher proportion of entrepreneurs than the UK.
• Organisation design: the system of princes and princesses, lord and ladies, dukes and duchesses etc may not represent the way real work gets done but it’s still an important shadow system.  It may provide a source of fascination for tourists and my six-year old daughter but removing it would bring the top and bottom of our organisation much closer together and provide a much needed boost to social mobility.
• Performance management: one of the main reasons people seem keen to keep the monarchy is that the Queen is doing such a good job.  And I’ll admit that she is, but I really don’t think it’s that hard to do (and half of the time I don’t think it’s her arm waving anyway!).  OK, she doesn’t get much holiday, but then with all of that travel and horse riding – never mind the water ski lake at Balmorel! – does she really need one?
• Recruitment – this is the crux.  The Queen may be doing OK but do we really want to leave the nation’s fortunes down to this particular family?  Elections may not be perfect either but at least you’re not tied to the same person for their lifetime.

 

Catching up on the news (though I don’t think the papers’ or even the BBC’s coverage always counts as such), despite the heavy rain, there do seem to have been a lot of people celebrating, but is this just because 2m people (including most of the republicans?) deserted the country instead?

And anyway, I’m all for a good party – but surely there are more constructive and important things to celebrate?

Not the English Summer however…

 

T-shirt credit: www.republic.org.uk

Technorati Tags: Queen,monarchy,republic,UK,hierarchy,HR

 

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