Chapter 7 Institutional Moral Architecture: From Schools to Prisons

Date25 July 2011
Pages123-144
Published date25 July 2011
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3660(2011)0000012010
AuthorPaul A. Wagner
CHAPTER 7
INSTITUTIONAL MORAL
ARCHITECTURE: FROM
SCHOOLS TO PRISONS
Paul A. Wagner
ABSTRACT
In the final quarter of the twentieth century, organizational management
had been rocked by a theory more powerful than anything since the days of
Taylor’s theory of scientific management. The new theory was called Total
Quality Management (TQM). TQM has largely been eclipsed by other
management fads since such as Sigma 6 but none had such an explosive
effect on business, schools, and government agencies as TQM (Juran,
1995). The gurus of TQM included J. M. Juran (2003),P.B.Crosby
(1995), and even the sage of organizational theory, Peter Drucker (2008).
No one, however, stood as tall among this class of gurus as did the notable
W. E. Deming (1982). TQM has often been criticized over the years for
failing in practice. Deming and his followers retort that it is because
organizations seldom incorporated the entire 13 point program. The part so
often left out were points that implicitly reflected moral commitments
Deming thought organizations ought to have. What Deming relegated
to matters of team spirit and other psychological commitments are
accommodated in the most scientific sense by recent developments in biology
Leadership in Education, Corrections and Law Enforcement: A Commitment to Ethics,
Equity and Excellence
Advances in Educational Administration, Volume 12, 123–144
Copyright r2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1479-3660/doi:10.1108/S1479-3660(2011)0000012010
123
and economics showing that there is an instinct driving evolution among herd
animals such as humans to cooperate. This focus on instinct is captured in
the most practical sense for organizational analysis in the present author’s
work on moral architecture. The concept of moral architecture will be
sketched as a means for understanding and strengthening, schools, law
enforcement agencies and prisons, and other correctional facilities.
TQM focused on developing operating systems that increased excellence in
productivity. Decisions were to be data driven as never before. Operating
processes were adjusted accordingly. The appeal of such focus extended far
beyond business. Quality management techniques became fashionable in
schools, correctional facilities, law enforcement and government, and even
charitable agencies of all kinds (Deming, 2000;Jenkins, 2003;Schmidt, 2004).
Deming was nearly alone among all the champions of TQM to recognize that
an emphasis on measurement, process and data driven decision making were
not enough to advance the quest for product excellence. Deming developed a
13-point program which he insisted needed to be addressed in its entirety if
TQM was to succeed (Walton, 1988). Among the 13 points were at least 3 that
were undeniably moral (Wagner, 1997, 2000).
Deming, a physicist by training,never recognized his advocacy of principles
such as ‘‘drive out fear’’ and ‘‘blame the process and not personnel’’ as
moralistic. Of course, other scholars studying human potential (Gardner,
Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon, 2002;Scheffler, 1985) recognized immediately
such prescriptions for what they were. In point of fact, beneath the focus on
process regimentation reflects an unavoidable dependency on a moral
substrate. Ronald Dworkin (2011), in his recent book, Justice for Hedgehogs,
has identified the most fundamentalelements of this substrate as acceptance of
responsibility and acknowledgement of human dignity. Deming’s work
implicitly anticipated these elements as articulated by Dworkin, but as was
the fashion of the day, he shied away from usingsuch explicit moral language
(Aquayo, 1991;Wagner,1997). Followers of Deming oftenfailed to implement
his 13 point program becausethey could not see beyond the implementation of
formal mission statements, formal organizational charts subject to process
driven flow charts with ubiquitous feedback loops utilizing measurement
data and presumably securing continuous improvement (Walton, 1988).
Human potential theoristssuch as Scheffler, along with a host of psychologists
who describe their approach as positive psychology (Gardner et al., 2002;
Peterson & Seligman, 2004) focused more explicitly on the moral but failed to
show how the moral could lead to either organizational resiliency or efficiency.
PAUL A. WAGNER124

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