As a Welsh rugby supporter it pains me to say it, but I hope Martin Johnson’s enlightened management style pays dividends in the forthcoming world cup. England’s coach has demonstrated a smart understanding of man management and human psychology by announcing that he intends to treat his players like adults. In the press conference that preceded the England team’s departure for New Zealand, Johnson declared that he intended to treat the players like grown-ups and believed them capable of self-discipline, personal responsibility and a degree of self-government. It will be entirely up to the individual players to decide about when and where to drink and socialise during the tournament in New Zealand. Given the unsavoury headlines that followed England’s last tour to New Zealand – which included allegations of rape – many sports commentators have described this as a brave, if not foolhardy decision.
I am not sure whether Johnson has studied ancient history, but he is clearly a devotee of the Aristotle school of management. Unlike Plato, who believed in the need for authoritarian direction if anything of value was to be achieved, Aristotle believed in man as a social animal who needed a sense of participation in own destiny. I hope Johnson’s decision is vindicated … just so long as England’s destiny is to lose to Wales in the final.
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My specialist subject I believe:
Without disagreeing with the general premise – support for Johnson’s management style; if not selection policy, I would posit that positioing Aristole as unauthoritarian ignores the sublties of his philosophy.
Much like New Labour, Aristolte’s ultimately authoritarian goal was masked under the cloak of education, education education. For example, he beleived that “Citizens must be trained under force of habit, the spirit if the constituition” and that it was the “legislators special duty to regualte the education of youth” to avoid harm to the constituion to the state.
“Aristotle believed in man as a social animal who needed a sense of participation in own destiny” as long as it was the destinty the state had decreed Not that differnt from Johnson then really