Oliver Twist  for Managers

 
Many people will remember the scene when Oliver Twist asks for more food in the workhouse and receives in exchange punishment from the Managing Board. In this famous scene Dickens raises some interesting dilemmas for managers.

If we rethink the scene in the light of modern management theory, some important aspects emerge:

(1) Oliver Twist did not use an approved complaints procedure. Indeed he seems to have made no effort at all to acquaint himself with the appropriate mechanisms. He did not consult Personnel or a recognised Trade Union. Had he done so, of course, his request would have been considered properly by those responsible for the management of the workhouse.

(3) Dickens gives us no information about either the tone or the body language involved in the complaint. Judging by the aggrieved reaction, it is quite likely that Twist was being sarcastic or unapologetically male. Did he adopt a confrontational and aggressive posture, infringing the personal space of the Master? The Master was certainly never given a chance to consider his reply before Twist's request was plainly and provocatively repeated. The scene reveals that Twist deliberately attempted to control the entire discourse, asserting a superiority by focusing attention on his immediate needs as he had defined them, and thereby claiming an entirely spurious victimhood.

(4) We learn nothing about the all-important context for the Master's decision. It seems quite unfair to blame a middle manager, who was plainly only trying to do his job in difficult circumstances, for a dietary regime already decided by the appropriate authorities. We know of no other complaints directed at the Master during what was probably a long and exemplary service. Indeed, Dickens tells us that there had been malicious rumours that inmates were being starved to death, and this had prompted the managers to provide a series of post-mortem operations, at their own expense. They found no prima facie evidence for any malpractice: as Dickens points out, when they opened up the corpses and looked in their stomachs they found nothing.

(5) The authorities themselves would never have appointed an insensitive or incompetent man to such an important post. Only Twist seems ever to have made any adverse judgment about this manager. Twist was not in a position to recognize the broader constraints: had he asked to see the workhouse mission statement he would have realized that the whole point of the regime was to assist inmates to retain their dignity and to re-enter the world of work precisely by not making them dependent on handouts.

 (6) Deciding an appropriate diet is a matter for experts, including management experts. Laymen must not ruin their confidence by asking unhelpful and ill-informed questions. We must not apply absolute standards. There is no reason to doubt that the inmates of the workhouse were receiving the best available diet, in terms of both quality and quantity of gruel. Twist's ill-advised and selfish intervention took no account of the specialist financial calculations involved, nor is there any indication that he had considered the run-on costs of increasing the portions and the overall effect on viability in the longer term.

 (7) Giving a larger portion to Twist would have been grossly unfair to the others, who had not attempted disruption but had continued at work. No individual can be allowed to disturb the workings of market forces like this for their own short-term gain.

 (8) The novel goes on to report the consequences for Twist, but we hear of no consequences for the Master. Was the Master able to resume his duties after having to summon the Beadle? Were his self-confidence and self-esteem negatively affected by the encounter, and, if so, did he receive the counselling and support to which he was entitled? We know that news of Twist's attack resulted in shocked silences and pale faces among the Senior Management Team. Painful episodes like this might well lead to a shortage of able candidates for management positions in the future.

With these points in mind, it is clear that the Master has been the real victim of this entire episode. Here is a man who turned up for work on that day, fully expecting that all concerned would appreciate the excellent job he was doing, only to find himself emotionally sabotaged in a selfish and aggressive confrontation staged by an inexperienced inmate with no legal standing or official role. The hints provided by Dickens, that several boys had discussed their diet among themselves (a clear breach of procedure) before Twist made his shocking challenge to authority raises the serious possibility of a conspiracy to demean and undermine a man in an important managerial position. It seems we have a clear case of intimidation, possibly associated with collective bullying or 'mobbing'.

In the circumstances, the Master's response was wholly reasonable, and, given the limited knowledge of human resource management of the time, completely appropriate. To go to the bottom line, it is clear that there was no recurrence of such confrontational behaviour, and that order was rapidly restored in the workhouse.

No managers expect to be liked or admired when they take difficult decisions, but we have here an example of a courageous and effective response to a scurrilous attempt to overturn legitimate authority. Senior management should have ensured that a retraction and a suitable apology was demanded of Twist, and could have proceeded to the dismissal stage if one had not been forthcoming.

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