Dear FakeMike, you do an awful lot of references to Star Trek in your blog, I wish life at CGI was as much fun as aboard the Enterprise although a couple of my friends have recently gone through the "red shirt" process. Can CGI learn something from James T.Kirk? Phil from Mtl.
Good question. I guess it's the other way around, Captain Kirk would be amazed by CGI if he lived in this century, he'd quit his job to work for us.
Here's the thing: The Federation works in a way too decentralized fashion, it's hard to believe that such an organization is able to maintain itself against much better managed villains. Really.
James T. Kirk is pretty much a loose cannon and isn't much concerned with his superiors. Sure, banging green chicks in mini-skirts is more fun than filling paperwork, but administration is necessary and can be fun. How often do you see Kirk report to his boss? How does Kirk fill his timesheet? When he fights a Klingon ship, does this activity gets assigned to a special Federation internal activity code? If I was in charge of the Federation, I would definitely want to know how much time was spent fighting Romulans versus Klingons versus other species in other to maintain a management dashboard. The administrative link between the U.S.S. Entreprise and the Federation is almost non-existent, and the freaking ship is supposed to be on a 5-year mission. 5 years! I need daily updates on revenues and expenses, how come they let their people go out for 60 months without any kind of control?
When you think about it, Kirk is just a low ranking middle manager yet the spotlight is on him which indicates that something is way wrong. The spotlight should be on the person managing the Federation.
In addition, Kirk does not seem to care much about internal controls either. His staff does not get annual performance reviews, how can they improve themselves? Is there an HR staff aboard the Enterprise? What about quality, how does the Captain assess the job done internally? It's all loose and emotion-oriented, which probably explain why the original series didn't last long.
If Roddenberry had geared this TV series with better management controls, I think the viewers would have appreciated the thrill of space exploration under strict rules and protocols. See Kirk ask permission from this superior before firing a photon torpedo, this is kind of moral imperative that impress young viewers. And young viewers evolve into working-class adults that share the same interest toward respect, rules and way of doing things.
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