(by Alessandro Capezzuoli, ISTAT official and head of Aidr data observatory professions and skills) And yet it moves, Galileo did not say, because in reality the phrase was coined by Giuseppe Baretti, to renounce his own abjuration. This contradiction would be enough to realize how fascinating and controversial is the story of this man, who contributed in a decisive way to the growth of collective knowledge. Galileo Galilei's intuitions, his ideas and his courage transformed the study of science, which for many centuries was a "philosophical question" and from a certain point on became "modern". The young Galileo, although he was an anarchist and rebellious, was strongly influenced by Aristotle's thought and showed some reasonable doubt (who wouldn't have had it?), before putting his scientific method on paper and completely upset and irreversibly the study of natural phenomena.
The narrative tool chosen by Galileo to tell the results of his research was the dialogue between the Galilean Salviati, the Aristotelian Simplicio and the wise Sagredo. In his most famous work, the Dialogue on the two greatest systems of the world, the sentence that simultaneously decrees the end of the philosophical approach to science and the end of the Ptolemaic system is reported: "Philosophy is written in this great book which it is open before the eyes (I say the universe), but it cannot be understood unless you first learn to understand the language, and know the characters in which it is written. He is written in mathematical language, and the characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is impossible to humanly understand the word; without these it is a vain wandering around a dark labyrinth "
Since this statement could have been misunderstood, the fumantino Galileo also wrote instructions for the use of the method in the Letter to Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Probably, excited by the magnitude of the conclusions he had reached, he let his enthusiasm get carried away a little and, since he was there, he also declared war on the church. Thus, in one fell swoop, he killed Aristotle and God at the same time. The offending sentence is the following: "it seems that the natural effects that either sensible experience puts before our eyes or the necessary demonstrations conclude us, should not take into account any to be revoked in doubt, not condemned, for places in Scripture that had a different semblance in the words ”.
In a nutshell, Galileo affirms that to describe natural phenomena faith and philosophy are useless, one must resort to "sensible experience" and "necessary demonstrations", that is to say those methods that in modern texts take the name of deductive method and method inductive. The conclusions drawn from this method are not to be questioned even where the Scriptures state otherwise. All preceded by a word that is still used mockingly to expose an idea without exposing oneself to the pillory: it seems. It usually works, except for those cases where the Holy Inquisition is involved ...
Why bother even the tormented soul of Galileo, who had already had his torments with the present day in his life, to talk about data driven logic? Because, in some way, in the description of the trial (experiment) in which the results of the sensible experience regarding the motion of a body along an inclined plane are summarized, the foundations are laid not only for interpreting natural phenomena but for describing any type of phenomenon. In short, the Galilean experiment through which the theory of the inclined plane is demonstrated goes through 4 phases: observation, data collection by means of measurement, analysis and conclusions.
Basically, the same steps a manager takes to make informed decisions. Let's assume absurdly, very absurdly, that a modern day Galileo, a little less ruffled than CarCarlo Pravettoni, is called upon to decide whether to keep the headquarters of a certain company open, whether to provide a 24-hour IT assistance service, or how to relocate personnel with respect to smart working, or how to optimize spaces, enhance personnel or impartially define any career advancements. Surely, to highlight the importance of data in support of decisions, Galileo would write a treatise, in the form of a dialogue, between Salviati, the supporter of change, and Simplicio, the one resistant and anchored to the old working dynamics.
Salviati: To continue like this is insane, the world around us has changed and I regret that you don't talk about it.
Simplicio: The world has always worked like this.
Salviati: Arisotle's malignant germ makes you utter blasphemies ... nature "has always worked like this", not the human and insipid world
Simplicio: I say that the top manager would lose control of employees if smart working would be implemented.
Salviati: Actuasse, Simplicio, implementasse… In my opinion, the top manager is afraid of changing because he wants to keep the great power.
Simplicius: The great power rules the world.
Salviati: There is world and world! The sensible world is governed by the great power of nature. The paper world is governed by that coglion-power of those who wear toga. And I wrote about these unfortunates ... These doctors have never understood it well, Never have they entered the right way, May it lead them to the highest good. Because, according to my opinion, To whoever wants to find something, It is necessary to use the imagination, And to play with invention, and 'ndovinare;
Simplicio: God only knows how scary the change is.
Salviati: Man created god in his own image, to explain what he does not know. This seems to be teaching us nature, That when one cannot go to the ordinary, Go straight to a safer road. The style of the invention is very varied, but to find the good I have proved that it is necessary to proceed in the opposite way: look for evil, and you have found it. But the highest good and the highest evil appear like market chickens.
Simplicio: You confuse me, master, with your eloquence ...
Salviati: Forget the togato, I turn to the man more than the intendant and with a good view of the horizon. Because of the others I said openly If you touch the keys, either they are full of wind, Or of cosmetics or perfumed waters, Or they are flasks to piss on. Give me the data of each employee, so that I can with certainty, promote or clearly fail.
Simplicio: Given it we have fragmented it, so as to favor sympathy and often bury the intellect. The fault is not mine, but of the togato guilty of every fraud and every deception. It is clear that it is only the cause of this together with the evil union.
Salviati: You tell me that I should have around, instead of a thinking army, masses of daydreaming invertebrates?
Simplicio: Man's will is irrational.
Salviati: My will is the truth and man prefers a lie.
A similar dialogue, with the necessary lexical adjustments, would not be surreal at all, also because some sentences were actually written by Galileo in the Chapter against the portar toga, a far-sighted and futuristic sonnet that begins by describing the blindness of one who seeks the highest good where it does not exist. .
They make me suffer the great difficulty,
Who are the highest good investigating,
And yet they have not given you a drink.
And I go with my brain imagining,
That this thing only happens
Because that's not where I'm looking for
A Galilean manager who has the courage to adopt a pseudoscientific method to face the thankless task of making the most appropriate decisions to the problems, should first observe the work dynamics for a long time, study the processes and get to know the characteristics of the personnel in depth. Indeed, no, first of all it should be surrounded by trustworthy and competent people. Then, following a careful analysis of the objectives, strategic and otherwise, he could divide the organization into areas. Without going into the merits of the specificities that each company has, we can list some macro areas common to more or less all sectors.
1. Economic
2. Logistics
3. Productive
4. Human resources
5. Information technology
Each area obviously contains specificities, some of which are common to many realities. The economic area includes expenses, budgets and investments, logistics includes offices, travel and assets, human resources include career management, training, work well-being, skills, planning of professional needs and formative, et cetera, et cetera.
The sectors of a company are closely connected to each other. How do you decide, for example, whether to keep a headquarters, build a new one or optimize existing spaces, resorting to consistent use of smart working? It is done with the Galilean method: measuring, collecting data, analyzing them, representing them through graphs and tables, to understand what is the best solution and making a conscious choice, the one that, in most cases, does not derive from personal feelings but from rationality . In every organization there is a huge and untapped wealth of data and information. Unfortunately, very often there is a distinction to be made between available data and “potentially” available data. For example, it would be relatively easy to adopt informed and independent policies on personnel, if one had an integrated database in which all information concerning workers could be brought together.
All information does not mean the name, surname and registration number, it means integrating the skills, work styles, knowledge, training, possible seniority (so dear to trade unionists) and work history to the registry; it means having a database of curricula updated and indexable by modern search systems; means, measuring the objectives achieved, the individual skills and specificities and having effective summary panels to understand the work processes within which a certain resource is inserted or having a rating system to define independently, without constraints and external pressures , any career advancements.
What, then, are the obstacles to conscious management of work? The biggest obstacle is not of a practical nature but of a theoretical nature: the data do not lie and using them means depriving the decision makers of the arbitrariness of a malevolent choice. Rational choices are scary because they force you to take note of reality, eliminating any form of distortion and false narration. The data can bring out criticalities and specificities that are ignored as a result of lack of knowledge, arrogance or, worse, in favor of opaque decisions. The data tells the truth where there may be a need to lie. The data strongly threaten the possibility of commanding without the possibility of replying, of choosing at will and of imposing absurd rules dictated by personal tastes and whims, for this reason they are ignored within many public institutions, where efficiency is not closely related to production. An organization that ignores data is afraid of the truth and needs to create a reality based on lies to function. And who moves ?, Galileo would say, if he were in a similar situation.