Do We Need to Reinvent Management?
Quick, when was the following statement written—1954, 1973 or 2010? “The new model (of management) will have to . . . push power and decision-making down the organization as much as possible, rather than leave it concentrated at the top.”
And what about this one? Was it 1949, 1985 or 2008? “We are dealing with decentralization carried a step further. . . . Such decentralization gives people all along the management line a stimulating feeling of personal freedom; freedom to think and plan boldly; freedom to venture along new and untried paths; freedom to fight back if their ideas or plans are attacked by superiors; freedom to take calculated risks; freedom to fail.”
Well, the correct answers are, respectively, 2010 (from a Wall Street Journal article, published last August, with the provocative title “The End of Management”) and 1949 (from William B. Given Jr.’s book Bottom-Up Management).
If you guessed wrong—or are simply struck by the stunning similarity between these two passages, written more than 60 years apart—then you, like us, may be trying to figure out whether we need to “reinvent management,” a notion being pushed by Gary Hamel, Julian Birkinshaw and others. Or do we simply need to better practice the management principles advanced long ago by William Given and other pioneers, including Peter Drucker?
But we also know that the fundamentals he introduced in landmark works now decades old—The Practice of Management; Managing for Results; Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices; Innovation & Entrepreneurship—bear a striking resemblance to many of the prescriptions being served up today by those advocating an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new approach. Among them: giving workers as much freedom and responsibility as possible; getting beyond the organization’s own walls and focusing on the “meaningful outside”; abandoning yesterday to make room for tomorrow.
Rick Wartzman, the Drucker Institute’s executive director, led a panel discussion on this topic at the Drucker Global Forum in Vienna this week. (See his PowerPoint deck here.)
Meantime, though, tell us what you think: Do we really need to reinvent management—or simply go back to the roots?
Peter Drucker
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9 Comments
Luis Taniguchi
November 19, 2010Companies have to reinvent how manage with all those new tools we have today. So, back to the roots of the management essence with a contemporary way to see.
ana macedo
November 20, 2010great answer!
Arjun Chandrasekhar
November 20, 2010Management of organizations must deal with and leverage of the changing face of society and business dynamics. In this context I see reinventing management as a continuous process of adapting to change and a continuous pursuit of excellence.
Leaders and business managers who are in the forefront of applying management practices to real world situations should set aside resources to test out new approaches and models. A model of governance that is more sensitive to change and forward looking is essential for survival and establishing excellence, with the minimum of disruption.
George L. Williams
November 20, 2010“Reinvent” is not the correct word to contemplate, “re-orient” is the correct question. Western economies still operate within a management model which reward decision-making and benefits from creativity or production to the male (mostly white) “leadership”; regardless of the source of creativity, production, or resources. That 500-year-old model is under attack across the globe. You would never become aware of that from watching what passes for “news media” in the United States today. Peter believed in the “knowledge-worker” who would own and control his products and creativity.
G. H. Popat
November 20, 2010Took a course from Peter Drucker, during my EMBA. Amazingly forward looking man.
Top management need to be unselfish, and unafraid. Let me explain. Every top manager must work himself or herself out of her current job. Be a teacher, and teach your current responsibilities to qualified individual. Then what does a manager to do?
That is where the unafraid part comes in. Top manager’s must be confident enough that he or she can add value at a higher level. Yes, the top managers must be confident enough to take a” leap” based on his or her skill set. How does that add value? This will force top managers to add value on an on going basis. Adding value should not be a “batch”process, but an ongoing process.
We own a small business, I made my job of owner/operator obsolete, by giving day to day responsibility to capable managers. Did I retire? No. Got involved in adding value in so many ways that in last 12 years, our gross revenue multiplied three fold, and our net revenue multiplied at least four fold. At first it was scary…..very scary to give up the operating control of the business, but it worked.
Where did I learn this? During my corporate days, I got into a position where people will walk up to me and say “I like what you are doing, can I do that?” My answer was always “yes.” By that time, I knew the next guy or gal, doing my job, if they messed up…..I would know. After a while I was called “master delegator!!” I have done this in my personal life too……now my wife tells me, “I can not handle this or that……it is yours!!”
In our personal lives, this approach has developed my wife’s capabilities and horizons. It has made our marriage and lives richer. For me approach to personal life and professional life is one and same!!
Thomas J. Kepic DDS, MSD
November 20, 2010Great information from the above powerpoint presentation. As President-Elect of the California Society of Periodontists, I believe the private practice clinicians are the ones to make decisions for the society. I have been traveling our state, asking questions. The comments and concerns will form my focus in 2011. A bottom up leadership.
Kieran Major
November 23, 2010We are already reinventing and reorienting management. It is a constant change.
Our resources have all been changing, for a very long time. People, technology, global availability of raw materials and labor, expectations of how work will be blended (or not) with daily life, the expectations of the value generated from management; all of it has changed dramatically in the last decade.
I enjoy seeing the variety of management techniques and approaches at work today and can’t wait to see the next evolution. It seems that we have much greater diversity in our management approaches, both between companies and within individual companies. The core issue will be, as others above have noted, changing our view on power and control, which, in my personal opinion, drives foundational changes in management approach. Changing this view will require significant cultural change in areas outside what we would typically consider as the management domain.
Alba Patricia Valencia
November 23, 2010No need to reinvent management, just knowing how to turn the theory into practice.
Jay Moon
November 29, 2010If reinventing means to apply new beliefs, ideas, and relationship between peoples in organization, this is not a real thing. As we have founded, management’s core essense is to utilize people’s capability ultimately to achieve good purposes for society. Therefore, If certain types of so-called management are out of this core, they are not management. They are supervision, administration, operation at best.
However, doing the right management is not easy due to misunderstanding, prejudice, distrust…
So, reinveintg mannagment as restoring the core of management shoude be pursued anytime in every organizations.
Of course, the efforts would be very different in countries, organizations.