BS3916 Thinking about Management

1. BS3916 Thinking about Management 4: The influence of some management gurus

2. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Peter Drucker Argues in Post Capitalist Society that there is a ‘knowledge revolution’… • Phase 1 : Industrial Revolution (1700-1880) • Phase 2: Productivity Revolution (1881-post WW2) • Phase 3: Management Revolution (post WW2-2020)

3. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus • Purpose of organisations in a knowledge economy is to make knowledge productive • Organisations will focus on the work their specialists do well • An organisation of knowledge specialists is an organisation of equals • Organisations must be designed for constant change

4. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus • To innovate successfully, the post-capitalist organisation will have to de-centralise • A knowledge economy is a mobile society • A knowledge society is a competitive society • Cf. analyses made by: Daniel Bell: The Coming of Post-Industrial Society Burns and Stalker: The Management of Innovation

5. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Five basic tasks of management… • Setting objectives • Organising • Motivating • Measuring • Developing people (including him/herself) • Poor management may increase as organisations get larger and more complicated • Globalisation forces a new ‘breed’ of manager

6. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Charles Handy… • Organisations will increasingly ‘federalise’ with a small core • Smaller units are more flexible, responsive, focused etc. (‘subsidiarity’) • Organisations are not so much systems (inputs, processes etc) as networks (cultures and networks, influence rather than control, leadership not management)

7. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Handy’s ‘Shamrock’ organisation has three‘leaves’… • Core workers (highly trained professionals) • Contractual fringe (individuals or organisations themselves) • Flexible labour force (but should not be a band of cheap casual workers!) • Do we need to add a 4th i.e. customers ?

8. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Handy’s Portfolio concept… • Full-time, permanent jobs with a ‘career for life’ have gone for ever to be replaced by.. • Portfolios in which we combine • Wage work (money for time) • Fee work (money for results) • Home work (domestic) • Gift work (voluntary) • Study work (extending knowledge)

9. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Handy’s ‘Triple I’ organisation • I3=Added value where the ‘3 I’s’ are.. • Intelligence • Information • Ideas ‘Your organisations will come to resemble universities or colleges’ ‘Although universities get more like businesses!’

10. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Tom Peters Best known for In Search of Excellence in which argued that excellent companies… • had a bias for action • were close to the customer • had autonomy and entrepreneurship • believed in productivity through people • were hands-on and value-driven /cont’d

11. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Excellent companies… [cont’d] • stuck to the task in hand • had a simple form and a lean staff • had simultaneous ‘loose-tight’ structures But…the 43 excellent companies did not remain so e.g. People’s Express, Wang, IBM all fell on hard times

12. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Tom Peters..Other key ideas • MBWA (Management by Wandering About) • Listening..Teaching…Facilitating • ‘Businessed’ jobs in which • Organisations are federalised • Every employee is turned into a business person i.e. given authority for spending decisions, quality control, requirement to act on own initiative etc

13. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Peter Senge • In The Fifth Discipline Senge argues that organisations suffer from learning disabilities that prevent them recognising threats and opportunities • Senge argues the need to become learningorganisations in which organisation develop the abilities of organisational members to thinksystematically

14. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus 5 key concepts are… • Systems theory (to help mangers spot repetitive patterns • Personal mastery (spiritual growth) • Mental models (the ‘basic assumptions’ of people working in the organisation) • Shared vision (developing from personal vision) • Team learning (demands dialogue and discussion)

15. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Common themes to all these thinkers are… • Organisational Size and Organisational Structure is critical (i.e. smaller, federal structures) • Importance of knowledge as a product to be processed, shared • Employees need to be flexible, autonomous • But importance of team working is still paramount • Responsiveness to ideas, markets and customers

16. BS3916 Thinking about Management4: The influence of some management gurus Do management gurus have a recipe for success ? • Many of them were successful for themselves i.e. they established a career out of their writings • Do we have good empirical evidence that companies have ‘turned themselves around’ by following particular lines of advice ? • Probably most helpful by getting all of us to ‘think the unthinkable’ i.e. examine problem-solving by using a different mental model