Comments on: Getting what you pay for

By: Why some good ideas still become management fads | Managing Leadership

Why some good ideas still become management fads | Managing Leadership — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:40:37 +0000

[...] weeks ago, we discussed the question of management fads, their causes and effects (academics, consultants, management). Author and consultant Ravi Tangri pointed out in a comment that some of the [...]

By: Management responsibility for management fads | Managing Leadership

Management responsibility for management fads | Managing Leadership — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:36:17 +0000

[...] discussed, last week, the contributions of academics and consultants to the unfortunate waves of management fads that have made a repeated mockery of so many over [...]

By: Ravi Tangri

Ravi Tangri — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:51:40 +0000

I look forward to your post. I’m working on one myself to integrate this conversation with a couple of others I’ve been having on other blogs.

By: Jim Stroup

Jim Stroup — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:30:52 +0000

Hello Ravi,

You do us a service by emphasizing the key to the problem – both academics and consultants do the sorts of things described in these past two posts because the market – working executives – for one perverse reason or another, specifically wants them to, or tolerates (and pays for) it. This emphasis points to another point worth noting – a lot of academics and consultants are properly focused and produce good work, much of which fails to receive the attention it deserves due to its generators lacking the marketing inclinations or instincts of the others.

This is worth a post of its own – I will get to that.

Thanks for your visit and your excellent observations!

By: Ravi Tangri

Ravi Tangri — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:06:11 +0000

I would say that there is another reason these approaches fail (in addition to consultants jumping onto a bandwagon and filtering/ distorting the essence of what may be an effective approach). That reason is the approach of the leadership themselves. Often managers see these approaches and things you ‘do’ or things you delegate to your organization to ‘do’. And that is far from the case.

Taking a fundamentally different approach to management requires the manager to change and/or the culture to change (and the bulk of the corporate culture is shaped by the leadership).

Organizations are living systems, and as such, the leader is as much part of the problem as part of the solution. As such, is the leader willing to look in the mirror and make the changes (s)he needs to take to support the initiative/ approach? It takes courage to do that, and not all leaders are ready to do so.

If leaders keep behaving they way they always have been, they show that they don’t really believe the approach, and the organization sees it as the flavour of the month.

Yes, consultants who don’t understand what they are doing dilute what may be an effective approach, but I don’t think that has as much of an impact as leaders who don’t understand the changes they want have to begin with them.

If it’s not working in the organization, then do you have the courage to look a lot closer to home as opposed to blaming your people or consultants?