We 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 recent decades. But physicist, consultant, speaker, and author Ravi Tangri makes the important point that the market for these unfortunate services is due at least as much to demand as to supply. Markets, as we all know, are where supply and demand meet. Their meeting, though, generally isn’t a coincidental collision . . .
Yesterday we looked at a perhaps unexpected source of what some of its own members claim is not merely empty – but even harmful – management theory. But that is hardly the most active producer of such problematic thinking. The consulting industry is a far more prolific generator of some of the more inane ideas that have swept the field in recent decades. And actually, there are two elements to the inanity. . .
It has long been remarked that there is a converse correlation between economic cycles and enrolment in MBA programs. When business is down, the business schools start filling up with managers seeking to pad their credentials. And so as we enter the current global crisis we can probably expect a boom in MBAs within a year or two – just in time to hop the next economic train through town. But will they be driving the next boom, as so many imagine, or setting up the next bust?
A few years ago, Rich Karlgaard published a terrific piece in Forbes called “Ten Laws of the Modern World. They are well-chosen, and the explanations for their selection are astute – brief, but full of thought-provoking ideas. Here are two of them . . .
The tradition from which come today’s presumptive intellectuals suggests that there are people who inherently know better, and people who inherently do not. To claim membership of the former group requires that one believe in the existence and humble condition of the latter. Moreover, it demands that they interact with each other in a contemporary reflection of their historic relationship. The result is the modern progressive movement. . .
The late Peter Drucker will likely be remembered as the most influential management thinker of the last 100 years – perhaps of all time. He was at once profound and prolific, writing widely on management and other topics. Certainly much has been written about him, as well. But the author of this book, Elizabeth Haas Edersheim, wrote it at the specific request of Drucker, and with the help of his close collaboration over the last sixteen months of his life. . .
If you read widely in the field, you may eventually begin to wonder what, exactly, management really is, anyway. It is so often discussed in reference to its actors – those who do it, those to whom it is done – that we forget to ask why it is done. And when we do, the answers are often also in reference to those actors – to develop leaders, to empower employees, even to raise them to the next level of consciousness and morality. There are several problems with this, but we’ll note just two, here . . .
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