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

2 BS3916 Thinking about Management 4: The influence of some management gurus Peter Drucker Argues in Post Capitalist Society that there is a ‘knowledge revolution’… Phase 1 : Industrial Revolution ( ) Phase 2: Productivity Revolution (1881-post WW2) Phase 3: Management Revolution (post WW )

3 BS3916 Thinking about Management 4: 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 Management 4: The influence of some management gurus 5.To innovate successfully, the post- capitalist organisation will have to de-centralise 6.A knowledge economy is a mobile society 7.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 Management 4: The influence of some management gurus Five basic tasks of management… 1.Setting objectives 2.Organising 3.Motivating 4.Measuring 5.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 Management 4: 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 Management 4: 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 4 th i.e. customers ?

8 BS3916 Thinking about Management 4: 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 Management 4: The influence of some management gurus Handy’s ‘Triple I’ organisation I 3 =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 Management 4: 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 Management 4: 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 Management 4: 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 Management 4: 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 learning organisations in which organisation develop the abilities of organisational members to think systematically

14 BS3916 Thinking about Management 4: 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 Management 4: 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 Management 4: 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