Two 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 management ideas commonly viewed as fads are actually productive concepts that do much good when properly conceived and applied.
That this is true only adds to the problem. Many of them are nevertheless transformed into fads – not by their inherent worth – but due to their presentation by providers and treatment by management teams.
Many such concepts become fads – passing rapidly into and then out of favor – due to the discovery over time that they, in fact, lack practical value at work. But others that do have such actual usefulness also degenerate into fads due to some of the factors discussed over the past two weeks – poor comprehension, presentation, and application by both providers and consumers.
That some of those in this latter category quietly survive among those who properly understand and employ them only adds a certain misery to the wider issue of the frenzied marketing-oriented character of much management “thinking.”
Speaking of sensible management thinking, Peter Drucker once ascribed this problem to companies that find themselves with excess, expensive management:
Typically such a business goes in for the latest management fads. When “human relations” are in season, it hires psychologists, social workers, and personnel experts and puts everybody through “leadership training.” Two years later everybody talks “operations research” and attends management-science seminars.”
The solution, according to Drucker, is to scale back the ranks of management. We seem to be suffering from excess, expensive management, today. Is it their ranks that are being scaled back as a result?
And, ultimately, who is responsible for this – the development of ill-conceived management fads, the faddish treatment of good ones, and the misdirection of the bill for the consequences of their use or misuse? Is it even the managers themselves, or those charged with supervising them – their boards of directors?
Of course, if the latter is stacked with the former, then we just have another form of excess and expensive management, with no one to trim them back. As we have seen with the government handling of the current crisis, not even the naturally restorative forces of the market will be allowed to do that. So, in the absence of accountability, the fads – fatal and futile – will continue.
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Today’s tips: Of course, everyone with a contending view on this matter insists they are right. But someone has to be wrong; some are even wrong all the time. Please be sure to see Beth Robinson’s insightful look at the problem of kaleidoscoping perspectives.
Then, you will want to read Michael Wade’s explanation of how failing to enter that kaleidoscope can increase the odds that a project will go wrong.
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Technorati Tags: management, fad, consultant, leadership, training, operations, research, Drucker, manager, government, market, accountability, Beth Robinson, Michael Wade, Ravi Tangri
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