The Future of Management: Book Review

I've decided to post the review on TOC applied to services tomorrow because I think Hamel's book sets the stage for the rest of the week. While I was off from blogging, I read several books that fit well together in the overall message that management must evolve if it is to stay relevant.

So, let's start with Hamel's The Future of Management. Essentially this is a manifesto for changing management practices and thus has little evidence to back up the author's claims. He does use some case studies from Whole Foods, W.L. Gore, and Google to back up his arguments that management needs to break from the Tayloristic past into a new paradigm based on the following design principles: 1) Life - Use constant experimentation to make mistakes which increases chances of finding new, successful processes. 2) Markets - Substitute market-dynamics for planning and strategy 3) Democracy - Encourage everyone in the organization to have a voice. 4) Faith - Give people a vision to follow. 5) Cities - Create places of diversity and serendipity.

Use constant experimentation to make mistakes which increases chances of finding new, successful processes

In support of these design principles, Hamel suggests these five steps:
1) Create a democracy of ideas
2) Amplify human imagination
3) Dynamically reallocate resources
4) Aggregate collective wisdom
5) Minimize the drag of old mental models
6) Give everyone a chance to opt in

If any of this sounds familiar, it is no coincidence. Hamel claims Web 2.0 as the model for Management 2.0 with the newfound technologies such as wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds. He echoes Richard Florida in his assertion that the new management must resolve the tension between creativity and organization. At the end of the book, Hamel declines to offer his vision of Management 2.0 but insists that the person who creates it will rule the post-managerial (or post-organizational) era.

I wanted to dismiss this as another book of hype for Web 2.0 but I find his arguments and observations compelling. I don't share his enthusiasm for Google but I do agree with his assessments of Whole Foods and W.L. Gore. His analysis of how IBM turned itself around is a good case study of the six principles and should have been the centerpiece of the book. As with any manifesto, there is a lot of enthusiasm substituted for analysis but his ideas are intriguing and his central point is undeniable: management must change in response to the current economic and societal realities. Whether it is through Hamel's principles or adoption of Web 2.0 practices remains to be seen.