Now that’s a good question… and not as silly as it sounds. Whatever you say, the management system in place in almost all businesses comes from Taylorism. We’ve tweaked it, made it more flexible in places, but it’s still an adaptation of something that’s very top-down in any case. It’s only logical and I don’t see how it could be any different historically.
Our businesses have historically come from the secondary sector. The first managers of businesses born of the tertiary sector also came from the secondary sector and they reproduced the organisational methods they knew. Little by little, they added a pinch of autonomy and empowerment here and there, a touch of participation here, a little more freedom to express individual creativity and innovation there, but these remain bubbles in a highly structured system. It all depends on the ‘local’ management of the policy of this or that entity, on the intensity of the ‘little boss’, ‘not invented here’, or ‘broom wherever you want’ syndrome of the managers and decision-makers.
What differentiates the management of innovative businesses such as start-ups from traditional structures is perhaps not so much due to their size (although still in certain proportions) but to the Taylorian heritage of the latter. Only the former were created with the emergence of knowledgworkers in mind, because their business model is based almost entirely on them, right from the outset.
The great novelty at the beginning of this century is the knowledgeworker, his or her particular skills, his or her way of doing things… what was just a curiosity 15 years ago can now make up a large proportion of some businesses’ revenue. And perhaps this means that we need to rethink a model that has been overtaken by changes in our economy.
In fact, this thought was inspired by an email I received from a friend who copied quotes she’d read here and there (I’ll have to remember to ask her for the references):
‘The consultant is a little beast who is difficult to manage, with a strong personality, endowed with curiosity, a taste for change, innovation and an independent spirit’.
‘Professional services businesses can only be managed in one of two ways: badly or not at all’.
‘Knowledgeworkers do not reject management, but management that is unsuited to who they are’.
At one time dedicated to consultants, knowledgeworkers primus generis, these observations can be applied to many professions today.
Logical: you can’t think of a job as requiring innovation, autonomy, creativity and competence and yet have a hyper-directive management style based on total control.
As a sign that a new awareness is emerging, certain statues are beginning to be taken down, such as that of Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, whose ideas and books on management have long been gospel. The former manager of the century according to ‘Fortune’ (1999), whose principles included total control, employee ratings and the dismissal of the worst performers, has now been thrown back on the ropes by ‘Fortune’ itself. ‘Sorry Jack, your rules just don’t work any more’… Today, the emphasis is on the long-term development of personalities, hiring people with passion rather than ambition, and focusing strategy on customer satisfaction rather than dividends… at least that’s what the magazine says.
Doesn’t this also reflect a new type of employee? While Fortune’s observation goes far beyond the strictly managerial aspect, the fact remains that the knowledge worker would hardly have found anything to express his potential under Jack Welch.
Food for thought, don’t you think?
Add to this the fact that with the emergence of remote teams and people with no fixed desk, forms of working made possible by knowledgworking, management and social relations will have to be able to materialise online… it’s all very management 2.0!
Related articles:
Social computing and knowledgeworking need new metrics
Blogs as a management tool: what’s important is content
Turning knowledge into action and results
About knowledge worker’s productivity… or the E2.0 paradigm
How to link formal and informal within the enterprise : the “still” company
Enterprise 2.0, Management 2.0, HR 2.0 and Culture 2.0 according to Jon Husband
