How to Manage Without Management Fads
Sales Machine's most popular post is "The 8 Stupidest Management Fads of All Time" where I debunked Six Sigma, Matrix Management, MBO, etc. However, while many people enjoyed that post, many readers complained that I didn't provide any alternatives.
The truth is that I didn't have an alternatives, because while I'm a master at detecting corporate BS, I'm not a management consultant, nor have I any desire to become one. Luckily, a Sales Machine reader (in this case Marc Jellinek) came to the rescue with this simple recipe for managing just about anything.
Here it is, with some light editing:
Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891) wrote: "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."I really like that recipe, because it squares with every example of successful management that I have ever seen or read about. Thanks, Mark!That being so, what's the alternative? Easy. Plan for change and allow for flexibility.
Have an overall plan. Allow it to be a foundation and not a boat anchor.
Clearly communicate goals, then allow for people to find their own way to those goals if the stated plan isn't working or conditions change outside of the plans assumptions.
Central control doesn't work. From centrally planned economies to micro-managed corporations, the failures are plentiful and well documented.
Complete empowerment doesn't work. Everyone doing their own thing, with no common goals means that scale is never leveraged and people wind up (intentionally or unintentionally) working at crossed purposes and undoing each other's work.
The middle ground is having clearly stated objectives and a framework, with built in flexibility.
It's simple and it's boring and it doesn't generate billions of dollars in consulting fees, but it has stood the test of time.
By the way, Moltke was a disciple of Clausewitz (1780-1831), who was an admirer of Hegel (1770-1831), whose thinking was built on earlier works of Kant (1804), Plotinus (270 AD) and Plato (348 BC).
In other words, this simple, successful line of thought has existed since before the birth of Christ.
READER: What do you think? Mark puts it very nicely, eh?