We have reviewed: The Death of Modern Management
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The Death of Modern Management.
by Jo Owen
"The theory and practice of strategy parted company some time ago. Practising managers and strategy gurus live on different planets. Occasionally they will meet at a neutral venue, such as a conference. The strategy guru will then get on stage, wave his arms and make a brilliant and inspirational speech. After which, nothing happens.
The practising manager will return to his business and discover that the best predictor of next year's strategy is this year's strategy. It may be tweaked a little, but it will essentially be the same. There may be more emphasis on one channel, customer or product group. Or perhaps the pace of globalisation will be accelerated, or perhaps a daring CEO might make an acquisition or two. But essentially, the business will maintain roughly its previous trajectory".
Thus begins Jo Owen's brilliant book, The Death of Modern Management.
Within the turmoil of our ever-changing lives, the ability to strategise has become almost impossible, so strategy theory may well become a victim of the management revolution. At its best, strategy theory is irrelevant to many companies, and at its worst, it can be dangerous if it is used as the 'be all and end all' of company planning.
The practise of strategy may be dull and more difficult than the glib answers from gurus but practise will always be superior to theory.
The definition of strategy varies - for some it may simply mean 'important', or it may be used to justify something for which there is no other justification.
For example:
- "This strategic IT initiative... which costs $100 million... is essential to the survival of the firm" is a way of saying that the IT project has no financial business case to justify it;
- Strategic should mean more than "important". In truth, everyone has a different definition of strategy, which they defend with great vigour. A working definition might be something like this;
"Optimise the role and resources of the firm to realise its vision."
The book continues by analysing the different strategic tools created by management gurus, suggesting that they are all flawed! From Porter's 5 Forces to the Boston Consulting Group's Matrix and more recently the Blue Ocean Strategy, all are challenged as having 'no intellectual validity, no control group, no systematic test of the theory; long on hype and hope, but short on results or practicality'.
Furthermore, it says that using any formula could lead to the "Hawthorne Effect" which is that just by doing something rather than nothing, performance is likely to improve. So the formula is given the credit for improvement and strategy frameworks which were originally intended to assist management thinking have become substitutes for thinking.
In conclusion, the author states that 'great strategy is normally very simple, but achieving simplicity is very hard. The simplistic formulas of the past are both flawed and dangerous. When managers ride the wave of orthodoxy, they sink or swim with the fortunes of the industry. Very few firms show that they can consistently swim against the fortunes of their industry. To become leaders, firms cannot follow orthodoxy. They have to be different in a relevant way'.
Whether strategy is revolutionary or incremental, it cannot rely on the simplistic formulas of consultants and gurus. Managers must liberate and harness the talent of customers, suppliers and staff to discover and implement strategy. Then we will have a world which is more than a top down world of tired strategic formulas.
"Jo Owen delivers a robust and wide-ranging assault on the delusions of management, strategy, finance and marketing that have created an aura of justified mistrust around the modern corporation, but does so with wit, lucidity and lots of enlivening illustrations. The answers for 21st century business are helpfully accessible".
Professor Nigel Nicholson, London Business School, author of Managing
the Human Animal and Family Wars
Impact Executives is the Interim Management division of the Harvey Nash Group plc offering a Global Interim Management Resource and is one of the leading Interim Management Providers in Europe. www.impactexecutives.com