Gary

You are an intelligent professor and author and should therefore know what disinterested means! Basically there are two contrasts - interested vs not interested and having an interest vs being disinterested. In most sporting contests it would be odd if the officials were not interested in the outcome of the contest. However, even if they are massive fans of the sport, they should be disinterested in the outcome, i.e. have no personal (e.g. financial) interest in whether one contestant or the other wins.

Paul

Dear Gary,

I, like you, believe that the people-side of management is ripe for innovation (Meaty Moonshot Challenge #3). Corporate America earns an "F" for employee motivation considering that only 31% of employees are engaged in their work (Gallup, 2006 engagement survey). By the way, The Future of Management (FOM) was the best written and most inspiring business book I have ever read! Bravo!

The trick to improving employee engagement scores, as you point out in FOM, to work more harmoniously with human nature. If companies currently harvest only, say, 31% of the potential energy of their employees, the question becomes--what management innovations will improve this meager harvest?

I agree with your recommendations for increasing the harvest as expressed in FOM--create flat, egalitarian, democratic communities where employees opt-in. These policies are efficient, I believe, because they optimally engage the motivational engine that drives human achievement.

I've written a book titled "Managing the Corporate Tribe" that reaches the very same conclusions using a hard, biologic approach. In other words, we converge upon the same solution from different directions. My book provides hard scientific validation for your recommendations. You can check out Chapter 1 at userpages.chorus.net/peherr/Chapter%201.

I may have "built a better mousetrap" for describing nature's optimal and most productive direction. The optimal direction is the one that best satisfies the biologic and social survival needs all human beings share. Since survival needs are encoded in feelings of pleasure and pain, the optimal direction is also the most pleasurable and rewarding.

Nature not only wants us to feel satisfied after a great meal, but also when we have innovated, mastered skills, attained goals, protected ourselves, and worked cooperatively as part of a tightly-bonded tribe. In other words, nature wants the same things businesses want. Natue and business are on the same page.

The five social needs, which I call social appetites, are biologically encoded in our brains. They are the cylinders in nature's motivational engine. When the social appetites are damaged by brain injury or illness, human beings malfuntion and become almost inert.

Companies that feed the social appetites will create optimal incentives and harvest optimal productivity. The feelings associated with the social appetites come in five flavors, one for each appetite. Human beings crave these feelings. We are addicted to them. Drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine trigger the very same survival system, but artificially and out of context.

I can specify which brain areas create the productive pleasures and which neurotransmitters and neuropeptides are involved in modulating them. I've developed a simple survey and metric for measuring these motive forces in the workplace. All companies should measure the feelings emanating from nature's elegant survival autopilot. This metric is my contribution to 21st century management. Let me know if you'd like a brochure describing the metric and/or the manuscript for Mananaging the Tribe.

Keep up the great work! On with the revolution!

Best Regards,

Paul Herr
608-833-9446
peherr@chorus.net

"If practical men, therefore, rely wholly on their own experience, and disregard our science in its present state of development, it cannot be due to a lack of serious interest or ability on their part. [...] The cause of such remarkable indifference must not be sought elsewhere than in the present state of our science itself, in the sterility of all past endeavors to find its empirical foundations."

It's hard to believe that Carl Menger wrote that in 1871!!...

On the same note:

"One of the most important, though least discussed, aspects of the business world is our basic view of it. Rooted in economics, the conventional view shows a space, a marketplace (i.e., local, national, global), populated by a multitude of customers and vendors engaged in economic activities, like buying and selling goods and services. It is a top-down view that reflects the mainstream economic thought that characterized Western society shortly after the Second World War, when business management began to consolidate as a distinct discipline. Ironically, the management field's continuing association with the branch of microeconomics, in particular, has not only constrained it to the microeconomics' implied top-down view, but has kept it more or less subordinated to mainstream economic thought and practices. As a result, the average view of the business world remains significantly limited by its overwhelming focus on the interaction among the players (i.e., competition and competitive advantage), and its limited attention to human behavior, which is in fact the foundation, or cause, of every economic or business phenomenon."

This is an excerpt from my new article "A Business-Relevant View of Human Nature," which is my attempt to provide a deeper understanding of business, in general. Flip through it and, if it looks interesting, give it a read. I think you will find it valuable.
http://www.RedefiningStrategy.com/HumanNature.pdf

I’ve been privy to observe and participate in a number of transformations. Those that were the most effective and occurred more rapidly crossed organizational boundaries and levels.

People at all levels and roles worked together toward a common goal, which was clear to the entire organization. The team was in control of its own destiny—-it not only had a sense of responsibility but also a sense of accountability.

Successful transformations involved teams in which members’ talents and skills were known and optimized to solve the problem at hand. The relationship was recognized as an important influence in getting things done. Therefore accomplishing a task at all costs—-even the relationship—-was not practiced. The theory was that short term gains would not lead to long-term, sustainable success.

All contributions were recognized. It didn’t require a formal program or receipt of a jacket or tote bag bearing the company logo. All it took was a simple “thank you, your contribution helped us…”

Finally, leadership in successful transformations was highly visible. They truly listened to even the least level on the team, which often had some of the most profound insights.

So what does the future organizational structure look like? Fewer “managers” and more leaders. Fewer departments and more teams. The future organization, as I see it, is comprised of a few leaders supported by fluid teams that assemble, disassemble and reassemble based on the challenge at hand, the competencies required to meet the challenge and the wisdom to know whether the competency exists within the organization or requires outsourced partners. In the end, workers become entrepreneurs, marketing their services whether as direct employees or outsourced partners, in ways that add value.

Regardless of structure, many companies are missing basic management tenets (in addition to plain old common courtesy):

• People need clear goals communicated in a way that everyone understands


• They need to see that their talents are known and appreciated
  They need recognition… and not some hokie “at-a-girl” or service award, but a cultural shift in which the awareness of everyone’s contribution is part of daily work life.


• They need a certain amount of control/accountability over their destiny and encouragement to seek innovative ways to overcome challenges.

Gary, I like you for what you think & write. But this article makes you sound like a confused scientist, who has designed a shuttle but doesnt know what to do of it.
In your article, What Is Management’s Moonshot? you talk about interest & its antontym but forgot to distinguish the thin line between personal & professional interest. I am sure most of the readers out there will agree to my view-point. I will return back to this page for sure to check what other readers have to say & will continue.

Dear Prof. Hamel,

There appears to be a common thread running through the three challenges posed by you, namely, agility, innovation and the work environment. Why do organizations develop inertia? Why does everyone not participate in the innovation process? Why does the work environment foster mediocrity and stifle passion and great performance?

Perhaps the answer lies in the way organizations communicate or rather, fail to communicate. An analysis of a 100 mission statements has revealed what one should have known intuitively - mission statements confuse more than they enlighten. 75% of the statements had very similar buzzwords - value creation, customer delight, caring for the environment, employee engagement, respect for the law. Shorn of rhetoric, what do these phrases mean to a lay person? What do they mean to operational level employees? What do they mean for Executives and Managers who are constantly egged on to show better results?

With a few notable exceptions, organizations know only one way of communicating - downward. Upward communication is absent or even where present, gets distorted to a degree that it loses its relevance by the time it reaches the top. The less said about lateral and diagonal communication, the better. The craving for one-upmanship acts as a barrier to honest lateral communication, and functional turfs come in the way of diagonal communication. Is it any wonder then that the grapewine becomes more powerful than formal communication?

All the three challenges posed can be addressed to a significant extent through open communication. The more an organization is willing to introspect and come to terms with reality without being overwhelmed by the possible consequences, the higher would the probability of a pro-active culture, widespread innovation, and intrapreneurship.

The next imperative is to move away from the fascination for quarterly earnings and share-price indices, and focus on all stakeholders. The importance of shareholders can never be undermined, but what shareholders are getting today would pale into insignificance compared to what they would get if an organization can enthuse its people to be creative, transparent, and have a sense of process ownership.

The key factor in driving these changes may be leadership. If leaders can sacrifice (?) their personal greed for the greater good of all concerned, the challenges can indeed be overcome, to the satisfaction of everyone, the leaders included.

Please do keep throwing up more challenges. It is a fascinating journey of exploration.

Warm regards

Re:MANAGEMENT'S NEXT BIG IDEA..."LEADAGEMENT!"

I have come to realise that once we moved away from MANAGERIALISM to LEADERSHIP model of EXECUTIVE development, a new paradigm could now emerge, which I am exploring in my "LEADAGEMENT: The SUPER-MODEL of Higher Executive Development Beyond Management and Leadership".

Myself and a few colleagues are working on this super-model via the GLOBAL LEADAGEMENT INSTITUTE, London. We believe that MANAGERIALISM is not enough, and that LEADERSHIP is not enough either. The way forward in the SYNTHESIS of both executive models inherited from past generations.

The basic principles of MANAGEMENT and those of LEADERSHIP practices are easilly reducible to CONCEPTS that can become synthesised in the wholistic system of LEADAGEMENT, which hopefully indue course give us LEADAGERS: the dynamic Leader-Managers or Manager-Leaders of tomorrow.

We are already working to see how LEADAGEMENT practice helps to produce higher Executive PERFORMANCE among organisations administrative cadres.

We shall keep you all posted.

BISIKAY
Director, Global LEADAGEMENT Institute, LONDON, UK
bisikay@gamil.com

Mr Hammel:

As a first line supervisor on a meduim size company, with multiple levels of management, directorships, vice-presidencies et. all; I don't see any real or true commitment form management as general to a higher goal.

Corporate executives become so entrenched in the daily survival of their companies, most often forget that Management has more profound impact that just the bottom line. Very few dare to ask the same questions that you present in this article. If we had more managers equally committed to the business endeavors in favor of society's big problems at a local, regional or National/International level, many of todays problems would be significantly reduced.

Our society and our business culture gives little credit or none in most cases to those few indiviuals that are do commit to social causes; you either are a low level supervisor involved with some youth group or mentor program, or are the extraodinarily rich such as late Steve Fossett, or Bill Gates that give out millions of dollars to charities. But a large range of middle and top management do not put to work their collective expertise to enhance today's societies.

In my opinion; how many of our corporate leaders truly believe that they can do more, and should therefore involve themselves in local social causes and challenge todays problems.

Jorge Parra.
Data Entry Supervisor at a medium size company...

Hi Gary,
Very good article and very well summarized challenges. I would only want to add that there is a fundamental problem that would probably need to be resolved first (at least in some organizations). The problem is complete absence of leadership in a typical large corporation (Berkshire and Apple are not typical). Before any leadership can be improved it needs to be established. From what I have seen executives do not show any leadership whatsoever. The are mostly pre-occupied with personal positioning or financial gains. Their leadership prowess is communicated down to the employees through very carefully crafted memos that read like legal documents, or self-praising PowerPoint speeches during divisional or departmental meetings.
Even basic integrity is often in question: lying to employees is OK. Feeding "lowly workers" the party line so that would just shut up and go back to work is common. How else would you explain huge popularity of Dilbert, The Office and Despair.com?

I would describe this challenge as follows:
Challenge #0: How to invite Leaders to management.

Thank you for the great article; I hope potential leaders will read it :)
Stas

Great article Gary,

I think that the increasing popularity of business in most peoples' day-to-day lives is actually creating the desired management improvements you spoke of. The initiatives of Bono, Jolie, and even Sir Richard Branson have very real inspirational impacts on the lives of today's youth, and even business professors ; )

This resurgence in the public's fascination with business gurus and employment tips are helping to bolster every one's skill set, and ability to succeed. This of course decelerates the need for managers to develop endless processes to manage performance gaps.

Indeed I see the future of management becoming more reliant on competent employees who are multi-skilled and can efficiently and effectively accomplish planned and impromptu challenges in the work place.

In the not too far off future I even see concepts like "corporate social responsibility" transcending the business community and becoming a part of every one's personal goal setting strategies akin to a "personal social responsibility" component.

The Internet is the key to this outcome as more people become information-carnivores with respect to acquiring the tools needed to plan for personal success and accountability for the health of our planet.

When the average person begins to act in ways that can better engage and develop their communities through the procurement of greater skill sets; the question of how to develop management practices will become a rather moot point, IMO.

Gary, we recommend “freedom in the workplace” as the moonshot goal for reinventing management! Our work found that freedom produces revolutionary improvements for all three of your challenges —nimble organizations, rule-breaking innovation, and inspired employees. Equally important purging hierarchical control from management thinking will open a new horizon for innovators to explore how the awesome impacts of freedom and ownership on human development and behavior affect all dimensions of management and organizational theory and practices.

Paul Staley and I retired convinced that our trial and error transformations of the managements of two small companies stumbled upon something powerful, but were unable to explain what happened or how to reproduce the experiences. Our search for answers finally began to produce results when Paul asked— Is there any fundamental reason for management to control employees? Research uncovered no basic reason to control employees, and instead revealed how management can create cultures within which individuals function freely with full authority, full responsibility, and full accountability. Further we discovered that we and five well known business leaders actually built cultures similar to this ideal model and that individuals in seven different industries responded by behaving more like creative entrepreneurs than employees. Finally, we found that these cultures require a fundamentally different leadership mindset—a management paradigm shift from hierarchical control to vision-based freedom. From another perspective this discovery also explained why decades of attempts to introduce freedom-oriented ideas into hierarchically controlled cultures have produced no fundamental innovation.

Our draft of "Freedom-Based Management" uses our experiences and those of Hewlett Packard, Wal-Mart, Nucor, Southwest Airlines, and Herman Miller to describe:
• The fundamentals which include the paradigm shift and these principles:
- emphasize freedom, self-responsibility, authority, and accountability;
- articulate a clear vision for enterprise success—mission, aspirations, shared values, and shared beliefs;
- strive to harmonize individual and business needs; and
- align long term individual and business interests.
• The powerful business benefits that freedom and self-organized spontaneous order generate for owners, managers, employees, and society.
• A minimal risk strategy for introducing freedom step by step.

We will be happy to share the draft and look forward to discussing these ideas.

Regards, Bill Nobles
908-221-1485
billnobles@optonline.net

Dear Prof. Hammel

I´m also a business school professor (OB-HRM) and I live in Uruguay.
To be honest, what led me to read your entire article was the mention of my country in it.
I will, however, give my opinion regarding the moonshot for management in the XXIst century.
Challenge #4: To have companies and managers that acknowledge the educational role that firms have (and will have) in our societies, and act accordingly.
To be succint: our values system and our overall way of living is shaped and challenged, now more than ever, not by the schools or the governments, but by companies. From the incentive systems to the marketing messages, the way companies act has tremendous power in shaping our values, our priorities, our lives.
If we could make companies and managers aware of this reality, motivate them to become examples and communicators of good values, and help them in the process, i´m sure the beneficial consequences on our societies would be immense.

By the way, Negroponte´s iniciative is going quite well! The kids are in love with the machines, and the results are fantastic.
The whole project is still in its early stages and still not running smoothly. However, even as it is, it´s really helping to CHANGE the lives of these kids.
And if Negroponte comes out a ton richer in the process, kudos to him!
If you ever cross river Hudson and stumble upon him, send him my regards and thanks.

Raul Lagomarsino

Dear fellow human beings
I'm not trying to be smart when I use that address. I read the article and all the comments, and I felt an enthusiasm develop as I read each part.
Management in corporations came to strength at a time when the industrial revolution, post WW2, was strongest. Management's function was primarily to control processes, very often in production-line activities, i.e. ensuring that business processes were aligned and running at optimal capacity at least cost.
Management thus focused attention on the engine-room, ensuring the engine worked well.
Using this example, 'leadership' started asking more strategic questions: what markets are we deploying in, what products can we (should we) diversify into, what impact are we having on society and the environment, locally and globally?
It was usually left to middle and senior management to communicate and operationalise any changes in strategy to the engine room. And this is most often were the problems came in. The great Jack Welsh spent a lot of time ensuring that such communication went from the top to the engine room, part of GE's success.

The company I now work with has done something interesting: they have turned the corporate hierarchy triangle onto its head. The role of each leader and manager is now to support the people working for him/her. This support takes the form of removing corporate 'red-tape' obstacles, moral support, and so on.
This, is already creating a more caring and human environment, and will contribute to changing the culture within the organisation.

I think the problem starts with people being part of the same organisation, but having different reasons for being there and also different goals. I suppose this will always be the case and is everyone's individual right. I find that most employees (management included) do not fully embrance and/or fully understand the company's vision, mission and values.

It has been such a pleasure doing business with companies where I have experienced a sense of teamwork and staff working towards a common goal, almost like each person is an owner.

In order to deal with daily operational issues, the organisation needs to be structured and managed. However, people should be challenged with doing a part of their job differently every week.They should also be given the freedom to make mistakes - this fear of making mistakes has been my greatest limiter in life.

PROF
I hereby give further information about my concept of LEADAGEMENT
I think that this is the way forward in global executive capacity building...

INTRODUCING LEADAGEMENT
By BISIKAY

LEADAGEMENT: BEYOND MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
LEADAGEMENT is the new super model of ADMINISTRATION and EXECITIVE functions beyond the current systems of MANAGEMENT and LEADERSHIP .

LEADAGEMENT involves an EXECUTIVE who is LEADAGING an organisation as a LEADAGER, not just as a MANAGER or simply a LEADER, to LEADAGE for the highest level of personal performance and organisational productivity.

THE DEFINITIONS
(1) LEADAGEMENT
Leadagement is the organic integration of management and leadership principles and practices in a synergetic, systematic and strategic way for the most effective and efficient executive and administrative productivity.
Leadagement is really the essence of global execitiveness.

(2) LEADAGE
Leadage is how to both lead to manage and to manage to lead for maximum productivity and quality in the executive and administrative function.

(3) LEADAGING
Leadaging is the dynamic processs of managing leadership and leading management roles and functions for the most productive and qualitative performance of global executiveness.

(4) LEADAGER
A Leadager is an efficient manager-leader who is at the same time an effective leader-manager, performing their leadaging role beyond just managing or leading an organisation or nation successfully

WHY LEADAGEMENT
There is a GLOBAL need for the philosophical and operational SYNTHESIS of the basic Principles / Practices / Prospects / Processes of MANAGEMENT and LEADERSHIP, thereby taking CORPORATE GOVERNANCE to the required next level of development !

LEADAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT
To join the league of the most productive executives, globally, every good and great MANAGERS and LEADERS everywhere will require to ADVANCE themselves and their organisations further and higher with LEADAGEMENT now as the pioneer new world LEADAGERS !

For further DETAILS, contact:
BISIKAY, Director, The Global LEADAGEMENT Institute, London, UK
bisikay@gmail.com OR leadagement@gmail.com