In Gary Hamel’s The Future of Management, he lays out the case for why we may have done as much as we can with management as we know it – which currently uses principles that have been around for over 100 years. And suggests that we now work on what management of the future looks like.
He promises that it will not be easy. And he never tells us HOW to do it – he admits he doesn’t know the answer to this. But he gives management innovators enough to get started. Below are the five key design rules he feels companies need to follow if they’re to be truly fit for the future:
Life – variety
- Experimentation beats planning
- All mutations are mistakes
- Darwinian selection doesn’t need SVP’s
- The broader the gene pool, the better
Markets – Flexibility
- Markets are more dynamic than hierarchies.
- Build a market and the innovators will come.
- Operational efficiency does not equal strategic efficiency.
Democracy – Activism
- Leaders are accountable to the governed.
- Everyone has a right to dissent.
- Leadership is distributed.
Faith – Meaning
- The mission matters.
- People change for what they care about.
Cities – Serendipity
- Diversity begets creativity.
- You can organize for serendipity.
- Pigeonholes are for pigeons, not people.
Just focusing on the rules above ought to keep you busy for quite some time. This is one of those books I want to keep at my fingertips because there’s so much to refer back to. Gary Hamel is clearly a thinker and one who pushes for managers – leaders – to not accept things as they are and have the patience and fortitude to experiment. He argues convincingly that we need to develop new ways of managing if we’re to build companies that have the ability to handle the future.
