Management Thinking

Could it be that in Ebenezer Scrooge one can identify the genesis of the MBA? After all, both share an obsession with accountancy and the belief that employee welfare matters only to the employee and is a net cost to the business.

Twenty years ago, it was people power that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. People also have the power to shape organizations, lead transformation and create the demand for products and services. So to remain competitive, companies need to harness this power.

The Great Crunch has shown that the cult of the CEO, hierarchical management structures and an obsession with short-term results are all inimical to efforts to achieve superior results. What we need are entirely new management drivers.

Why do organisations make such an effort to seek out the opinions of those working for them, only to reject them out of hand? Perhaps it is because seeking opinion from the floor is something that undermines the myth of executive authority.

Too many people still confuse strong leadership with good management and vice versa. So I thought I would provide some simple guidelines and examples to differentiate between the two and determine whether an individual is either or both.

Many first-time managers struggle because they have never been taught how to master their core responsibilities - the heart of which is becoming an expert about the people they manage.

Who is the most influential living management thinker? According to the biennial Thinkers 50 rankings, CK Prahalad of Michigan Business School is top of the pyramid for the second time running.

Few people have dominated a single business discipline as Philip Kotler has dominated marketing. The author of the definitive marketing textbook tells Stuart Crainer that marketing is a fluid discipline and explains how companies that see the opportunity side of turbulence and recession can thrive.

Unlike most management thinkers, Henry Mintzberg focuses on what managers actually do. And as he tells Stuart Crainer, today's narcissistic obsession with leadership is undermining management and pushing organisations off the rails.

Failures in government are usually precipitated by politicians themselves. They tend to be ignorant of management, which is excusable; but they act as if they are informed, which can't be excused.

It is incredibly frustrating to have an idea for how to improve a business only to see it get rejected out of hand. But resistance to new ideas is normal. To get your ideas accepted, you need to understand the four stage of resistance and how to deal with each of them.

Failed CEOs are often replaced by an insider seen to be "a safe pair of hands". But new research suggests that it's better to bring in an outsider to clean up the mess.

It isn't enough for CEOs to show they can do the job. If they want to win the trust of these working for them and break the growing cycle of cynicism, they need to demonstrate real personal integrity, too.

I've been doing some thinking about corporate culture lately and it strikes me that there are some parallels with anthropology. Because one of the best ways of exploring a culture, be it the Yanomani tribe or your sales department, is through the study of relics and rituals.

"Work is like sex" opens up chapter one of Philip Whiteley's new book, Meet The New Boss, an entertaining look at the influence of literature, music and comedy on how we view work. So how is work like sex? And what does it have to do with Morrissey's lyrics? Read on to find out.

Companies whose growth strategies did not depend on heavy borrowing are best set to thrive as the economy recovers, a new report suggests. And many of these are Indian or Chinese.

Steve Radcliffe, one of Europe's leading coaches, wants to promote better leadership. He argues that leadership is something we can all rise to. It's not complicated or theoretical - it's all about practise.

In the second part of his article on the broken state of management, MillerCoors director and author of The Death of Management, Jack Buffington, explains how companies can learn from the past to adapt to the new normal.

Do you know where your profits really come from? I don't just mean, what's left at the end of the month, but who, how and what drives the profitability of your business? It seems so obvious, but it never fails to surprise me how un-profit focused many businesses are.

For most aspects of life, judgment is crucial and extremely useful. But judgment on its own isn't enough. Rather than accepting or rejecting an idea, you need look at business ideas in order to 'see where you can move to'.

Making green management 'business as usual' is a key challenge facing every manager today. But managers need the support of those at the top of organisations because unless the support is top-down, initiatives are unlikely to succeed.

A common voice is important for any organization's longevity. Every organisation suffers if a member of management decides to make disparaging remarks about perceived operational faults.

The unique combination of factors arising from the current economic upheaval means that the rulebook for our workplaces is not merely being overturned, it's being completely shredded. The new normal is here and a range of factors is driving it.

It was Oscar Wilde who noted that "in all important matters style, not sincerity is the essential". For Trevor Phillips, beleaguered chairman of the UK's Equality & Human Rights Commission, Wilde's words are proving all too accurate.

Management is broken, argues MillerCoors director and author of "The Death of Management", Jack Buffington. Only by returning to foundation principles can it be fixed. Here he explains what has gone wrong. Part two will deal with putting it right.

It's a sad fact that many of those in managerial roles are just not suited to being in charge of other people. And even those who do have the managerial knack can be undermined by a lack of training and support from their employer.

While many companies concentrate on physical employment contracts during a downturn, the psychological contract often gets overlooked. Dr Graham Dietz of Durham Business School warns against this and offers advice on ensuring your company's contract remains in good health.

Jane keeps being told by her boss to be "more senior" yet when questioned as to what this means receives simply a shrug. She asks what she can do to give the impression that she is more senior.

While HR is being sidelined, middle managers are being promised greater input in decision-making by their bosses as companies seek to rebuild after the downturn.

It would be nice to think that laying-off workers or embarking on a major restructuring are decisions that executives make only after careful consideration of the facts and other options. But they can also be hasty, ill-conceived decisions made in the heat of the moment.

The recovery may be tentative at best for now, but organisations can expect to be on the receiving end of a resumé "tsunami" as soon as disgruntled workers see signs that the turnaround has arrived.

If an organization really wants to attract and retain the best and brightest, a good place to start is by painting a vision. I don't mean some tired mission statement, I mean something with depth, something so compelling that the average working professional wants to be part of it.

Many people in senior business positions are great believers. They hold to a whole raft of ideas about success, markets, what motivates people, the nature of innovation, and so on. And what almost all these have in common is that they are completely wrong.

Many commentators would have you believe that we are witnessing a new beginning, that change is happening all around us. Well, I'm sorry to disillusion you, but I can't see that any substantial has changed as a result of the turmoil of the past 12 months.

It may not be the most welcome indicator of returning economic health, but unsolicited takeover attempts are rising sharply - and executives need to ensure their company is not caught napping.

The decisions managers make over the next two years will govern both how quickly their organisations recover and how they perform over the next decade.

When a boy or girl scout demonstrates a new skill, they get a nice merit badge to prove to the world they know what they're doing. So wouldn't it be wonderful if, when we mastered and demonstrated a new management skill, we got a badge too?

It's not just your own organisation's survival you need to be worried about. With the recession stress-testing everyone, the risk is that if a supplier or partner fails, you could be brought down with it.

It may be a buyer's market now when it comes to hiring new talent, but the twin challenges of the ageing workforce and falling birth rates haven't gone away.

The recession we find ourselves in now was inevitable and it has been brewing for the last 15 years. Why? Because investing has been replaced by short-term trading and the interests of shareholders and staff have been placed above those of other stakeholders.

Winning public trust is a vitally important ingredient for success in business. So why do so few business leaders appear to make building and maintaining trust a priority?

The traditional slash and hack approach to surviving a recession is the perfect way to lose those talented employees who will be key to giving you a competitive edge when the upturn comes.

It is time to adopt an completley upside-down view of how organizations work. That means focusing resources on the front-line staff who deliver products and services to the customer, not on executives who primarily manage the spin among the investment community.

Technology is a means to better performance but, laments IE Business School's Professor Oswaldo Lorenzo, it is often regarded as the ends rather than means. Instead, organisations need to look to the future rather than becoming fixated on the present.

There are signs that M&A activity may soon start to pick up again in Europe, which makes it even more worrying that eight out of 10 companies still fail to grasp the importance of managing the people side of mergers, acquisitions and integrations.

This recession has felt so bloody partly because our leaders have had to dismantle a business model focused on growth and adjust to a world of greater responsibility and state intervention. But without a new culture of transparency, business will struggle to regain its legitimacy.

The power of 'word of mouth' has always been strong. The power of 'word of mouse' has the potential to be considerably stronger - whatever business or sector you are in.

Why are so many employees disenchanted and disillusioned by their jobs? The answer isn't rocket science. In fcat there are four main areas that cause friction between employees and their bosses.

Innovation promises benefits without all of the costs. The aim is to have your cake and eat it – to deliver two benefits that contradict each other. But to come up with things that do this, you need to learn to think better.

Innovation promises benefits without all of the costs. The aim is to have your cake and eat it – to deliver two benefits that contradict each other. But to come up with things that do this, you need to learn to think better.

In a recession, you need to protect and nurture every advantage you have. So why then do so many managers say they are "too busy" to deal with threats to one of their most valuable assets - their organisation's brand?

Relationships with a new boss do not start with a blank slate. They are very much influenced by the quality of the relationship with the previous boss and employee expectations of the relationship they are likely to have with the new incumbent.

Just when we were beginning to hope the worst might be over, along comes swine flu. And just the fear of a pandemic, let alone the reality, could turn out to be a costly headache.

International assignments can make managers more creative as well as being a great way of grooming future leaders. So it's a shame then overseas postings are becoming a luxury more and more firms can't afford.

The great economic disaster rumbles on, but the 21st century economy will continue to thrive and grow in the astonishing environment of the Digital Revolution.

With the war for talent little more than a fond memory, it is the harsh realities of the global economic crisis that dominate the landscape for most senior management teams.

I can say, hand on heart, that there are few more unpleasant moments in one's career than having to wait out a company re-organization.

If we cast our minds back to the best managers we ever had, most of us will think about someone who helped propel our careers. But would our people put us in that lofty category? What are we doing for them?

Too many management teams have spent much of the past year in a desperate funk of knee-jerk reaction and economic fire-fighting, rather than stepping back and calmly thinking their way through this recession.

Trust is a critical resource at the moment. But it is all too easy to forget that while trust takes a long time to build, the balance can be quickly depleted with just one careless withdrawal.