Morrie the Toupee Salesman

From Stowe Boyd, whom I met briefly last month. I’ve believed for a while what Gary Hamel is saying - it’s obvious to most people that technology allows for fewer managers (or more properly, for more self-management). But, business innovation is a lot harder than technology innovation, and the cult of Taylorism is long established. I love this line from wikipedia: “In management literature today, the greatest use of the concept of Taylorism is as a contrast to a new, improved way of doing business” but I don’t agree with it. Taylorism is central to the “command and control” approach to management. Today even provides an illustrating example - Nick Denton’s new piecework system. Denton would clearly love The Principles of Scientific Management.

There have been previous attempts to reform management education, and thus management, but they run into a heaping pile of inertia, perhaps because they use “management of the change process” - a management construct that I see as less than useful. Or perhaps it’s because the people who teach Management aren’t really interested in teaching managers as much as they are future grad students.

I think that Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions provides a more useful paradigm, with its talk of revolution, and overthrowing the existing order. Change dictated from the top down rarely works, but change that comes from a “grass-roots” effort is more likely to be successful. Just the use of the word “revolutions” says everything. Change is rarely managed from above - it’s instigated by guerrillas while the people running things aren’t looking.