Gary Hamel: Management's Out of Date

What was the greatest invention of human mind in last 100 years? "Invention of management," Gary Hamel suggested at the World Business Forum. "Basically this social technology has been used to manage human minds to accomplish an end." But here's the kicker according to Hamel, the author of the bestselling book on business strategy, Competing for the Future, "this social technology is out of date."

Naturally as Hamel zeroed in on the human mind, he caught my interest, since he framed management as social technology. This makes sense in light of recent research from University College London, which demonstrates, "choices we make internally are weak and easily overridden compared to when we are told which choice to make." On the other hand, innovation in today's businesses requires extraordinary minds to make on-the-spot decisions... minds that solve problems, create and invent.

"Do we we really have a vision for future," wonders Hamel. "I never met 10-year-old who wanted to grow up to be a manager. It's innovation in management that allowed us to cross thresholds and create innovation."


What is it that allows for shifts? Hamel's revolutionary idea is that a new management model's required in the 21st century. Industrial Age models simply don't cut it. What do you think? Hamel's questions to get you thinking...

How can we come up with a new management model?

What if every employee rates managers?

What if every critical development task turns into a game?

What if every employee could outsource boring bits of their work?

"Management models have not changed in a long time," Hamel reflects... and he offers three concepts to change the future:

1. How to build a company that can change as fast as change itself...
"The world is becoming more turbulent faster than organizations are becoming more resilient. What usually has to happen before you can shake loose beliefs and dogmas of a company? Crisis. For instance, Kodak pushed off it's film business. Turnaround's a poor excuse for timely transformation. We have to change the way we change."

2. How do you build a company where innovation is every one's job?

Today you have to compete with everybody

• Customer inertia
• Capital constraints
• Scale advantages
• Regulatory barriers
• Proprietary advantages
• Falling entry barriers - Deregulation, Digitization, New Channels
• Growing buyer power - More Choices, Better Information

"Have you been trained as an innovator," Gary Hamel asks. "No sense putting out a suggestion box if you haven't given employees strategies to innovate. Is your innovation performance measure and rewarded?"

3. How can we build new knowledge?

"Profit per employee. We are no longer in knowledge work," Hamel says, "but in creative work. Creativity and passion cannot be commanded, but are needed. So how does this change the work of management? How can work climate be changed to generate these?

Do your ideas really matter? Do people at work really listen to you? No more than 20% of employees are engaged in their work. Why do we live with this as managers? Is it possible to change this, Hamel quizzes. He suggests one model - W.L. Gore's - Gor-tex. Why?

High ratings for employee satisfaction
People spend all time innovating and no time fighting bureaucracy.
Nobody has to show up at a meeting. Commitment is voluntary.
10% of time at work spent on hobbies.

How do you get to be a leader at Gore? If your team asks you. All of Gor-tex's against the grain innovative management strategies debunk the myth of management efficiency.

"Gor-tex is not a sloppy company," Hamel points out. "Employees are extraordinarily disciplined. This kind of organization is becoming a necessity." I think Hamel is on target. What do you think?

"What do you do and where do you start? I didn't come to give you a model," Hamel declares, "and say go and do likewise. You have to think about what you heard, deconstruct it, and reconfigure it to fit your business."

"No Gor-tex manager went to business school," laughs Hamel. "There you get your head full of old ways of thinking. Mission may be more important than money. We have to expand freedoms. We have to change cultures. Management has to transcend old tradeoffs such as freedom and discipline. How can we think of alternative ways to gain control?"

"When a new person comes to company they're careful of waterline issues. You can take a risk that will punch a hole in the waterline of this company. Each employee is rated by 20 peers... Rate by value of 1-20 in the company. Every employee is entrepreneurial and collaborative."

To become management innovator - learn from the fringe. "If you want to see change, just look at the Internet. It will change the way we manage. It will allow us to overcome design flaw of Management 1.0. Many managers are not real managers because leadership appointments come top down. Management hires in their own image. People brown nose. Power is binary. If I screw up I lose my power. A lot of power goes sideways," Hamel claims.

"How do you get power on web? By adding value. Power is always on the move. What is alternative to top down leadership appointments."

What if I have no power and can't influence others? Most of us rely on formal power.

No power - No sanctions. How do we hack it?

Through a system for recognizing and empowering "natural" leaders, Hamel argues.

• Challenge the dogma
• Explore the fringe
• Experiment - Be revolutionary

The future of management according to Gary Hamel: Organizations are less adaptable than we are. Humans are amazingly adaptable. We are born to create!

Articles published by bloggers at World Business Forum 2009 show divergent views on Hamel's call for management innovation.

Andrea Meyer: High-Value Innovation: Innovating the Management of Innovation

Bill George: Gary Hamel: We Aren't in the Knowledge Economy. We're in the Creative Economy

Braden Kelly: A Day with Gary Hamel

Ellen Weber: Gary Hamel’s New Management Model

Hutch Carpenter: Management by Community

Jim Estill: Gary Hamel - Competing with the Future

Kathy Korman Frey Will Business Celebrate, or Tolerate, Our Daughters?

Orrin Woodward: 2009 World Business Forum - Gary Hamel

Steve Todd: Gary Hamel: Slacker's Paradise #WBF09

Thoughts on Gary Hamel's view of management?

Questions Create Connection

"Interrupt me any time you have a question," Patrick Lencioni urged at the start of his presentation at the World Business Forum. What a difference questions make in connecting to people! He primed the pump a tad by saying the first five inquires would receive a copy of his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. More than five leaders stood up to ask a question in throughout the large audience at Radio City Music Hall, though some didn't take home the book.

So what difference does it make to be open to questions and even to be interrupted when presenting your ideas to leaders?

Interestingly, the questions business leaders asked, probed deeper into Lencioni's expertise on team work. They also stirred audience curiosity. Inquires popped in unexpectedly throughout the presentation. Takes a great facilitator to handle questions smoothly, offer wisdom and make these work as assets.

Not only did Lencioni receive good questions, but he pointedly quizzed listeners with even more questions to ponder throughout his talk. It seemed as if we could all add a piece to team challenges. I saw questioning as a tactic to create interconnectedness between audience and speaker.

Audience questions:

Question: Many ideas are created from below and often mid-management stops flow of ideas and they never get to the top. How do leaders overcome this?

Lencioni: 1. Don't assume that leaders above you are really leading the way they want to.

2. Don't be afraid to be the one that takes the leaders upward. Be the leader who takes the kind truth to the leaders above you. Be discerning in what you take. For example, take things only from circle of influence - things you control.

Question: How do you recognize a healthy organization from outside?

Lencioni: Performance. What people who work there, and used to work there, say about it.

Question: We're adding some GenX people to our organization. What can we do to build trust with change of generations?

Lencioni: Gender, Age, and difference, makes you miss the individuality of the person. Younger people need to know they are valued at work.

Question: How do you get people to open up?

Lencioni: I typically use two exercises. Personal Histories. Where did you grow up, how many kids in family, what was greatest challenge growing up?

Use objective tool like Myers Briggs. People see a personality profile. They see people approach life and tasks very differently.

A question I would ask Patrick is: "What about using a multiple intelligences survey to find out how people are smart?" I've found the MI survey is a great tool to encourage the diversity of gifts and talents within the organization in new ways.

Question: How do you minimize politics in an organization?... In the flurry of taking notes, I did not get the answer, though it was one of the most important asked. How would you answer it?

Lencioni's Questions to leaders in the audience:

Teamwork needs to be smart, Lencioni asserts. We only spend half the time on what really counts," he adds. "What about the other half - the health of an organization?"

How would you answer Lencioni's question about building organizational health?

People do not hold each other accountable enough. Peer pressure is the most important tool of accountability. How can that be created? Patrick Lencioni said vulnerably. I have most trouble with this. I hate telling people there is something that needs to be changed. I'm a wuss. Most CEO's are wusses. Leaders do not like telling people there is something they don't like. People do not hold each other accountable enough. What works well for you as you hold others accountable in a democratic setting?

The inquiries brought greater connection between speaker and audience. How might inviting inquiries from folks in the audience work for you throughout your next presentation?

Bloggers Break at World Business Forum

Scene at Radio City Music Hall Bloggers Hub at during break at World Business Forum

Bill Conaty - What's a Performance Culture?

Bill Conaty, head of Human Resources at GE shares the four elements of a Performance Culture How many of us really have one, he wonders. "Most CEO's say they are," Conaty observes, but how many top leaders are involved in who moves up in a company?



Conaty's Four Elements of a Performance Culture

CEO commitment
Well understood company values
Performance goals and measurements
Candor in evaluation

People need to have clear understanding of company values and vision.

Kiss-up and kick-down crowd... I wonder how do you move these folks to a place of value? Are they the possible innovators? Many performance metrics do not truly find people with creative and innovative minds. How does a company really know who the innovative leaders are... maybe they are not the ones who are tops in GE University. For many it works... others hear a different drummer. How do companies lift up the gifts and talents of these employees?

HR at GE has been elevated to legitimate business partner...Leaders who add value to organization. Future HR challenge is winning hearts as well as minds of employees.

How does an organization capture hearts and minds of workers who want to leave organizations? How might organizations value many kinds of minds.

We've never learned enough," says Conaty, "we need to learn from others every day."

Question: You haven't blown the whistle on Fat Cat Salaries. What's the deal with this. The salaries should be connected to how well this ties in to value of stock. We are basing on shareholder value.

Question from WBF community. Is the heyday of consultants over because of crisis? Two sides, Conaty says. Discretionary dollars that organizations have to pay are severely limited so unless they are really good, they will not be hired. On the other hand there are organizations that have cut back on internal employees. These have added many external consultants. Fees will go down. Very few companies now want to pay high fees for external consultants.

Question from WBF community. What is your take on social networks? We talk in organizations about the social architecture. Conaty thinks if the social networks add to that value they are fine.

I wonder about the hard questions people ask through the social networks. When organizations listen and try to answer these, I sense larger organizations will benefit themselves and the wider social community, too.

What do you think?

What will you do to make a difference? Bill George

Don't be a victim. Go out and focus on winning. Everything is changing... So what will you do to make a difference? Bill George keynote speaker at World Business Forum, 2009

"We need to support small companies," George advises. These will grow up to be great job creators and wealth creators.



Some ideas presented by Bill George about leadership.

"What are you doing to follow your True North? Some make money though their clients go downhill. Some were at the top for 30 years, but things have changed."

You have two choices as leaders. Will you get out and tell your story and be truthful?

When things are going down...INVEST! If you don't invest in downturn, you won't be ready when upturn comes... you won't be ready. You need to go on defense and offense simultaneously.

You need to develop rigorous execution plan so you're ready when opportunity comes.

Each of us need to make a difference in our own environments as well as the world.

Crisis may be your defining moment.

Coming home to a place I'd never been. When Bill George first walked through the door of Medtronics this is how he felt.

World Business Forum

The World Business Forum launched this morning. Here's the scene from the Bloggers Hub where I am blogging live today. You'll find my live posts if you follow me @Robyn McMaster.

Freewheel or Stuck?

I like collaborating to design a day rather than being a thumb tack in the hands of a corporation that pins me to a wall! Ellen Weber quote

NOT

If you take the risk for entrepreneurship and design your days, how then do you stay on track? That can be a nemesis for many... and especially me. Here're tips to stay on target and avoid distractions.

Design a day with targets that place goals at the center.

Keep a daily calendar

1. Write doable daily tasks with expected time frames to complete (Writing down increases likelihood of achieving)

2. Look at list of tasks throughout day

3. Check off tasks accomplished

4. Reward yourself weekly or monthly for increased accomplishment

Keep Big Picture in Mind

1. Create larger action plan with milestones - include time frames to complete milestones

2. Keep vision of outcome in mind. Pin picture or poster representing desired outcome on wall

3. Put poem or motto, where you see it, to inspire your vision

Daily Steps

1. Plan to earn a dollar a day and much more

2. Actions that step you closer to full achievement of goal

3. Attitude tuned to "can do"4. Network to build relationships and contacts

How might you tap into more of your left brain's proclivity for logic and organization to orchestrate the road map for your vision?