Competing Opinions - May 2008

People hate change. They resist it with every fiber of their being. I just finished another audio book dealing with management issues. This book was written by the famed Gary Hamel. Perhaps you remember that Hamel, along with C. K. Prahalad, wrote the milestone book, Competing for the Future. His new book, though, will not become so well read or trusted. (I should preface any further writing by saying that Gary Hamel is a famous international business school educator and consultant and I am not; however, I’m still entitled to my opinion.)

Mr. Hamel is on a noble mission to fundamentally revolutionize management in all of its current structural forms. The main enemy is the autocratic top-down system developed to manage large groups of people for a common purpose. Mr. Hamel states that these structures have outlived their usefulness, and no less than a complete rethinking of organizational structure must occur to take us to a better future. He gives examples of exceptional innovators as companies that are today showing us the way forward. Google was the only company profiled that I hadn’t already read about numerous times.

Mr. Hamel loves this freewheeling organization. At Google, ideas are posted to an internal web site and everyone is free to argue the merit of each presented idea. Ultimately, the best ideas float, or buzz, to the top.

Google is fun to read about and easy to admire. The question is: Are they in any way analogous to the rest of the world? Google started its public life with billions of dollars cash in the bank. They currently exceed $1 million in revenue per employee. Oh, and they only hire the top 1%of people graduating from the most elite institutions, giving them a workforce of driven and brilliant people. Other than that, they’re just like the rest of us.

Mr. Hamel is a big believer in democratic work-places. He uses elected officials as an example of people who are forced to face their “most ardent detractors” regularly. So far so good, but nowhere does Mr. Hamel assert that the outcomes of the democratic process would yield a similar good business outcome—and that is where his metaphor falls apart. In defense of Mr. Hamel’s democratic inclinations, I’d have to agree that more collaboration across ranks to solve problems and make decisions is very good stuff. I recognize that strict top-down decision making cheats the company out of the input of many talented people. All of us are always smarter than any of us. That said, decisions have to be made and people making them have to be held accountable for the decision. It’s hard to hold a very large group accountable for anything.

The greatest point of disagreement I have with Mr. Hamel is on his views on change. To paraphrase him, “Many say that people don’t like change. I disagree; people like change and they like a challenge.” Earth to Mr. Hamel! The air must be quite thin in that ivory tower you live in! Can you give us the location of the parallel universe that informed you that “people like change”? My greatest management challenge for my entire career has been and continues to be getting people to tolerate, let alone embrace, change. People hate change. They resist it with every fiber of their being. The exception to this rule is the very young. They have done nothing but change continuously from birth. Problem is, they have no power in organizations dominated by “experienced “managers and set-in-stone attitudes.

Overall, the book has the feel of something written by a rich and famous business consultant who needed to get another book out the door. If you want a really instructive piece on the future of management, I’d suggest anything by Peter Drucker or, better yet, Charles Handy. Handy’s book, The Age of Paradox, is full of insight into the future of work and management and gives very usable guidance.

Mr. Hamel is dismissive of the old form of management designed to maximize efficiency. My experience in the real world is that if you can master these old fundamentals of management, you’re probably in really good shape as a business. Or maybe I just have low aspirations.