{"id":2231,"date":"2010-07-07T12:57:34","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T19:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/?p=2231"},"modified":"2010-07-07T12:57:34","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T19:57:34","slug":"the-end-of-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/07\/the-end-of-management\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a bit of personal synchronicity, my partner Sally pointed out that the latest edition of the wonderfully positive Ode<\/strong> <\/em><\/a>magazine (which bills itself as a \u201ccommunity of intelligent optimists\u201d) has an excerpt from Daniel Pink\u2019s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. It is the same Daniel Pink who does the impassioned voice-over for the 11-minute YouTube video I highlighted in my previous blog piece<\/strong><\/a>. With all the handwringing and anger around corporate greed and its consequences (e.g. the BP oil spill and the misadventures of the American financial industry that contributed to our \u201cGreat Recession\u201d), it\u2019s nice to be able to report a positive movement happening in the corporate world, still on the periphery and off the radar, perhaps just waiting for the \u201chundredth monkey\u201d<\/strong><\/a> (at least metaphorically) to become a full-blown trend.
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\nParalleling Riane Eisler\u2019s calling out of the historic transformation underway from hierarchy to partnership in her book, The Chalice and the Blade<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, Pink frames a generational transformation challenging the continuing efficacy of the concept of \u201cmanagement of human resources\u201d…<\/p>\n

My dad\u2019s generation views human beings as human resources. They\u2019re the two-by-fours you need to build your house… For me, it\u2019s a partnership between me and the employees. They\u2019re not resources. They\u2019re partners… Perhaps it\u2019s time to toss the very word \u201cmanagement\u201d onto the linguistic ash heap alongside \u201cicebox\u201d and \u201chorseless carriage\u201d… Its central ethic remains control; its chief tools remain extrinsic motivators. Is management, as it\u2019s currently considered, out of sync with human nature itself?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s a really good question! Management was certainly an essential tool of the Industrial Revolution when it at least seemed efficient to view human beings as just one more mechanistic factor contributing to running the emerging factories and the rest of the supply chain that brought the products of mass production to the public. The harnessing and external control of human activity was such a revolutionary innovation (previously only practiced to this degree perhaps in the raising and use of large military forces) that it could in fact have been a very inefficient use of human capability while still giving the captains of industry a huge source of coordinated labor and profit.
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\nPink rightly calls out \u201cmanagement\u201d as a human-invented technique that may have run its course as part of this generational transition…<\/p>\n

We forget sometimes that \u201cmanagement\u201d does not emanate from nature… It\u2019s something that humans invented. As the strategy guru Gary Hamel has observed, management is a technology… that has grown creaky. While some companies have oiled the gears a bit, and plenty more have paid lip service to the same, at its core, management hasn\u2019t changed much in 100 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And why, says Pink, has it \u201cgrown creaky\u201d…<\/p>\n

It presumes that to take action or move forward, we need a prod \u2014 that absent a reward or punishment, we\u2019d remain happily and inertly in place. It also presumes that once people do get moving, they need direction \u2014 that without a firm and reliable guide, they\u2019d wander. Management still revolves largely around supervision, \u201cif-then\u201d rewards and other forms of control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Pink looks at how the concept of management is more broadly applied in our society as…<\/p>\n

Not merely how bosses treat us at work, but also how the broader ethos has leeched into schools, families and many other aspects of our lives. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does the \u201cmanagement of human resources\u201d in the workplace, in our schools and even in the intimate family settings diminish and even belittle what we are capable of as human beings? The solution that Pink sees emerging in the business world is the promotion of autonomy and self-direction…<\/p>\n

This era doesn\u2019t call for better management. It calls for a renaissance of self-direction\u2026 A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and attitude. According to a cluster of recent behavioral science studies, autonomous motivation promotes greater conceptual understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence at school and, in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout and greater psychological well-being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a progressive perhaps \u201clefty parent\u201d himself, Pink is convinced…<\/p>\n

That our basic nature is to be curious and self-directed. And I say that not because I\u2019m a dewy-eyed idealist, but because I\u2019ve been around young children and because my wife and I have three kids of our own. Have you ever seen a 6-month-old or a 1-year-old who\u2019s not curious and self-directed? I haven\u2019t. That\u2019s how we are out of the box. If, at age 14 or 43, we\u2019re passive and inert, that\u2019s not because it\u2019s our nature. It\u2019s because something flipped our default setting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So creating the enriched environment for fostering the continuation or reemergence of autonomy and self-direction goes well beyond the conventional wisdom of \u201cempowerment\u201d in the workplace, which according to Pink…<\/p>\n

Presumes that the organization has the power and benevolently ladles some of it into the waiting bowls of grateful employees. But that\u2019s not autonomy. That\u2019s just a slightly more civilized form of control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Pink makes a critical clarification that autonomy and self-reliance are not about excessive individualism and the failure of a more communitarian ethos…<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the rugged, go-it-alone, rely-on-nobody individualism of the American cowboy. It means acting with choice \u2014 which means we can be both autonomous and happily-interdependent with others. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pink advocates for work environments that leverage the natural power of human autonomy and self-direction, particularly the \u201cResults Only Work Environment\u201d or ROWE…<\/p>\n

ROWEs are the brainchild of Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, two former human resources executives at the American retailer Best Buy. ROWE\u2019s principles marry the common sense pragmatism of Ben Franklin to the cage-rattling radicalism of American community organizer Saul Alinsky. In a ROWE workplace, people don\u2019t have schedules. They show up when they want. They don\u2019t have to be in the office at a certain time\u2014or any time, for that matter. They just have to get their work done. How they do it, when they do it and where they do it is up to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the Ode <\/em>article for an extensive description of an example of implementing ROWE in a business environment. I immediately wonder if we could use some schools set up on a parallel model that we might call \u201cROLE\u201d (Results Oriented Learning Environment) to unleash the learning process rather than trying to manage it with standardized curriculums, regimented learning environments and ubiquitous testing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a bit of personal synchronicity, my partner Sally pointed out that the latest edition of the wonderfully positive Ode magazine (which bills itself as a \u201ccommunity of intelligent optimists\u201d) has an excerpt from Daniel Pink\u2019s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. It is the same Daniel Pink who does the impassioned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[944,950,285,933,943,948,951,947,942,722,946,945,949],"class_list":["post-2231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultimately-our-own-youth-or-adult","tag-alternatives-to-management","tag-business-transformation","tag-chalice-and-the-blade","tag-daniel-pink","tag-end-of-management","tag-hierarchy-to-partnership","tag-individualism-versus-autonomy","tag-intrinsic-motivation","tag-management","tag-patriarchy-to-partnership","tag-power-of-self-direction","tag-self-direction-and-autonomy","tag-transformation-in-the-workplace"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t