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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
More of a restatement than a reinvention, July 7, 2010
This review is from: Reinventing Management: Smarter Choices for Getting Work Done (Hardcover)
You can tell that we are living in times of transition, as there are a plethora of books out concerning management and economic fundamentals. Julian Birkinshaw's new book Reinventing Management is one of them. The books premise is that having an effective management model makes all of the difference for companies regardless of the challenges they face. Birkinshaw uses examples ranging from Lehman Brothers to GM to Proctor and Gamble to help illustrate his point. These examples are helpful and appear throughout the book.
Birkinshaw defines a management model as consisting of four levels and two options across each of these levels. A management model can therefore be described as the choices between degrees of :
Bureaucracy and emergence in terms of how you manage across in terms of activities
Hierarchy and collective wisdom in terms of how you manage down and make decisions
Alignment and obliquity in terms of managing objectives
Extrinsic versus intrinsic in terms of managing individual motivation
I agree with Birkinshaw's points that your management model matters and many of the dimensions of the model make still further sense. The book does a good job of going through these four levels and the choices contained within them. The choices and examples are clear and strong. But they are not particularly revolutionary. In my opinion this book is a better read than Henry Mintzberg's recent book Managing, but both books seems to be more of a restatement of traditional management challenges than recognizing that managing is changing. Some of that could be because of the style of both books.
The book is mechanical in its nature and writing style. In some ways I felt like I was reading a technology based book, almost like a computer manual except focused on management. There is limited discussion of social media or the impact of technology on management, so if you are looking for deep insight on those points I would suggest looking elsewhere.
Its surprising that something so personal and so social as management can be readily broken down into a set of almost mechanistic decisions. This is one of the book's weaker points and why I believe this book is more for the student of management, than someone interested in learning more with a causal level of interest or energy.
The book is a decomposition of the management model, its decisions and dimensions. This is not surprising given the author's position at the London Business School. This is a book for students, not necessarily practitioners of management. So if you are ready for an integrated, comprehensive and academic approach to the topic of management, then read on.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Real, Achievable Path to Reinventing Management, February 1, 2011
This review is from: Reinventing Management: Smarter Choices for Getting Work Done (Hardcover)
As we look around us, 20th C regimes, institutions and businesses are failing. It seems everyone is writing a book on management needs to change. A few stand out, at least for me (see below for my recommendations). Julian Birkinshaw, co-founder of The Management Lab with Gary Hamel, has a new book, "Reinventing Management: Smarter Choices for Getting Word Done" that is clearly one of the best. Most of the books today paint an `either/or' picture - the "old way" is bad, the "new way" (their way) is good. Few have any middle ground; it's all or nothing, an impractical, unrealistic posture. Julian's approach is integrative - it is not `either/or', it is `and/both/other' - it provides a path, not a flash cut.
The book starts with a sharp, clear analysis of why things went wrong, using Lehman Brothers & GM. He shows the contrast in failure between a company that was cavalier (Lehman) and a company that was blind, not realizing the competencies that had made it successful became the liabilities killing it now.
Julian defines management as the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives - it's social!! How ripe for evolution given the social networking aspect of 21st Century business! Today's key resource is knowledge flow, again social. Bottom line for the 21st C? Management needs to get back to its core function - of enabling instead of commanding.
Several ways for management to get back to its core purpose are described - all integrating some of the old with the new, providing a transition and path to reinvent management:
* Getting People Together: Give guiding structures to stimulate individuals to self-organize - allowing increasing freedom and transparency to your people within and across business units. Bureaucracy is both coercive (conform to procedures) and enabling (tools & methods). Take the best of that - tools & methods - as guiding structures for your people to run with.
* Accomplish Desired Goals & Objectives:
o Setting objectives Obliquely: While sometimes concrete objectives are necessary (e.g., Increase sales by 10% from Segment A), Oblique, "fuzzy" objectives can be more meaningful and create the right behavior and culture (e.g., Employees First, Customers Second)...sometimes the most effective objective is achieved indirectly;
o Decision Making: Blend hierarchy and collective wisdom; hierarchy is not going away, especially in large organizations, but it can be flattened and democratized and collective wisdom is not a panacea
Julian provides examples that demonstrate the benefits and challenges to reinvent management. He concludes with practical, implementable steps leaders can take to start the transition. These include understanding the real freedom you have vs what you think you have, building internal and external teams, and experimenting. The critical skills for success are, well, social: the ability to listen, communicate, understand, provide freedom and reduce obstacles.
This is one of the best books you can read on how to transform (reinvent) your organization's management for success in the 21st Century. You will refer back to it, share it and quote it. And, as you start using it, please share your experiences at The Management Innovation Exchange for others to learn from as well.
Deb's top "21st Century Management/Leadership" books:
* Steve Denning: The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century
* Dan & Chip Heath: Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
* Dan Pink: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
* John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, Lang Davison: The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reinventing Management -- An Imperative, May 5, 2010
This review is from: Reinventing Management: Smarter Choices for Getting Work Done (Hardcover)
The cult of leadership won't solve the challenges companies are facing today. Companies require management innovation to overcome years of neglecting management as a critical aspect of a vital company.
Julian Brikinshaw defines for us what management needs to be in order for companies to compete effectively, evolve over time, and thrive in the long term. The first sentence of the book simultaneously reveals what it's about while challenging corporate leaders - "...what management is, why it's important, and how you can generate competitive advantage for your company by taking it seriously."
The ongoing tumult in the business world has finally exposed the weaknesses resulting from an overall lack of serious attention to management. As Birkinshaw points out, management can and should be reinvented to be a more effective agent of economic progress while better meeting the needs of employees.
His four dimensions of management dealing with activities, decisions, objectives, and motivation provide for making a simple yet comprehensive model for management. But unlike too many advocates of their particular solution or framework, this model is not the prescription, but the means for discovering your company's best management solution.
First, your company's management model needs to be explicitly defined to develop an internal awareness of its management as is. Next is to innovate its way of managing, configuring it for the unique context of your company. This makes your company's management model distinctive to serve as a means of developing competitive advantage. In this light, management becomes a facet of a business to be attended to in much the same way as its offerings - something to be continuously improved and innovated - ultimately to create greater value for the company's customers.
Birkinshaw provides assessment guidance to aid you in determining the type of management your company currently employs. He then provides models of management that characterize four distinct but "meaningful and coherent patterns of activity" to demonstrate the broad but realistic possibilities for managing a company. Finally he ends with guidance for the non-CEO and CEO on how to innovate their management model - whether of a team or a whole company.
Reinventing Management contributes significantly to the growing body of knowledge and movement to regard management as much an aspect of a company to be designed as its offerings, processes, business models, and organization.
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