I'm shopping around for a bicycle at the moment. It is a few years since I bought one and you should see what you get for your money these days. The shaky old pushbike has evolved into a sleek, finely tuned machine that practically rides itself. If only management had evolved in the same way.
The evolution of ideas fascinates me. There are so many things we take for granted today which were inconceivable only a short time ago.
Despite the claim of Charles Duell (U.S. Office of Patents) in 1899 that "everything that can be invented has been invented", the modern Western lifestyle (for those of us lucky enough to enjoy it) is practically unrecognisable from what it was 20 - let alone 100 - years ago.
The evolution of ideas has given us longer lives, safer cars, labour saving devices, reduced poverty, reality television (whoops!), unlimited access to information and instant communication. Can you remember what the world was like before the web and email came into our lives?
The evolution of ideas has also given us fairer workplaces, fantastic access to training and education, increased real wages and a shorter working week. The average working week dropped from 50 hours to 35 hours during the 20th century.
But there is a problem here. Hands up those of you who work 35 hours a week.
If you are like most of the managers I come across - in small businesses and large - you are more likely working a 19th century 50-hour week as a minimum.
Running from meeting to meeting or job to job, clearing the email, dealing with the latest crisis, navigating the latest bureaucratic initiative and finally folding up the laptop and heading home with the mobile phone to the ear after a 10+ hour day. This is the lot of the typical modern manager.
It is hardly surprising that increasing numbers of managers are deciding that the only way to achieve 'work- life balance' is to 'downshift' out altogether.
Are you starting to understand why I see a problem with management?
It's not that management has missed out when it comes to the evolution of ideas. Go into any business bookshop and you'll see innumerable ideas inches deep on the shelves. But on the evidence, you would have to say that something is wrong when it comes to putting these ideas into practice.
The modern manager should be like a modern bicycle, getting where he or she wants to go quickly and more easily than ever before. Instead, a rusty old rattler that only goes in circles seems to be a better analogy.
Why is this so - and what can be done about it?
To be continued... (in March 2004)
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