What is the current management model?

The current management model exists within a workplace structure which asks leadership to use control as a means to achieve objectives. It may not be a conscious choice: to “control” workers, but that is the paradigm it creates. It’s accepted characteristics include:

• Authority is concentrated within the management hierarchy - “command-and-control”
• Enforced, linear planning and structure - “predict-and-control”
• Awareness that there are a range of stakeholder demands
• The prioritisation of financial profit and growth
• Use of financial reward as a primary motivator - without recognition that other things motivate people
• The almost exclusive use of logic and reason, with little regard to tradition, intuition or ‘spirit’
• The potential to be entirely devoted to the task of management, with no execution of the actual work of the department or organisation itself
• The need to have people co-located in one place
• Not to “default to open” as opposed to embracing the unfettered sharing of all information with workers
• Clearly identified division of tasks and departments
• To promote people based on their previous technical skill or educational prowess
• To work for the owners, not to be an owner themselves
• To adopt standardised processes and procedures that apply across the organisation
• To see internal competition as a form of best practice
• To take responsibility for other people’s motivation and career development

“In most languages, the first synonym for the word “manage” is “control”. This tight coupling between management and control is an artifact of the industrial revolution. The engineers and accountants who invented management were crusaders for efficiency…. In the battle against inefficiency, managers were the enforcers. It was their job to ensure that rules were followed, variances were minimised, quotas met, and slackers were punished. And so it is today. Employees manufacture products and services; managers manufacture control.”

Professor Gary Hamel