Most of the time management/manager get in the way of the work.

I used to give MBA students three rules. Get out of the way. When in doubt, do nothing. If your boss runs in circles – stand still. He is coming back soon.

Yup, first rule of management design is to make sure that it does not cost more than the value it adds (long wall mining studies).

A good test is to take managers away and see what the result is!

There’s a good reason for business process frameworks … those are where employees in effect engage with the whole, and what the group dynamics ultimately serve … and where the tangible things that come out are the business results.”

Well put. I think I’ll pinch it for my blog.

I think you have to work the other way round. Find companies who don’t manage by whim and managerial temper tantrum and stick with them. The others survived by having control over assets. The world is not in the mood for that any more and social media is the lever by which the common wish will be exercised.

I know it is difficult to see who will change first. Remember, I was given that challenge. I decided that new industries are likely to emerge. If you google RMM, you’ll find a great questionnaire for a Relationship Management Matrix for developing the aerospace supply network. It seems to have degenerated into box-ticking (a Brit way of passing the working day). The idea is good though and sums up where global companies are going and what will determine the ‘race’ from here on in. The complimentary mgmt reference is Hagel and Brown, Davos.

Time to do what I tell others to do and run my organization.
Cheers!

First, we shape our structures (or tools), then they shape us” (variously attributed)

and as @Jo points out, that’s “we”, not “I” .. though of course each individual has her or his own cognition and social skills and strategy with which they engage in “we”.

The challenges to managing collective performance are clearly collective in nature, and involve, I think, a significant combination of individuals’ characteristics – motivations, personal skills, abilities to learn, and so on mashed together with both business processes and group dynamics and constantly changing rapid information flows, etc.

There’s a good reason for business process frameworks … those are where employees in effect engage with the whole, and what the group dynamics ultimately serve … and where the tangible things that come out are the business results.

I think the work design, HR, culture change, and people development fields are going to be very interesting for the next twenty years. I do not think there will be as much of a standard approach .. such as the iconic structural and management principles represented by the pyramidic organizational chart. The network, generically, will replace that symbol.

The two .. hierarchy and networks … will become woven together, will shift shape(s) as conditions change and will come together offer a new lens on what performance means and how to work towards effectiveness.

I think your points are correct, an I would wish for a company to take that logic and work with it going forward.

As to accepted practices shifting from the focus on the individual, I too think that would be a good idea. Having to explain clearly why, and then implementing, would be a clear initiatiing point for some real culture change, which is what everyone says is critical these days.

That said, I also agree with @Dan .. I think it’s a good bet that moving off of and then beyond current practices is gonna be like pull-wisdom-teeth, get-root-canal-work-done for a fair few organizatons.

Heretical perhaps but it is long past the time for HR to abandon the “henchmen” role and start running organizations.

Sounds to me like somethimg Charles Handy (my major inspiration) would say.

A person with any level of training, will perform much as any one else when they can see the goals and the progress towards the goals at a glance and have the resources they need at hand. This is by definition.

The question is what is the average level and spread of performance. What factors change performance, under real-time conditions?

Chasing after individuals is pointless. That implies the critical assets of the company are not yet in the company.

There are two conditions when we recruit liberally from the open market but both render performance management pointless.
1. When one trained individual is much like the other and talent offers no competitive advantage to the company.
2. When the value is created in a supply network much larger than the company (such as fundamental science research) and the goal is provide “housing” so the company/university is in the game. The key then is providing resources to attract key players into the economic unit. They will be “performance managing” the company, not vv.

Heretical perhaps but it is long past the time for HR to abandon the “henchmen” role and start running organizations.

I had lunch with Karl in Montreal in December, and this issue / topic was one that we discussed at relative length.

I am off to Montreal again at the end of next week, and am hoping to lunch with him again. if I do, I’ll let him know you thought the clip was interesting and useful.