The Future of Management

 

Have you ever felt that modern management practices in mid to large size organizations sometimes fall short on fostering creativity? Do you feel that your organization is not doing enough to harness the talent of all its employees? Is innovation localized to a select group in your company and you think the management is not doing enough to make innovation systemic? Have you ever had a nagging feeling why HR practices try to bring consistency and homogeneity in a heterogeneous environment?  Do you think the employees are smart enough to manage themselves and organizations don’t need deep rooted hierarchies to watch over them? Do you think your organization is not nimble enough to adapt to the changing business environment?

Well, the book is for you if you answered in affirmative for any of the above. It is a very insightful book, which is divided in four sections - Why Management Innovation Matters, Management Innovation in Action, Imagining the Future of Management and Building the Future of Management.  

The book starts with outlining the reasons why should we adopt new set of management principles and how current management practices are not suitable enough for the new knowledge economy. The second section outlines examples of companies which have adopted the new innovative management styles and are extremely successful - Whole Foods, W.L. Gore and Google. The third section outlines the need to first understand why we believe what we believe and then embrace new principles that foster innovation within an organization. The last section shares certain lessons to become a management innovator.

It's a book which would inspire you to challenge certain norms within your organization. I really enjoyed reading the book.

Infinite choices i.e. The Long Tail

What an insightful book! I just finished reading it cover to cover in a day! It enlightened and helped me see the great success stories of our digital age with a new perspective. I always knew the technical reasons behind the successes of eBay, Amazon, iTunes, Rhapsody and the likes of them but never in a way Chris explained it in this book.

It would help one understand the explosion and successes of the new internet businesses and the reasons behind them. It compares the online business with the traditional retail business and explains their edge because of the following forces -

• Current abundance and affordability of the tools of production.
• The dramatic reduction in the cost of distribution in this digital age.
• The prevelance of search filters to connect the suppliers and the actual consumers.

Take for an example, Why Wikipedia is more successful(or, will be) when compared to MS Encarta and Birtannica or how Rhapsody/iTunes are more popular when compared to the traditional retail stores for music like Tower Records. 

I'm sanguine that the pattern of Long Tail is ubiquitous in the modern times and I could even relate it with our own business model. I work for an Outsourced Product Development company,GlobalLogic, and I think we fit in the Long Tail of our market segment. Furthermore, there is a Long Tail within our own revenue model - majority of our revenue is driven by minorty of our partners i.e. The 80/20 rule.

I just feel that it could have been written a tad well as lot of examples have been repeated in the book. I think it could be have been wrapped in 150-170 odd pages rather than its current size of 226 pages. Nonetheless, a must read!