Page 14 - Global Focus, Issue 2, 2018

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Some of them are fabulously profitable but Efficiency has been pursued at
even that – previously a source of hero worship the expense of effectiveness;
– has come under scrutiny as the public questions technology has been used
the implications of self-reinforcing network effects to speed up and automate
and winner-takes-all dynamics for the wider business-as-usual rather than
economy and the unintended consequences replace it with positive new
of the bargain that has brought them troves models; and metrics-obsessed
of personal data in return for “free" search and performance management
social media. has put humanity firmly in
“What managers are doing … is of public the back seat
concern,“ Peter Drucker said, speaking of their
role as both stewards of society’s resources and
a leadership group in their own right – and never
has this been more plain.
Aristotle defined three dimensions of human
intelligence: episteme (intellect), techne (craft)
and phronesis (practical wisdom and ethical
values). In management they roughly correspond
to what we would call the “what”, the “how” and
the “why”.
To generalise, since the 1950s the management
taught in most business schools, propagated by
consultancies and used by companies, at least in
the “anglo-sphere“, has consisted of a set of skills
and techniques based on mastering quantitative
methodologies – that is, on the “what” and “how”.
The goal, taking a leaf from physics and
economics, was to make management more
scientific and predictable. A commendable aim
in itself, perhaps, but the consequence was to It is a central thread running through the
turn the company into a bureaucratic machine, Global Peter Drucker Forum, which celebrates
run by fiat for purely financial ends to which forget Charles Handy’s call at last year’s event 10th
its 10th anniversary this year. Few present will
humans were expendable means.
Efficiency (still the only task, as academic Gary for a return to management’s human values. The
Hamel has noted, that management is fully growth of groups like the Coalition for Inclusive The Global Peter Drucker
Forum celebrates its 10th
equipped to address) has been pursued at the Capitalism and the Conscious Capitalism anniversary this year
expense of effectiveness; technology has been Movement and steadily increasing numbers of
used to speed up and automate business-as-usual B-corps all testify to swelling business awareness
rather than replace it with positive new models; that realising the promise of the digital revolution
and metrics-obsessed performance management, depends on a broad-based institutional realignment
as another academic, Jeff Pfeffer, forcefully states that dials up the technology’s capacity for
in his most recent book, has put humanity firmly in economic and social good at the same time
the back seat. At the extreme, management has as it dials down its ability to do harm.
been shorn of its moral content altogether. There are plenty of initiatives to build on.
It has been a long time coming, but the “why” More dynamic, fertile, human-centred
of management – purpose, practical wisdom approaches to management are emerging that
and ethical values – is now right back at the top better respond to the needs of a complex, fast-
of the management agenda. The change has changing world where biology seems a better
been in the air for some time. guide to action than the machine. Examples
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