Comments

What struck me about this really GREAT article was this sentence near the end:

“There is a view that the pendulum simply swings between these two basic theories--and everything else is just window dressing.”

The two theories referenced aren’t even the issue – the interesting thing is that this pendulum kind of thinking is true so often. People can’t seem to balance their worldviews. I think that’s one of the reasons why there are so many skeptics of business theories and those that articulate them. Each one is expected to be a “silver bullet".

When will people learn to take information from some of these amazing resources (books, thought leaders, etc) and apply them when they are appropriate in a manner that has been adapted to their environment!

Adapt and adopt!!!

Posted by Ann Michael at May 25, 2006 4:40 PM

Good information on your blog. I’ve added it to my list at

http://barber-osophy.blogspot.com/

Posted by Terry L. Sumerlin at May 25, 2006 9:08 PM

Great comments Ann.

The National Health Services (NHS) is a classic organisation for believing in some latest 'magic bullet solution’ or the ‘latest fad’ as I would call it.

Those seemingly ‘magic bullet solutions' usually just offer the waiting and watching army of management consultants a legalised way of stealing cash!

In my experience the best way to manage is to take account of these things – in this order

· Do what your heart tells you as a manager
· Listen to your front line staff
· Listen to your customers
· Challenge your boss
· Find someone older and wiser than you
· Find someone younger and brasher than you
· Don’t read lots of books - READ ONE that you like after three pages – my tip either Anita Roddick ‘Body and Soul’ or Tom Peters ‘Re-Imagine’
· Don’t look for answers from an academic Business School

And FINALLY … if you are a really sad person with lots of money to waste ....

· Ask a management consultant to help you

PS …. No offence intended to management consultants – after all I am one!

My point is most organisations have all the answers within the organisation.

Posted by Trevor Gay at May 26, 2006 3:52 AM

Great comment Trevor! I think part of this also comes from an unwillingnessor inability to address and think through situations from first principles. The ability to look at the real reasons something happens and do something about it seems to be woefully lacking in most business

Posted by PaulH at May 26, 2006 4:23 AM

... oh my word, is there no drivel-filter on this blog

Posted by onehandclapping@madasafish.com at May 26, 2006 8:13 AM

If In Search of Excellence made any lasting impressions--and I strongly believe that it did-- I think it heralded in an expectation and understanding that MBWA (and responding to what you stumbledd over) yielded positive results. The other change that it brought about was the understanding of the principle of "Close to the Customer." Tailoring goods and services to consumer needs versus making the buyer change their expectations to meet your offerings. Trevor, in somewhat different words, I think your first three how-tos reinforce this. Listening--to anyone--was not a common business practice pre-ISE.

Ed

Posted by Ed Di Gangi at May 26, 2006 8:22 AM

Ann, there are two comments I have to make:

1. There are few universal theories out there - and some are very relevant for a particular situation. As humans, we have to come to terms with the reality: this world is being rendered anew each moment. Our past is an archive. For new situations, we need new strategies which may or may not be the same as anything in the past. As life shows, the past is really THE PAST.

2. You are correct. When will people learn to manage themselves inside-out... and understand the basic truth that it is US who use theories, not theories and thoughts that make us.

A saw does not maketh one a carpenter. A theory does not shape one's life or corporation - unless their life is already in need of that theory. If you're a carpenter, a saw does you good. If you are a cello player, a saw means nothing. We have our answers within ourselves - be we humans or brand us or corporations. That established, we can use any tool we wish. The world becomes our oyster!

Posted by Ramla A. at May 26, 2006 1:01 PM

Ramla - AMEN!

Posted by Ann Michael at May 27, 2006 8:15 AM

I'm a big fan of Tom Peters' ideas--especially the ones in Thriving on Chaos. But fifteen or twenty years ago, he was treating stuff like eliminating front-line supervisors and handing production over to self-directed teams as "must dos" if corporations were to survive.

Fifteen years later, the corporate dinosaurs are still fairly healthy; and outside of some niche markets and special cases like the information industry, most big corporations have only used Peters' ideas as gimmicks and lip-service.

I suspect he underestimated the sheer power of inertia, and the structural stability of state capitalism. When a firm is cartelized among a handful of firms that share the same pathological culture and whose managements base policy on "industry trends" (i.e., copying managers as clueless as they are), the market penalty for inefficiency isn't apt to be too severe.

To me, Peters' management ideas are a lot like reading Kropotkin's Fields, Factories, and Workshops: they're the seeds of a fundamentally different way of organizing the economy, springing up in the interstices of the present system. But unless the state's structural supports to state capitalism are broken, the seeds will never grow to become a new system. "Building the structure of the new society within the shell of the old" is vital, but at some point we have to break the shell.

Posted by Kevin Carson at May 31, 2006 2:16 PM

I’ve been thinking all day about a story Tom Peters used to tell back in the early 90s. I've been telling it for years. I wrote a post this morning about the story, because I've always liked the point of it. When I came over to find a link, I found this one.

Amazing. My post is the answer to the question. I had no idea the queestion was here when I wrote the post below.

http://www.successful-blog.com/1/thank-you-tom-peters/

Posted by Liz Strauss at May 31, 2006 2:42 PM