The Bold and the Bountiful?

No, title this “The Bold and the Bountiful” is not a misstating of the name of the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Yes, we management educators are all beautiful by some measure. Yet, the notion that took my mind away from the pressing duty of finishing finalizing the selection of sessions for OBTC 2008 is about being bold and bountiful in our advise.

Are we boldly proffering our beliefs to learners and readers about managing to effect organizations that are good for humans and for business. Our bountiful views accumulate in great abundance inside our classrooms, our training centers, our articles, our consultations, our books, new and old media, and, of course, in our conferences. I cannot recall where I read the other day that there were over 10,000 business books published in 2007 alone.

This is both wonderful and troubling to me. Wonderful, because we are still intrigued, even excited by the challenges of capturing and explaining sustained moments of true effectiveness found at the point of organizational action. And, that people seem to still be paying attention to us. This is also trouble that they are.

Why?

By chance, I just opened a book by Gary Hamel returned to me yesterday and my eyes fell on this line:

Management is out of date. Like the combustion engine, it's a technology that has largely stopped evolving, and that's not good. Why? Because management - the capacity to marshal resources, lay out plans, program work and spur effort - is central to the accomplishment of human purpose. When it's less effective that it could be, or needs to be, we all pay a price. What ultimately constrains the performance of your organization is not its operating model, nor its business model, but is management model.
[Gary Hamel, The Future of Management, Harvard Business Press, 2007]

What is we are boldly and bountifully teaching a management that has “largely stopped evolving”? Moreover, what it is has stopped evolving because we so forcefully and confidently teach it managing as is so very well?

Just a thought.