Management's New Paradigms by Peter F. Drucker

(p. 154) "... seven underlying assumptions about organization that are out of date:

1. That there is only one right way to organize a business.
2. That the principles of management apply only to business organizations.
3. That there is a single right way to manage people.
4. That technologies, markets and end-uses are fixed and rarely overlap.  That is, each industry has a specific technology and a specific market.
5. That management's scope is legally defined as applying only to an organization's assets and employees.
6. That management's job is to 'run the business' rather than to concentrate on what is happening outside the business.  That is, management is internally, not externally, focused.
7. That national boundaries define the ecology of enterprise and management."

The One Right Organization

"For example, one hears a great deal today about 'the end of hierarchy.'  This is blatant nonsense.  In any institution there has to be a final authority, that is, a 'boss'-- someone who can make the final decision and who can then expect to be obeyed in a situation of common peril -- and every institution is likely to encounter it sooner or later.  If the ship founders, the captain does not call a meeting; the captain gives an order.  And if the ship is to be saved, everyone must obey the order, must know exactly where to do and what to do and do it without 'participation' or argument.  Hierarchy, and the unquestioning acceptance of it by everyone in the organization, is the only hope in a crisis.

"But what is the right organization to handle crisis is not the right organization for all tasks.  Sometimes the team approach is the right answer."

<skip some>

"In any enterprise... there is need for a number of different organizational structures coexisting side by side."

some principles:

"... organization has to be transparent.  People must know and understand the organizational structure they are to work in."

"... someone in the organization must have the authority to take command in a crisis."

"It is also a sound general principle for all kinds of organizations that any member of the organization should have only one 'master.'"

"It is a sound structural principal to have the fewest number of layers, that is, to have an organization that is as 'flat' as possible -- if only because the first law of information theory tells us that 'every relay doubles the noise and cuts the message in half.'"

"One implication of all this is that individuals will have to learn to work at one and the same time in different organizational structures."

"It is generally assumed today that there is only one kind of team -- the jazz combo -- where each participant does his or her own thing but together they make great music.  Actually there are at least half a dozen -- perhaps a full dozen -- of very different teams, each with its own area of application, each with its own limitations and difficulties and each requiring different management."

Some examples:

The old-fashioned functional team, with departments separated by function.  Advantages: each member can be trained in a particular field; each member can be measured and judged against clear and specific goals.  Weaknesses: rigidity, slowness in changing, and danger that each group focuses only on its function.

Customer service major accounts, with the service person able to call on anyone needed to help a customer.

Top management team, with functional or geographic "bosses" reporting on decisions, and a chairman for breaking ties.

Only One Right Way?

Abraham Maslow Eupsychian Management: different people require different ways of managing.

(p. 164) "... fewer and fewer people are subordinates [expected to do what they are assigned to do and not much else] -- even in fairly low-level jobs.  Increasingly they are knowledge workers.  Knowledge workers cannot be managed as subordinates; they are associates.  They are seniors or juniors but not superiors and subordinates.

"This difference is more than cosmetic.  Once beyond the apprentice stage, knowledge workers must know more about their job than their boss does -- or what good are they?  The very definition of a knowledge worker is one who knows more about his or her job than anyone else in the organization."

(p. 166) "What motivates -- especially knowledge workers... They need, above all, challenge.  They need to know the organization's mission and to believe in it.  They need continuous training.  They need to see results."

"... One does not 'manage' people, as previously assumed.  One leads them.  The way one maximizes their performance is by capitalizing on their strengths and their knowledge rather than trying to force them into molds."

Bringing the World into the Organization

"Then any institution must organize for systematic, continuing improvement (what the Japanese call kaizen).

"Then it has to organize for systematic and continuous exploitation, especially of its successes.  It has to build a different tomorrow on a proven today.

"And, finally, it has to organize systematic innovation, that is, to create the different tomorrow that makes obsolete and, to a large extent, replaces even the most successful products of today in any organization."

The Role of an Outward-Directed Management

"Therefore the new paradigm on which management, both as a discipline and as a practice, must be based is that management must define the results it expects to attain and then must organize the resources of the institution to attain these results."