MLab

What would management look like if we defined it around the needs, fears and aspirations of our employees? Julian Birkinshaw, Vyla Rollins and Stefano Turconi report on their recent study of employee-centred management. Download it here.

Power has long been regarded as morally corrosive, and we often suspect the intentions of those who seek it. Indeed, the lust for dominion is so unseemly that few of us would openly admit to a craving for clout.

Hence, it might surprise you to learn that one of the world’s most distinguished management thinkers has recently produced a detailed manual for the power-hungry.

In my last post with Polly Labarre, I noted that few teenagers dream of growing up to be a manager.  Prosaic it may be, but management is one of humankind’s most important inventions, encompassing the tools and methods we use to mobilize and organize resources to productive ends. It is, quite simply, the technology of human accomplishment.  Our capacity to improve the state of the world is ultimately bounded by our capacity to manage.

Have you ever met a 10-year-old who dreams of growing up to be a manager? Neither have I. Chances are, though, if you’re reading this post you are one—a manager, not a 10-year-old. Somewhere along the highway of life you missed a turnoff—you sailed right by the exit for “smoke jumper,” never saw the sign for “ocean explorer,” and somehow forgot to put “fighter pilot” into your career GPS. So now you’re a manager.

I’m a capitalist by conviction and profession. I believe the best economic system is one that rewards entrepreneurship and risk-taking, maximizes customer choice, uses markets to allocate scarce resources and minimizes the regulatory burden on business. If there’s a better recipe for creating prosperity I haven’t seen it.

A couple of weeks back I provided you with a synopsis of Vineet Nayar’s new book, “Employees First, Customers Second,” which has been recently published by Harvard Business School Press. In it, Vineet, CEO of HCL Technologies, talks about the progress his company has made in making managers more accountable to those on the front lines. Having posted my summary, I invited you to submit your questions to Vineet, and many of you did, along with plenty of piquant comments. Herewith, Vineet’s reply. He begins by providing a bit of context, and then takes on a few of the most-asked queries.

How’d you like to put a question to one of the world’s most inspired management innovators—a CEO who’s challenged a host of management orthodoxies? At the end of this post, I’ll explain how you can do just that.

In my previous post, I introduced you to Drew Williams. For seven years Drew served as assistant vicar at St. Andrews, an Anglican parish in Chorleywood, England. When he arrived in 2003, Drew found a church that was big but not growing, and a congregation that was loyal but not energized. Mark Stibbe, head vicar at St. Andrews, challenged Drew to develop a plan that would change this.

In a pair of recent posts (Part I, Part II) I argued that many of us have lost our faith in large institutions. We increasingly feel ill-used by our employers and ill-served by our elected representatives. More troubling still, many of us have also lost faith in faith-based organizations. In this regard, the Church of England (CoE) stands as Exhibit A. Founded 476 years ago when King Henry VIII broke with papal authority, the Church of England has in recent years been fractured by a contentious dispute over the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. As thorny as that issue may be, it is not the most vexing problem facing the “mother church” of the worldwide Anglican Communion.