The Emporor’s New Clothes and Management Theory

Andrew Billen of the Times said in this article yesterday http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5860232.ece
that management theory has been shown up as modern day snake oil. In fact, he has taken a sawn off shotgun to it, citing various examples of how theory strips people and organizations of good old common sense. He has a point.

When you impose systems on people that are a substitute for management or even a compensation for lack of management, eventually there will be a collision between man and 'machine'. Systems and theories remove the decision-making from organizations since a process has already been decided. All that's needed is for the guidelines to be followed. When the system fails it is because people have let it fail either consciously or sub-consciously.

Billen is essentially pointing at management theory and calling it 'naked' concluding that there is nothing to it. About 15 years ago I was invited to a round table discussion at the London School of Economics between business leaders and academics. The question under discussion was "What does business need from academia to help it evolve.?" You won't be surprised to hear that nothing new emerged. In fact if you really examine the evolution of management theory you will see that the same ideas have been introduced repeatedly, only renamed.

Ultimately, there is no substitute for people and timeless principles of management that are as relevant now as they will be in the future. When you have a real strategy you will see immediately the reason for poor outcomes and systems are designed to support people rather compensate for them. People make theories and systems work not the other way around.