nsapm.blogg.se - The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart

As Stewart states: ‘…scientific management fulfilled too many hopes and prayers to be ignored merely on account of its logical and factual deficiencies.’

Consultancy fills too many hopes and dreams, that’s why it remains – Every business man or woman dreams of finding the simple answer that can transform their business and solve many of their biggest problems, and strategy consultancy continues to promise the answer, hence it’s longevity.

As it’s the company’s senior leader who is also paying the strategy consultants fees, what incentive is there for them not to find the answer the senior leader is looking for? Strategy consultants are, most of the time, brought in to validate senior leaderships’ own dream that, due to internal politics, they can’t instigate without external approval/validation.

Strategy Consultants are hired to verify a pre-defined dream, not create one – Stewart has the ability to make it seem so obvious that, and as a reader, you question your own perception and inability not to realise it sooner.

Managers need to be educated not trained, shown multiple different ways of doing things and taught that there is no single way that always works. By believing these are sciences you start ‘training’ managers – in the same way you train doctors – but training doesn’t work as there isn’t one standardised, one size fits all model to success.

I couldn’t agree more with Stewart when he says that leadership and management aren’t sciences and the attempt to make them so are only detrimental. The History of Consultancy – I was fascinated to read about the roots of management consulting, it’s engineering background and the fact it’s only been around since the 1950’s.The key 7 messages I took away from the book:.The way he mixes his own experience with a history of the management profession and current affairs makes it a highly informative as well as riveting read. Stewart’s honesty and self-deprecating jokes help pull you in as a reader.Even when I consider this fact I still feel this is an exceptional book, and in no small part informed my view on managing people for the first time, you can read that blog post here.I have no doubt that part of the reason I loved this book so much is because I work in the consultancy industry – I should say technology consultancy and not management consultancy, or even more vilified, strategy consultancy – and therefore several examples included in this book were frustrations or comic situations I’ve experienced.