Welcome
With the 2024 event in Vienna, the Global Drucker Forum (GPDF) initiated The Next Management multi-year initiative in response to the world’s serious challenges and the need to restore management that seems stuck with many organizations and leaders failing on many instances.
With our working document, we want to summarize our understanding of the state of management and extend our offering and invitation to interested management practitioners, researchers, and teachers to join us to explore what it takes to get management back on track.
Just about every day, we experience unmanaged instances of failed leaders and organizations, some with small and negligeable effects, others with disastrous consequences. Our team of practitioners, scientists and teachers felt, we needed to dig deeper on the causes of the failures and help boards and their organizations to unstuck ineffective and outdated management and to replace wrong leaders.
While that might not surprise casual observers, it highlights the chicken and egg problem. Wrong leaders detour management which in return deteriorates over time, causes infected cultures and, eventually, leads to failures.
But where to start? We note that ‘unmanaged’ (Not managed: the cousin of mismanaged) is reality, not the norm, but also not an infrequent occurrence. 'Unmanaged' exists, and organizations muddle through regardless. We conclude, the adoption of good management is low and varies widely. It is stuck in the past and has lost its impact. Where the fix of wrong leaders is simple, boards need to act on their responsibility, the fix of management is hard work.
Good management positively correlates with higher profitability, growth, and productivity. It’s human, holistic, systemic, unique, emergent, diagnostic, and interactive, and it can be a competitive advantage.
But good management is not readily adopted because we assume it’s good, we know better and, therefore, underinvest.
Muddling through is no option. Getting out of ‘unmanaged’ requires the adoption of good management practices and their adaptation to meet the needs of people, the specifics of the organization and its context.
While we have been able to complete important groud work, there are many issues to resolve. In that sense, this is the beginning of our initiative: Fixing the 'Unmanaged' for better management, and perhaps, peak performances.
- Why are we where we are?
- Why does it not happen?
- How do we get out of it?
- Bonus: What is good management?
We are interested in your point of view. Leave us your comment.
Care with us. Keep in touch.
December 2024, The Management Insights Team
