The mantra is repeated often, and with unfailing regularity – “The only permanent feature of the marketplace is change”. And another variation – “Change is permanent”. Management gurus are never tired of repeating these – and students of management seem to be never tired of hearing them. Whether corporate managers do anything about this or not, is another matter. From the way most Indian companies are changing – or not changing; it would seem that there is a big gap between theory and practice; between policy and implementation.
It was therefore refreshing to look at another angle of the change theory by reading Victoria Griffiths’ comments in the Financial Times on management gurus who wax eloquent on this theme. She maintains that many of the best-known American writers on corporate best practices have been advocates of change, making their living by convincing people of the need to change their work and management style. The word ‘change’ or related vocabulary, such as ‘innovation’; ‘entrepreneurship’; ‘empowerment’; ‘team effort’; and ‘participative management’ show up with predictable regularity in management books, and in the plethora of articles in business magazines and the financial papers.
Ms Griffiths gives a long list of titles – The Dance of Change by Peter Senge; Leading Change by John Carter; Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker; The Change Masters – Innovation and Entrepreneurship in American Corporation by Rosabeth Moss Kanter; and Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organisational Change and Renewal by Peter Tushman.
Yet, how do the gurus themselves measure up on a change scale? A quick review shows that the same theorists who preach the value of newness are slow to renew their own teachings. They love to revise old themes and keep repeating them ad nauseam.
Peter Senge, in the bestselling The Fifth Discipline of 1990, told us how organisations could prepare for change, including establishing shared vision and building teams. Then he wrote The Dance of Change many years later, where he shows how companies can keep changing. How? Once again, through shared vision and teams.
Ms Kanter, in her 1997 book Frontiers of Management, wrote in the preface that she didn’t want to write anything new, since most companies hadn’t followed the advice she set out in her first volumes. So she simply repackaged copies of articles for the Harvard Business Review into a collection, and again wrote about the same themes – worker empowerment and flatter organisations.
When Elephants Learn to Dance shows us how companies reinvent themselves and succeed by adapting and adopting worker empowerment and flattening organisations. The submission of powerlessness corrupts first presented in the mid-1970s, is re-presented as still interesting and relevant in the late 1990s.
The temptation to rephrase the theories that made them famous in the first place is too great, even for the most venerable management guru – Peter Drucker. He also reissues his recollections and reminiscences. However, it must be said that Mr Drucker is the only one who has effected a transformation over the last 40 years, that he has held pride of place among the pantheon of gurus, from the time that he has enunciated and explained management hierarchy and management functions in modern management, to now propounding the orchestra-style organisation as more relevant with the emergence of the knowledge worker.
With constant repetition for so many years, management experts carried their theories like brands. They themselves have got branded, in the process. Thus, Peter Senge is associated with ‘the learning organisation’; Adrian Slywotzky with ‘value migration’; Michael Porter with ‘competitive advantage’; Tom Peters with ‘management excellence’; and Deming with ‘quality management’.
When these gurus update their writings—which they do periodically—they do add the mandatory note on information, technology, internet and now AI – and show how the change brought about by rapid strides in information technology have made it even more necessary to follow the themes that they have propounded in the past.
Except for Mr Drucker, perhaps no one else has said that what they have propounded in the past is no longer relevant. Even when many excellent companies, quoted by Peters and Waterman in In Search of Excellence, were later shown to have failed, the guru is quietly explaining that these companies fail because they no longer followed the theories they had propounded in the book - and hence obviously the poor results!
But Ms Griffiths adds that the gurus have her sympathy. After all, how many truly original ideas are there in the world? When we study the ruins of Mohenjo Daro, we find that they had a water supply system 5,000 years ago, which we are straining to introduce in towns in India, even at the present time.
A casual walk through the Museum of Athens shows you ceramics and cooking utensils which, in texture and design, would put our best Danish designers to shame. What we thought was new, is generally what we already knew, and had long forgotten, and it is now resurrected and viewed anew.
Ms Griffiths also adds that there is value in sticking with a successful theme. Picasso didn’t drop cubism after the first painting he did in that style. Shakespeare did not change his style after the first play or story. Litz remained with an easily distinguishable style of music; and McDonald’s has stuck with the big Mac through thick and thin, even if they had to change the content from beef, in deference to preferences in countries like India.
Also, with the large number of books on management increasing with every decade, it may be harder to come up with original ideas in the management discipline. It may be an interesting subject for a doctoral thesis – ‘Why management gurus are so slow to embrace change themselves’. But there is both a philosophical as well as a good monetary reason for rehashing old ideas. Management gurus will explain their intransigence as nothing more than consistency, and there is much to be said for being consistent!
Ms Griffiths ends her presentation with, “So, as I was saying, management gurus love to write about change.” I would amend this slightly to management gurus love to only write and talk about change and go on to the old adage of… “………….., those who can’t teach.”
(This article was penned over 15 years ago - and it would still seem relevant)
(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India - FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years, capping his career as Head of marketing for a Pharma multinational, for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of consultants in 45 countries, in 1997. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist, international conference speaker and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005, and for Marketing in 2009. He now spends much of his time in NGO work - Consumer Education and Research Centre, IDOBRO, and some others.)
