A recent post about managing with ordinary managers like you and me attracted an interesting comment by leadership expert and author Ben Simonton about Peter Drucker’s legacy in this regard. Unfortunately, due to technical problems that occurred during a recent blog software upgrade, a system restore was required, and that led to the loss of the comment. However, with Ben’s permission, I will summarize and remark on it here.
In reply to my interest in hearing more about his concerns regarding Drucker’s influence, Ben said that he initially looked on him as a true business guru. However, with time and experience, he gained a perspective that dramatically altered this view.
For example, Ben served in the U.S. Navy nuclear program under Admiral Rickover. This afforded him the ability to contrast Rickover’s streamlined style of management with what he saw later in the civilian world, much of which was inspired by Drucker’s systems approach.
The inevitable result, Ben argues, was a layered management structure characterized by formulaic thinking, and resulting in top-heavy bureaucratic organizations. It was American businesses like these that lost so much ground so quickly to the leaner, more goal-focused firms from Japan beginning in the 1970s.
For my part, I feel very strongly about the positive nature of many of Drucker’s ideas and believe the better part of his contributions to be highly constructive, albeit imperfectly implemented. But I certainly welcome Ben’s perspective, and especially his readiness to demand that management figures even – perhaps especially – of Drucker’s stature should be compelled to defend not just their thinking in the abstract, but their results on the ground.
The systems-based approach to management does reflect Drucker’s concern that in the modern age of organizations we must give up our reliance on heroic figures as bosses – and even exceptional ones as managers generally. Rather, he argued, we must find ways to manage our ever-multiplying organizations with the ordinary material available: us.
Ben’s critique of how this turned out is important. But, as many of you know, Admiral Rickover has his own critics.
So the question is, are these our choices: stars or systems? Are there no alternatives, or no better ways of implementing these?
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Today’s tip: Speaking of stars and systems, one of the world’s greatest orchestras has no conductor - a position often used as an illustration of the vital importance of individual leadership. But that doesn’t mean there is no leadership - it just emanates from the purpose of the orchestra and is expressed, when and as appropriate, by everyone. See this brief description of how they do it from the introduction of Wikipedia entry on the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
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Technorati Tags: manager, leadership, expert, guru, U.S., Navy, Rickover, management, organization, American, business, Japan, conductor, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Bennet Simonton, Peter Drucker
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17 Comments
Thanks, Jim, for reposting a summary of my lost remarks.
As you indicate, Drucker was a great fan of a systems based approach to managing people. But these systems are exactly what demoralizes and demotivates people thus denying the company the benefit of their natural creativity, innovation and productivity.
This is the mediocrity I saw in most of the Navy, never in Rickover’s part of it. We don’t need heroic figures, but we sorely need leaders who treat employees with real respect and thus gain the benefit of their full capabilities.
You wrote of Drucker - “Rather, he argued, we must find ways to manage our ever-multiplying organizations with the ordinary material available: us.”
This shows that Drucker never understood the true capabilities of human beings, that they are all able to achieve excellence. He believed them all to be ordinary (meaning mediocre) people who must be forced to perform.
In my experience, almost all of them are extraordinary. I found that they are at least four times more capable than 90%+ of all observers believed possible.
Very few people have ever witnessed this reality because our society is authoritarian-based using the top-down command and control model which by its nature turns off people and thus condemns people to poor performance. Top-down is a self-fulfilling prophesy which creates the very problem of poor employee performance that it uses to justify its control systems. So the vast majority of managers don’t believe that excellent performance is possible.
At SAS they say “If you treat employees as if they make a difference to the company, they will make a difference to the company.” And of course, the opposite statement is also true as proven by Drucker methods. I always felt sorry for Drucker because he never managed people and thus never had the chance to find out first-hand how bad his solutions really were and how great people can be if allowed to be themselves.
Drucker’s failures were well explained in McGregor’s “The Human Side of Enterprise”, in his Theory X and Theory Y. Sadly, McGregor could not provide the tools by which managers bring Theory Y to fruition.
You might like to take a look at this article about Google
And possibly look at Kanazawa’s People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying to Change Them
Or read of Peter Hunter’s experiences in his book Breaking the Mould.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
Hello Ben,
This is another excellent and illuminating presentation of your position. I especially appreciate the really informative links, which I hope other visitors will view.
With respect to your observations generally, on the one hand I must say that I am hesitant to accept your equation of “ordinary” with “mediocre.” But on the other, I fully agree with and support your contention that allegedly ordinary talent is or can be extraordinary in the right management environment.
An excellent addition to your list of firms illustrating this point might be NUMMI, the GM factory that was so bad it had to be closed down. Its management was later assumed by Toyota, and the same factory, in the same location, with the same workers - even the same union - became an award-winning and highly efficient facility in less than two years.
With respect to Drucker more specifically, I feel compelled to suggest that to compare his thinking with McGregor’s posited Theory X view of workers as listless, dull, and unwilling doesn’t seem to be a fair representation of the person who saw the advent of the “knowledge worker” long before anyone else, who proposed innovative solutions to organizational design in order to give expression to the contributions of such workers, and who even expanded the definition of “executive” in certain ways to include anyone who contributes on his or her own initiative.
Nevertheless, the proof is in the pudding, and far from being an apologist for anyone, including Drucker, I am more interested in ideas that make sense in both theory and practice.
While McGregor did have difficulties making Theory Y, as he then understood it, work where he had the opportunity to implement it, he learned from the experience and was preparing an adaptation when we lost him. The companies you cite are good examples of success stories from the Theory Y tradition. I just wonder if Drucker might not have made some contributions to that progress, himself.
I must also say that I especially love your assertion that “. . . almost all of them are extraordinary. I found that they are at least four times more capable than 90%+ of all observers believed possible.” I agree completely with this.
What’s more, I most decidedly agree with what appears to be your strong concern, here in this context, that most observers - and practicing managers - either don’t agree with this or don’t know how to give expression to it - maybe even don’t care to. This remains a fundamental problem in management in the US and elsewhere, today.
Thank you again so much for your thoughtful contribution to the discussion - I hope we will be enjoying much more of it as that discussion continues.
Thanks, Jim, for taking the time to provide your thoughts on my comments. We seem to agree more often than not.
A few last words on Drucker. Before he jumped on its bandwagon, “knowledge management” had existed for a very long time though not under that name. In my humble opinion, Drucker was not a master at management by he was most certainly a master at creating products or concepts, and then selling them to corporate managements. He made a ton of bucks doing this and in the process gained great respect.
Drucker almost singlehandedly created the concept of the professional manager who through systems and procedures could manage any endeavor. But isn’t what he preached exactly what Toyota does not use, what almost wrecked Apple requiring them to rehire Jobs, what Google has divested itself of, etcetera, etcetera? It seems to me that companies using Drucker’s methods survive only so long as their competitors use the same methods.
You mentioned Toyota’s buy and subsequent turnaround of a failed GM factory. I did the same with a 1300 person unionized group in New York City. Do you think for one minute that Drucker’s methods could have achieved such a turnaround? I actually believe that Drucker’s methods were the cause of GM’s downfall.
You noted that McGregor was “preparing an adaptation when we lost him”. McGregor was greatly helped by a union man, I forget his name. Developing Theory Y methods is not an easy process. It requires constant tweaking, testing and evaluating over a period of years. I know because that is precisely what I did, how I came to have two “revelations”.
You wrote - “I most decidedly agree with what appears to be your strong concern, here in this context, that most observers - and practicing managers - either don’t agree with this or don’t know how to give expression to it - maybe even don’t care to.”
You judge me correctly. My greatest concern is for the workforce because the top-down approach damages them in so many ways and causes very low morale, irresponsibility, and huge personal problems for them. The Theory Y approach creates just the opposite; high morale, good health, loving to come to work, personal responsibility, and a myriad of other good outcomes for the individual employee and his family. I don’t really mind that a top-down company might eventually fail, so much the better. But I would love to prevent the damage to people and society in general.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
There were lots of parents for the top-heavy US organizations both of the Seventies and today, but I simply don’t experience Drucker as writing at all about structure. In fact, he advocates developing whatever structure you’re going to end up with, based on questions about strengths and purpose. The best description of this I know in his work is in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices, chapters 42 and 43.
Drucker’s ideas about organization seem to me summed up by this quote.
“No organization can depend on genius; the supply is always scarce and unreliable. It is the test of an organization to make ordinary human beings perform better than they seem capable of, to bring out whatever strength there is in its members, and to use each man’s strength to help all the others perform. The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.”
I’ve written on this myself in a blog entry called “Put your trust in systems, not in genius” at
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2007/09/16/put-your-trust-in-systems-not-in-genius.aspx
I agree, Wally, but the systems I contend we don’t have and Drucker did not have are those by which to properly manage people.
I developed an easy-to-learn and easy-to-execute coherent, comprehensive system of whats, whys and how tos whereby average managers could become exceptional managers of people. And these systems exclude such things as bureaucracy or top-down command and control since these systems only serve to demotivate and demoralize the workforce.
I agree that no organization can depend upon genius. It should depend on creating self-directed people under self-control.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
Hello Wally and Ben,
It seems as though we share a belief in the value of finding ways to release the creative and productive potential of all an organization’s members, while perhaps disagreeing regarding the commitment to or success with this aim that Drucker possessed.
For what it’s worth, my own views on this topic correspond more closely with Wally’s. In particular, I strongly recommend that viewers click through the link Wally provided to his post, which powerfully and effectively expresses Drucker’s key concern about avoiding an unwarranted - and in modern times an untenable - reliance on genius.
On the other hand, I am very interested, Ben, in your work with the 1300-person, unionized outfit in New York. That’s clearly large enough to preclude informal and comprehensive control by a single individual - particularly with the union presence - and large enough to require a systematic approach to helping the staff work together to get the organization’s work done. Have you told this story anywhere? I would love to see it.
Wally, I should mention that, before our current discussion came up, I began a short series on Drucker’s views on organizational design (sorry, Ben), which will outline and comment on the chapter set - “Managerial Organization” - which includes those you cite. It will probably begin in the next week or so.
I hope we’ll be hearing from both of you then - but in the meanwhile, thanks so much to both of you for a provocative and illuminating discussion, and especially to you, Ben, for stimulating it.
Jim,
You wrote - “On the other hand, I am very interested, Ben, in your work with the 1300-person, unionized outfit in New York. That’s clearly large enough to preclude informal and comprehensive control by a single individual - particularly with the union presence - and large enough to require a systematic approach to helping the staff work together to get the organization’s work done. Have you told this story anywhere?”
Thanks for your interest. Just before taking that job I was fortunate to have been the manager of New York’s largest electric generating station at the same company for 2 1/2 years after retiring from the Navy. I was fortunate because my beliefs about handling employees and unions proved to be correct. My approach permitted me to not only turn around a management disaster but to convert the majority of employees to being self-directed self-starters who would not follow bad leadership and would continue to improve plant performance for years thereafter, regardless of who their top manager was. While being the exec in charge of 1300 employees, I watched from a distance this process over a period of 7 years through 3 plant managers who were not really effective managers of people.
The 1300 person group was another management disaster, so bad that I was told to either get rid of it or fix it, my choice. Because of my strong faith in people, I chose to fix it and started out by telling all employees in small groups my orders and why I chose to fix it. I told them that their poor performance was not their fault but mine since I was now the big boss.
I had to change many things, many causing the union to respond with a law suit, a tactic they had used against me in my previous job. And as happened before, after about a year my employees asked me in a group meeting if the union was suing me. After I said yes, they asked for details so I listed the suits on a blackboard and gave a brief synopsis of each, about a dozen of them. Employees reacted with shock. And as had happened in my previous job, about a week later the union canceled them all much to the amazement of our corporate law group.
In six months we were well on our way and productivity per person rose by ~300% in 4 years, more thereafter but not measured. In a couple years, it was not possible to discern if an employee was union or management by talking to them. At my 1 1/2 year point, a union steward well-known for his disdain for management entered my office, told me he did not know what I do, did not want to know what I do, but wanted me to continue to do it. He said that he had hated to come to work for 15 years but now loved to come to work. He thanked me, shook my hand and left.
No, I have not written down this story. I have since leaving that company published all the tools I used including the reasons why they are correct in a book. I am willing to answer questions if you are interested.
Have fun with Drucker.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
Hello Ben,
Here’s music for a (good) director’s ears: converting employees to “. . . self-directed self-starters who would not follow bad leadership and would continue to improve plant performance for years thereafter, regardless of who their top manager was.” My favorite is the bit about refusing to follow bad leadership.
Your bosses obviously had a great deal of well-founded confidence in you to give you the toss-or-turn-around option. I am sure this would make a great story that many would be fascinated to read. I hope that happens at some point.
In the meanwhile, I will be picking up your book to learn more!
Thanks again for this great dialogue!
Thanks, Jim.
The conversion to being self-directed resulted from learning that “leading” employees to high performance was not enough to stop them from being led right down by the next leader. That happened to me in my first turnaround, a destroyer escort.
I lead it from disaster state to being one of the best ships in a matter of 18 months. I then left to take my next position as Reactor Officer of Nimitz, but the man who replaced me led the crew right back to disaster state in less time than it took me to fix it. I berated myself for creating a “house of cards” and pledged to learn how not to repeat that.
I knew that my very best people were self-directed self-starters who always do what they think is right, not what they think is expected of them or what they are “led” to do. So they aren’t followers. But only about 5% of all people are this way. The other 95% are followers who can be “led” more or less because of having been beaten into that mode by a highly authoritarian society - first by their parents and then teachers, churches, government and finally bosses in the workplace.
My investigations caused me to believe that at birth we are all self-directed and if that is our natural state, why could I not lead people back to being that way? So I started trying that and eventually proved that a majority could be converted and once converted would never go back to following ever again. This solved my “house of cards” discrepancy.
The only tool powerful enough to create such a change turned out to be meetings of about 40 or less for the purpose of receiving and responding to their complaints, suggestions and questions. Properly run, these meetings can change culture in a relatively short time given that they continue.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
Jim and Ben — Nice pot-stirring. I didn’t like the “either-or” choice. My research suggests to me that all great leaders have beeen superb systems thinkers. So isn’t it both?
Drucker suffered from being a celebrity. It happens in all fields.
About change: Since (apparently) cardiology patients can be told “Change your lifstyle or die prematurely” and still 98% would rather die than change, it seems me that we’re not grabbing “change” by the right handle. If we just do it politely enough…?
Ben - your point about habituating our workplaces and organizations to individual leadership from the top resulting in unpredictable results and an over-reliance on a demonstrably inadequate resource - the individual leader - is absolutely something I support. Indeed, it is an argument I make repeatedly and strenuously myself.
I have picked up your book - Adobe Reader version - looking forward to getting to it.
In the meanwhile, you and others may be interested in a piece that just came through my RSS reader from Management-Issues which uses recent research to make very nearly the same points you do in your excellent comment above.
Your discussion of the presence of self-directed self-starters and others who may viewed as having become accommodated to “followership” is close to a fundamental point I make in developing my argument in Managing Leadership - there is a distinct difference in the way I view such “followers,” but it is nevertheless very interesting that you have seen something like this and produced these conclusions from it.
I look forward to more discussion on these topics soon.
Thanks again Ben!
Hello Lee!
You have hit on a point of the question - is it, in fact, an either/or choice? As you know, I am not a fan of the “star” side of the equation, but there is no doubt that we need an effective boss. The next question is what sort of role does he or she play (and how personally prominent must it be) in the functioning of leadership in the organization.
As for the issue of change, your use of the medical example is an eye-opener - and I don’t suppose it would tax too many people overmuch to come up with examples of organizations that proved unwilling and unable to change even though confronted with indisputably impending disaster.
Thanks, Lee, for stopping by and joining in!
Hi All,
Fascinating discussion. While I’m not a Drucker expert, my limited understanding of his writings is that his ’systems approach’ was meant to bring out the ‘best’ performance in people. Having the right ’system’ would somehow create an environment conducive to superior business performance.
In any event, I believe that context is critical to a better understanding of what has/did happen. Using case studies to help explain principles are great for learning, but does require us to understand the uniqueness of the case(s) to ensure we are learning the right lessons and then to apply them to the appropriate situations.
In my case for example, as a traditional functional manager seeking to improve my organization’s efficiency and effectiveness, I have a particular constraint that would make it difficult for me to adopt Ben’s approach toward management and leadership. I am a western (ABC) manager in a British multinational company operating in Asia - specifically Chinese speaking East Asia.
The people I deal with are not only conversant with top-down approach to doing things but that is a way-of-life. It’s in their DNA. So, trying to get these people to be self-directed…well, let us just say a structured systems-based approach works much better because their life is highly structured and systematic (i.e. clear policies, procedures etc)
Nevertheless, the fact is people are people. I believe in both the good and the bad in human nature. Allowed to their own devices, people can and have achieved amazing things, no doubt about it. So then, the key question to me is, “What is one’s view of human nature?” I think that’s really the essence of how or what approach we take. I don’t believe that I can take each one of my team members solely as individuals because I cannot manage that - team is too big or due to my own managerial or personal limitations.
I can say that in my experience, which is still on-going, I’ve tried to adopt Ben’s approach as much as I can. The reason is that in order for one to have a high performing team, individuals need to be themselves high performing (perhaps this is a sign of my biases). Whether the system creates high performance or the individual efforts results in it, I only care of the outcome. If we use a basketball sports analogy, do we get 5 all-stars or 5 “team players” (that assumes all-stars cannot be effective team players which seems to be the case)?
The frustration is there, but I can also say, that the results are there too, it does work, despite the fact that my Asian managers have told me numerous times, that my “westernized” approach needs to be adjusted constantly “to fit” the environment. In other words, be prepared to be disappointed and frustrated. To be frank though, I sometimes wonder whether the effort I put in to create this result is the most effective way to manage the team.
To sum up briefly, I’ve concluded that I need to create a systematic way of operating that permits each team member to showcase his or her specific talents. My role, is more of a coach/facilitator/umbrella as a way to create an environment they can perform in. I see that is my fundamental role as a manager - create the environment and circumstances for success, individually and as a function. For that, there’s been a lot of trial and error adopting the principles, tools & techniques, you all write about.
Thanks,
-Lui
Lui,
I agree the Drucker’s “’systems approach’ was meant to bring out the ‘best’ performance in people”. But I believe that it resulted in bringing out mediocre performance at best and often the worst.
I congratulate you for your approach to managing people that of serving your people rather than expecting them to serve you. People are the same all over the world and the naysayers have it wrong.
If I can help you in any way, please don’t hesitate to ask. I would send you a gratis copy of my book by email if you desire it. The book is a bit heavy, actually several books in one, but it does have everything you need to become an exceptional manager of people.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
Hello Lui (and Ben),
Lui, your thoughtful comment does a wonderful job of bringing the concepts under discussion into the light of real-world management concerns. Are the theories we generate universally valid? Can we apply concepts generated in one culture with workforces from another? What about mixed workforces, or managements that are caught between the exptectations of staffs of one culture and those of investors, regulators, and directors from another?
But, as you point out, people are people, and we should bear in mind, for example, that the concept of continuous incremental improvement that Toyota has made famous was an American approach taught by an American theorist in a collectivist culture with a distinctly different approach to and regard for authority than that customary to Americans. But it has worked brilliantly.
Two keys to this you also touch on - your scope of responsibility can easily exceed that of your direct personal influence. This requires indirect influence, which is often best expressed through institutionalized procedures and systems. An advantage of these is that they can preserve value beyond the arbitrary whims of perhaps less able or astute successors. A disadvantage is that they can be exploited by juniors or successors to produce unintended and unhappy consequences.
The other key is your focus on organizational results. Ben will recognize the military maxim that the first priority is the mission, followed by looking after the (in his case) sailors. If you, from a surfeit of sensitivity or altruistic fervor, get these reversed, you will likely fail both in the mission and the development - and even protection - of your staff. So, that focus is right on the money.
So, your effort to adopt Ben’s approach to the extent possible within those constraints (mission and reach) - including using that instinct to guide your actions when those constraints are exceeded - is wonderful - I applaud you!
And thanks so much, both you and Ben, for this continuation of the discussion deeper from endlessly contentious theory into relentlessly demanding practice!
Hi Ben, Jim,
Appreciate the support and encouragement all around. And I’ll be back to this site every now and then to update how it looks like from the “front lines” so to speak.
Ben,
Visited your website - appreciate the offer! I’ve already downloaded through PayPal your eBook and will start reading it this week. In two weeks, there’s a big functional off-site “team building” event over a couple of days. I’ll be thinking about all this while preparing!
Many thanks again,
-Lui
Lui,
Looking forward to your continuing visits and observations, as well as my own (and hopefully those of our other viewers here) visits to your own site.
Thanks!
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