Some work pundits even suggest that traditional managers don’t add value, are too often redundant, and are organizational dinosaurs. Richard Koch and Ian Godden in Managing Without Management suggest that management as it exists today can’t be salvaged by the ‘flavor of the month’ fads and may disappear entirely early in this century.
Sounds far fetched, but read on! Work must still get done. Control systems must exist. So, who does these things? Entrepreneurs in large organizations according to the authors add value not managers. Six major forces are supposedly killing traditional management including: 1. power of customers; 2. spread of Information Technology; 3. shareholder’s assertion of their legitimacy and rights; 4. efficiencies caused by international competition; 5. drive for organizational simplicity; and 6. growth of powerful leaders.[i]
[i] Koch, Richard and Godden, Ian, Managing Without Management, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1997.