Corporate life is under the microscope. Monica Seeley peruses the
management journals for the past quarter to discover the issues
facing today's managers
The 21st Century Corporation, published by Business Week (21
August) is an excellent starting point as a general article that
gives a pr‚cis of many of the management issues that have been
raised in the past quarter. It covers just about every aspect of
corporate working life, from crafting a creative economy to
leadership styles, the latest technological developments and how
they will revolutionise work.
Nuggets include the suggestion that organisations will
increasingly look to use free agents as they continue to focus on
what they do best and "farm out the rest to partners" and employ
staff on a just-in-time basis: the winners will be those who manage
their knowledge assets; authority will continue to be pushed down
rather than up the corporation.
We will be motivated to co-operate and build rather than
compete; in this culture we may see the demise of the role of the
chief operating officer. While the function will remain, it will be
executed by the team rather than one person. There will still be
CEOs but their jobs will become more complex and intertwined with
that of others such as the chief Web officer.
As for the fabric of the organisation, large, fixed-structure
monolithic office blocks will be replaced by open plan, mutable
offices which even have areas which are devoid of technology. These
new structures will be designed to engender creativity.
Within the pages of the reputable management journals, there
have been three constant themes over the past few months. They are:
maintaining a healthy work-life balance; the age-old issue of
successful staff retention; and what makes a good leader. Below is
a summation of the main articles:
Work-life balance
The most dominant issues in this quarter's slew of publications
relate to the work-life balance. Several recent surveys have shown
that the UK working week is one of the longest in Europe (about a
70-hour week compared to a 60-hour week in Germany). We are
becoming ever more like our American counterparts who also work
long hours and take fewer holidays (about four weeks per year).
The introduction of the mobile phone and the home office means
people are increasingly expected to be available at any time. The
third Management Today work-life survey (August 2000) is
insightful. The direct relationship between long working hours and
levels of stress is not new. Neither are the suggested solutions
such as flexible working hours and providing a family-friendly work
environment. But it is becoming more pronounced by our love affair
with our mobile phones and e-mail.
These are now seen as one of the big sources of stress and
intrusion into our non-working lives. A recent survey from Carey
Cooper at the University of Manchester Institute of Technology
revealed that while on leave 35% of employees listen to their voice
mail every day and 20% call in. Despite what the macho managers
among us might like to think, taking a proper break from work is
vital to maintaining a healthy disposition.
Flexible hours and mobile working are being advocated as ways to
restore the work-life balance, but unless implemented properly they
can just add to the tension and serve to extend the day even
further. Management Today advocates that the key to restoring the
work-life balance lies with the individual who must learn to say
"no" and prioritise for themselves, and not duck the issue by
relying on the boss to do so.
If you are considering adopting either a flexible working and,
or, mobile working policy, Director (July 2000) has some practical
advice on dos and don'ts, such as creating trust, providing a good
means of social communication to make up for the missed coffee
machine chats, and making sure you understand all the legal
employer obligations.
The home-office approach is still in its infancy as the
technology improves and more people demand a better work-life
balance. Organisations which have made it work include Glaxo and BT
(see Carey Cooper, People Management, May 2000).
Other inter-linked themes are dress code and the design of the
corporate office. Both Director and Management Today have carried
some practical advice on the issues. For example, apparently we
work best in an environment which is sociable and resembles the
outdoors but without the distractions such as rain. On the
dress-down front, it is not good enough just to wear any old smart
trousers and a jacket, they still need to be fashionable, well cut
and preferably carry a designer label.
All this suggests you ditch your Marks & Spencer shares and
invest in firms which specialise in converting the space under the
stairs into a high-tech office!
Retaining and recruiting
Attracting and retaining the right staff still pervades many
boardroom discussions. To compound the matter there are no easy
solutions. Indeed the evidence as to best practice is itself
contradictory. Some surveys indicate that employees just want a
straight salary package with no frills, just money in the bank.
Others suggest that as we become more community conscious and
focused on our work-life balance, the provision of crŠches, healthy
meals, a gym and access to online shopping help increase staff
motivation and loyalty. But beware how far you let the pendulum
swing towards family values. The Management Today work-life survey
revealed that becoming too child conscious can cause resentment
among childless workers.
In recent times we have seen a flood of defections to dotcoms.
However, the tide is turning. Recent surveys by the Economic Policy
Unit and Business Week have revealed that in the US, more mature
workers are still one of the most highly-prized commodities. In
particular it is these managers who have the ability to harness and
manage information and use it to solve problems and create
satisfied customers. Their maturity also helps them manage the fine
dividing line between running a rigid organisation which stifles
creativity and allowing too much creativity which can lead to chaos
(Seely, Brown and Duguid, Harvard Business Review, May/June
2000).
Gerchak and Golany in the European Journal of Operational
Research (August 2000) review the relationship between the use of
recruitment agencies and staff turnover, and staff turnover and
productivity. Surprisingly, they find that increased turnover can
lead to improved productivity.
However, this might not be so surprising in the light of a
recent article by Lucy Kellaway in the Financial Times (18
September 2000) which revealed that a number of consultancies are
using the dotcom drain as an opportunity to review their staffing
needs and structure. They are automatically re-instating the dotcom
deserters who found the grass is far from greener outside the
bricks and clicks office.
Leadership
Creating effective leadership is one of those age-old problems
which has re-emerged, probably for two reasons. Firstly, many of
today's top business leaders are coming up for retirement.
Secondly, the fall-out in the dotcom market has revealed an
underlying lack of good management practice.
To some extent this begs the question of what makes a good
leader. While many books have been written on this topic, one which
has recently appeared is Leading The Revolution by Garry Hamel.
Based on his study of some of today's "grey-haired revolutionaries"
he provides a framework of the skills and processes involved in
being both creative and having the ability to take the organisation
along with you.
Hamel's premise is the need to continually re-invent oneself and
the organisation by daring to think the unimaginable. For example,
if you are a utility company, how can you cash in on the new
developments in bandwidth? An example nearer home might be how can
the IT department become an integral part of the organisation's
sustainable development policy?
Allied to leadership is the ability to manage change.
Abrahamson's Change Without Pain in Harvard Business Review
(July/August) provides some advice on how to create change without
too much pain. The article is based on his research into large US
multinationals over the past 10 years (such as IBM, GE and American
Express). While he acknowledges that change is essential to stay
alive, he advocates creating an environment of dynamic stability.
This is achieved by alternating major change with incremental
change and creating organic change though what he calls "tinkering
and kludging" (tinkering on a large scale).
Traditionally, one associates outsourcing with the management of
hard quantifiable resources such as IT, building maintenance and
fleet management etc. Not so, advocates Quinn in Outsourcing
Innovation: The New Engine For Growth (Sloan Management Review,
Summer 2000). Innovation, he says, is a complex process and as such
there are times when it is best to look to an external source. He
cites pharmaceutical research as an example. Like conventional
outsourcing, to outsource innovation successfully requires building
trust with the supplier and an agreed scorecard.
Handfield-Jones's How Executives Grow in McKinsey Quarterly
(Number 1, 2000) sheds new light on the controversial argument
about whether to grow your top executives from inside or hire in
new ones from outside. She suggests that the best organisations
grow their own talent, and that the most effective development
process is through providing a job experience programme.
Her five-point development plan includes providing managers with
challenging new posts through pooling top staff and resisting the
urge to put the best qualified person in the post rather assign
someone who will learn from the experience.
Goffee and Jones (Harvard Business Review) have reviewed many of
the current theories on leadership in an attempt to identify what
are the key traits of a great leader. They identify four: selective
revelation of their weaknesses; heavy reliance on intuition;
managing with "tough empathy"; and utilising the characteristics
which differentiate them from the rest of the pack.
21st century skills
Reading Business Week's The 21st Century Corporation may not
tell you anything you do not know, but it helps crystallise those
nagging concerns about the skills and behaviours we may all need to
master in order to survive. It is well written, even if it succumbs
to journalistic hype in places.
Take a break
- Did you take your mobile and/or laptop on holiday?
- How many times did you log in to contact the office?
- How did the rest of your family feel about this?
- What would have happened if you had not contacted the
office?
Key reading
- Change Without Pain by Abrahamson in Harvard Business Review,
July/August
- Leading The Revolution by Garry Hamel
- The third Management Today work-life survey, August
2000
- The Work Issue, Director, July 2000
- Balancing Act: How To Capture Knowledge Without Killing It, by
Seely, Brown and Duguid, Harvard Business Review, May/June
2000
Useful URLs
- Business Week (www.businessweek.com)
- Management Today (www.managementtoday.haynet.com)
- Director (www.iod.co.uk/director.html)
- People Management (www.peoplemanagement.co.uk)
- Economic Policy Unit (www.epinet.org)
- Harvard Business Review www.hbr.org)
- European Journal of Operational Research
(www.elsevier.nl)
- Financial Times (www.ft.com)
- Sloan Management Review (mitsloan.mit.edu)
- McKinsey Quarterly (www.mckinseyquarterly.com)