[MUSIC] So what's the underlying reason why our management systems and processes are not working so well? Well, let's just briefly go back in time. Let's go back 150 years to the Industrial Revolution. We could go back further in time. You can go back to the Ancient Romans and Egyptians if you like, but frankly, we don't know quite so much about how management was done in that era. We know a great deal however, about the Industrial Revolution, how management systems were created in that era. And if you think about what happened in that period in the latter part of the 19th century. The first big factories were created in places like, like Manchester and Liverpool and so forth. Big textile mills and so forth. And the problem that management was created to solve in that era was how do we routinize and standardize the process of production? This was the earliest efforts at mass production. And people were taken out of fields, people were taken out of individual crafts and trades. And they were put onto assembly lines. >> And the intention of the management systems that were, that emerged in that era was to routinize production. Was to sort of organize complex work processes and was to get if you like the, the, the obedience, or the diligence out of people who were working on those lines. They were manual laborers. What we needed was them to do a good job. And so what we did was we, our, our fore-bearers created management systems which were all about control, all about trying to ensure that people do their job diligently. And so, that's where all these notions around bureaucracy and standardization and hierarchy and extrinsic rewards came in. All of these are concepts we're going to deal with in subsequent modules. So, that was the, the problem that management was created to solve. Now, we leap forward in time to the challenges that companies face today. And we've already hinted at this in an earlier segment but let me just remind you. What are the challenges? One of them's around Agility. Organizations distinctly have to become more nimble to be able to keep up with the changes in the world. Organizations push innovation. They have to learn to cre, be more creative, to come up with a steady stream of new products and services, in order to meet the changing demands of their consumers. They have to become more engaged, and they have to try to find ways to make the most out of the basic underlying skills and motivations of their people. They also have to potentially think much more about issues of purpose. So, these are the challenges. Only when you compare those challenges to the problems that management was created to solve in the first place, we can see a real mismatch. And that is the mismatch that this course is really exploring in a great deal of detail. So here is a little kind of teaser for you. Look at this next chart on the screen. What this chart shows you is a way of looking at the nature of management. Stuff about planning, stuff about leading, stuff about organizing. The question I just want to, you to ponder for a few seconds is when do you think that chart was created? What period of time was that created? The answer was 1955. Now that may not come as a big surprise to you, you can see that it's a fairly sort of scratchy chart. The quality of the graphics leaves a lot to be desired. But here's the point. The actual words on that sheet are all words we're using today. And this was the standard textbook from the 1950s in America, that everybody used and everybody understood. And so the point is that the words we use for managing around budgeting and planning and so forth are still used today 70 years later, with very few changes. So the little thought experiments you have to do is to say to yourself, take a manager from the 1940s and 50s, put them in a time capsule, bring them to the present day and ask them to kind of take a look at the, the nature of the business world around them. And of course they would be absolutely astounded by what technology's done. The way that technology has revolutionized the way that we communicate with one another, the way that we actually automate factories and stuff like that. But you put them in a planning meeting and a budgeting discussion, you put them into a performance management review, and they will feel right at home. Because all of those typical kind of mechanisms by which we get management work done. All of those are basically the same as they've been for 60, 70, 80 years. now, here is an interesting hypothesis. You know, there's two arguments as to why that is the case. One is that we've actually reached a point where our systems and processes actually work perfectly. We've actually reached the end of history if you like. We've developed processes which are perfectly suited to the task at hand. But I've already said I don't buy that. Because I really believe that the, the deep disengagement that a lot of people feel in the workplace is actually a function of these bureaucratic processes. So, the other hypothesis, which is the one I believe, is that the management processes we have in organizations today are, are processes we borrowed from a previous era, and we're kind of a little bit stuck. They work okay. They've got problems. They're okay because they kind of just, just about get us to where we need to go. But because we don't know what the alternative looks like, we are a little bit scared of the alternative. We're not able to come up with alternative ways of working. Because just like the fish doesn't know what life without water looks like, we don't what, know what life in a big company looks like without planning and budgeting and controlling. So that is the fundamental challenge that we face is that we've gotta find ways of moving our management systems forward because they are no longer fit for purpose. But the trouble is we don't really know what the alternative looks like. So in the next segment we're going to explore some of the ways that companies are experimenting with alternative ways of work.
