FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
June 26, 2006
The Half Life of Ideas
Today's Wall Street Journal includes an excellent essay by Phred Dvorak (love that name!) about why management trends quickly fade away. (You might need an online sub.) Drawing on the expertise of management consultants and thinkers such as Thomas Davenport, the piece suggests that the biggest culprits may include:
- Consultants offer services in which they lack expertise
- New ideas come and go faster and faster
- People try to apply the same idea to too many dissimilar problems
- New practices and processes don't work for every organization
Which do you think is the real reason? Take the Fast Company poll.
Posted by Heath Row at June 26, 2006 2:36 PM | Category: business development |
4 Comments
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It is probably because most management trends are bogus hot air.
The base law of management has not changed since the dawn of humanity: incentives work.
Repackage it and try to sell it again all you want, but the reality doesn't change.
I have a great concept to start a new business venture but this idea is suitable for big corprates.
with less investmenthuge turnovers can be attained.
pls give me one chance
None of the above.
No matter how good a new idea/process is it can't succeed without an emotional commitment from those who most engage the changes to make it succeed.
Our attention spans get shorter everyday from the mere fact that the amount of information comming at us is ever on the increase.
The only way our minds can survive is to either give inadequate attention to everything or focus on the few that do matter and devide what's left of our attention over everything else.
For change to occur it must either:
A> come from the bottom and bubble up with help from managers in organizing and disseminating the information or..
B> managers must solicit the organization for their input on the issues and offer possible approaches as well as leave the door open for "Other" approaches in a true brainstorming fashion. Once the alternatives are collected and examined they then need to be presented back to the organization for a vote. This ensures there is an internal emotional commitment to making "their idea" work.
Managers and consultants think they know what's best for a company. This may or may not be true, but what is true is, arrogance on their part or apathy on the organizations part will surely kill even the best of ideas.
Emotional commitment is the key!
What about just getting back to basics and understanding human nature? Why continuously ignore, critcize and devalue the opinions of skeptics and cynics in an organization? There is great value in skepticism! It is the only real reality check. Jerome Alexander points out these values in his book "160 Degrees of Deviation: The Case for the Corporate Cynic." This is a must read - and it's a heck of alot cheaper than some goofy consultant!