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Title: The Individualized Corporation : A Fundamentally New Approach to Management by Sumantra Ghoshal, Christopher A. Bartlett ISBN: 0887308317 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: March, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14
Rating: 5
Summary: New management roles and tasks of the new model
Comment: "In 1682, English astronomer Sir Edmund Halley had the good fortune to be at the right place at the right time. His observations on the spectacular comet that now bears his name helped earn him the prestigious title of Astronomer Royal.More important to this professional scientist was the fact that this fortuitous opportunity inspired a flurry of other research activity that led to new and important discoveries about the nature of our universe." Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett write, "While hardly on the same grand scale as Sir Edmund, we, too, have been fortunate to have had a front-row seat at a once-in-a-lifetime event- the collapse of an outmoded corporate form and the emergence of a new management model that we believe will propel today's companies well into the twenty-first century. At the heart of the emerging model lie not only some very different organizational practices and processes but also a fundamentally different management philosophy. In this book, we describe this new management model and illustrate how some of the pioneers of this new approach have implemented it in their companies" (from the Introduction).
They divide their book into four parts. In the first part, they present the concept of the Individualized Corporation. In the second part, they describe the organizational characteristics required to develop three core capabilities that distinguish the Individualized Corporation. In the third part, they explore the managerial implications of these new organizational characteristics and focus on how companies can go about building and managing the Individualized Corporation. Finally, in the fourth part, they step back from the details of defining the characteristics of the Individualized Corporation and describing how to build and manage it, to examine the more profound issues of a new managerial philosophy that underlies this new corporate model.
In this context, in the third part, after introducing the new corporate model, they examine new management roles and tasks of this new model that are radically different from the classic ones:
1. Operating-Level Managers
* Changing role: From operational implementers to aggressive entrepreneurs.
* Primary value added: Driving business performance by focusing on productivity, innovation, and growth within frontline units.
* Key activities and tasks: Creating and pursuing new growth opportunities for the business. Attracting and developing resources and competencies. Managing continuous performance improvement within the unit.
2. Senior-Level Managers
* Changing role: From administrative controllers to supportive coaches.
* Primary value added: Providing the support and coordination to bring large-company advantage to the independent frontline units.
* Key activities and tasks: Developing individuals and supporting their activities. Linking dispersed knowledge, skills, and best practices across units. Managing the tension between short-term performance and long-term ambition.
3. Top-Level Managers
* Changing role: From resource allocators to institutional leaders.
* Primary value added: Creating and embedding a sense of direction, commitment, and challenge to people throughout the organization.
* Key activities and tasks: Challenging embedded assumptions while establishing a stretching opportunity horizon and performance standards. Institutionalizing a set of norms and values to support cooperation and trust. Creating an overarching corporate purpose and ambition.
Finally, they say that "Halley's comet will return to our corner of the solar system in the year 2062. When it does, we believe our successors will look back at the Individualized Corporation as the revolutionary new model that brought business organizations into the postindustrial, information-intensive age of knowledge."
Highly recommended.
Rating: 4
Summary: The importance of Processes
Comment: Management thinkers over the last 8 decades have been trying to come up with the perfect structure, whether it's the functional structure, the matric, the SBU structure and it is generally felt that if this problem is figured out the rest of the pieces of jigsaw will fall in place. Ghoshal and Bartlett differ, and drawing from the thoughts of other thinkers make a case that structure does not matter so much unless your processes make your company a place where the people love to come to. Where the control, compliance paradigm of organizations are replaced by the discipline, stretch, trust paradigm.
The book is packed with examples but an area that is not stressed which crops up again and again is that of leadership. Whether it is Percy Barvenik of ABB, or Welch of GE or Rajat Gupta of McKinsey, or Grove of Intel. They all perfected the art of "cooking sweet with sour" or combining the O and E factors for development (as Nohria and Beer put it)...The authors could have stressed more on that factor.
Rating: 4
Summary: Ask your employees for great things & let them achieve them
Comment: Among the flood of new management ideas coming out of academia, Ghoshal & Bartlett present here a sound case for restructuring management expectations that actually has merit. Through studying the excellance of several companies that think outside the old divisional structure of management, the authors conclude that by setting high performance goals and giving employees a flexible structure to achieve those goals, several companies have thrived (while their competition floundered). In the correct organization, these ideas lead to greater productivity. By learning these lessons a good leader can create a great organization.
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