On Hamel: Managment Must Be Reinvented

Gary Hamel brings up an interesting set of contrasting ideas in his “Management Must Be Reinvented” speech (Hamel, 2008). Hamel suggests that one of two things in management innovation must be going on; either management has gotten it right and should continue on doing what it’s doing, or that we’ve hit an intellectual plateau and no one has any new revolutionary management techniques to lead us into the future. I feel that both of these viewpoints hold a good deal of merit.

It is of my belief that the field of management has all of the intellectual tools it needs to perform at optimal levels, however I believe that these ideas have not as of yet been arranged in a way that meets the management needs of today, let alone those for tomorrow.

In Hamel’s speech he delivers a laundry list of “new” ideas that many companies large and small are implementing across the globe. The majority of these ideas would fall under what constitutes a Theory Y management style (Lewis, Goodman, Fandt, & Michlitsch, 2007). Theory Y management suggests that employees genuinely enjoy and proactively seek out work if allowed to do so. Employees given vast liberties will perform better than employees who are being over managed. This is one of the fundamental principles behind Theory Y management. Hamel proclaims that these liberties in fact can make the job of manager extremely difficult to do (Hamel, 2008). This makes sense because if you give employees the option of free reign it makes the manager’s essential job functions of planning, leading, organizing, and controlling almost impossible. Employees become their own managers. I would argue that this isn’t a good thing, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing either. I have also heard rumors of a Theory Z management style that incorporates the ideas of Theory Y and expands on them to include things like personalized scheduling and telecommuting.

I think the human relations tools and soft management techniques that Theory Y teaches can be very useful but I believe they are most productive when paired with some of the techniques of Theory X. Theory X is an older theory that is considered to be authoritarian in nature, although I don’t believe that has to be the case. Theory X involves close supervision and direction of the employees (Lewis, Goodman, Fandt, & Michlitsch, 2007).

I believe the future in management lies in a blending of the Theories. A manager should direct and control their employees while being able to complete the four management functions, but they should also be able to empower their team. I think if the managers took a Theory X approach to the leading and controlling portions of the management function they could use Theory Y methodologies to allow their employees greater freedoms in the planning and organizing factions.

In one Theory X/Theory Y self assessment, I learned that my own particular management style just so happens to fall at the crossroads of the two theories. On a scale of 0 to 30, 0 being Theory X and 30 being Theory Y, I scored an 11.

Works Cited

Hamel, G. (2008, 12 29). YouTube - Management Must be Reinvented. Retrieved 01 21, 2010, from YouTube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVX8XhiR1UY

Lewis, P. S., Goodman, S. H., Fandt, P. M., & Michlitsch, J. F. (2007). Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders. Mason: Thomson South-Western.