Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century

Steve Denning (http://www.stevedenning.com)

Brief Notes

Seven Principles of Radical Management

focus work on delighting clients/customers (delight)
do the work in self-organizing teams (agency, responsibility)
do work in client-driven iterations (approximations)
delivering value to clients in each iteration (min WIP, feedback)
radical transparency (esp. impediments, improvements)
create context for continuous self-improvement by teams
interactive communication (stories, questions, conversations v. directives, mandates)

not individually new ideas, but integrated approach is new
these are integrated, mutually supporting whole
need to implement them together, not dabble in a few

RM Principles represent/require/invite

A shift in goal from making money for shareholders to delighting customers through continuous innovation.
A shift in the role of managers from controlling individuals to enabling self-organizing teams.
A shift in the way work is coordinated from bureaucracy to dynamic linking.
A shift in values from a preoccupation with efficiency to a broader set of values that will foster continuous innovation.
A shift in communications from top-down commands to horizontal communications.

Common Experience, Ideal

peak experience, everyone pulling together, all-for-one and one-for-all
groups/teams vibrantly alive, extraordinarily productive or successful
long or short, recent or long ago, the kind of group that has/wishes for reunion(s)
usually a small group

Traditional Management treated as inevitable, timeless truths of universe, but RM reexamines these. Socio-economic conditions that required these ways of working have changed:

hierarchy
command and control
tightly planned work
competition through economies of scale and cost reduction

Four Major Changes

The Work has shifted from semi-skilled to knowledge work. Knowledge workers can’t be supervised, controlled.
The Organization needs workforce commitment. Engagement is a choice, not a directive. Workers want salary AND meaning. Uninspired, unengaged talent is value lost to the org.
The Customers have taken charge. Customers have lots of options and can leave when not delighted. Shifts the work from simply delivering goods/services to delighting customers. Need to convert customers to advocates/promoters. Zero defects isn’t enough, need continuous innovation to surprise customers. Delighting is primary goal, more important than profit, turnover, market share. Requires everyone to have clear sight into how their work contributes to customer delight.
The System has is not delighting. Delighting is complex, takes more than just an efficient delivery system, can only be achieved by successive approximations and adjustments, is a moving target so requires continuous innovation. Workers want to be treated like grownup humans not parts in a machine.

Old Assumptions

people can’t be trusted to do the right thing
world is knowable and predictable in advance
people at the top know more than people at the bottom

Some Key Attributes/Effects? of RM

decreasing daily grind, increasing laughter, discovery, surprise
productivity gains via working smarter, more together
organic evolution, adoption of RM - imposing doesn’t work
new ways of thinking, managing and participating in work
not a quick fix or incremental, peripheral tweaks to the system
eventually needs/will affect everything in the organization
not a panacea - some work still done alone, some work still understood as “unskilled” with small knowledge component, in public sector some work must delight society as a whole (e.g. justice system) requiring neutral response that doesn’t favor one customer group over another
end goal: doing stuff we love, with colleagues who share our passion, serving others, and getting steadily better at it