Top 10 Management Ideas in the World (Classic)

Guide

Management is not only "business management", but also the management organ of all modern social institutions, although management initially focused on the enterprise.

1. Drucker's thought

Peter F. Drucker

"As early as 60 years ago, I recognized that management has become a basic organ and function of organizational society;

Management is not only "enterprise management", but also the organ of management of all modern social institutions, although management initially focused on the enterprise;

I created the discipline of management;

I study this discipline around people and power, values, structures, and ways; especially around responsibility. The discipline of management is to treat management as a truly comprehensive art. ”

- Drucker

As a practice and a field of thinking and research, management has a long history, and its roots can be traced back almost 200 years. But management as a discipline, its pioneering era should be in 1954, Peter Drucker's "Management Practice" came out, marking the birth of management. Peter Drucker created the discipline of management and incisively expounded the essence of management: "Management is a practice whose essence lies not in "knowing" but in "doing"; its verification lies not in logic, but in results; its only authority is achievement. ”

Drucker talks a lot about "responsibility," the "responsibility" of managers, the "responsibility" of employees, and the "responsibility" of businesses. In 1973, Drucker condensed decades of knowledge, experience and reflection into a book. This vast 839-page tome, with its concise and condensed title, tells the true meaning of management— Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices.

According to this, management can be interpreted as: managing tasks, taking responsibility, and having the courage to practice. Amazingly, when I searched the book for the term "responsibility," I found that as many as 36 of the book's indexes spoke of "responsibility" and none of them spoke of "power."

"Power and authority are two different things. The authorities have no powers, but only responsibilities. It needs and must have the authority to fulfil its responsibilities — but beyond that, it must not be any more. In Drucker's view, the authority has authority only when it is doing its work, and there is no so-called "power."

Drucker repeatedly stressed that conscientious and responsible employees do have high demands on managers, asking them to be truly competent for their work, asking them to take their work seriously, and requiring them to take responsibility for their tasks and achievements.

The responsibility is a stern host. It is useless and irresponsible to demand only from others and not to yourself. If employees can't be sure that their company is serious, responsible, and capable, they won't take responsibility for their work, their team, and their organization's affairs.

For employees to take responsibility and achieve something, the person who achieves the work objectives must work with their superiors to set goals for each task. In addition, it is the responsibility of all members to ensure that their goals are aligned with those of the group as a whole. Work must be made dynamic so that employees can achieve something through their work.

Employees, on the other hand, need to have the demands, discipline, and incentives that come with taking responsibility for them. Therefore, the shortcut to the Drucker management world is to start by understanding the responsibilities of managers, employees and companies.

2. Potter's thought

Michael E. Porter

As a professor at Harvard Business School and a recognized authority on competitive strategy, Michael E. Porter can be called "probably the most influential business school professor in the world." It is also true that in The May 2002 of Accenture's ranking of the top 50 management scholars of our time, Michael Porter was at the top of the list.

Michael Porter's major contribution to management theory was to bridge the gap between industrial economics and management. In his classic book "Competitive Strategy", he proposed the industry structure analysis model, the so-called "five force model", which believes that the five major competitive driving forces: the existing competitive situation of the industry; the bargaining power of suppliers; the bargaining power of customers; the threat of alternative products or services; and the threat of new entrants determine the profitability of enterprises, and point out that the core of the company's strategy should lie in choosing the right industry, as well as the most attractive competitive position in the industry.

Correspondingly, Michael Porter also proposed "three general strategies", including cost leadership, differentiation and focus, and explained that due to the limitations of corporate resources, it is often difficult to pursue more than one strategic goal at the same time.

Chinese entrepreneurs have become very good at competing in a low-cost way. According to Xie Guozhong, chief economist of Damo China, the inherent advantages of Chinese enterprises in terms of cost and the means of competition based on low cost have made the price of products in China in some industries determine their global prices.

As Porter points out, one of the main risks of a cost-leading strategy comes from imitation by latecomers. For various reasons, most Chinese enterprises are currently in the manufacturing links with low added value in the global industrial value chain, there are too many imitators of enterprises, and products and services are too homogeneous, thus forming a helpless competitive pattern.

The bitter fruit of cost competition has made many entrepreneurs realize the need for new ways of competition, such as product, technology or business model innovation, to improve profitability and level. Porter provides a systematic way of thinking about such strategies, explains the points at which companies should build competitiveness, and has a very good guiding role in business practices.

For Chinese management practitioners, the significance of Porter's strategic theory lies more in clarifying the importance of strategic thinking in enterprises. Business operation is not enough courage as Jack Welch said, what Chinese entrepreneurs lack is not courage, but careful thinking before bold decision-making, how to choose the most favorable battlefield, timing and way to attack.

Porter's strategic theory is regarded as the mainstream strategic theory of the 80s, and the rapid development of business society has made its theory less suitable for the needs of today's management practices in some aspects. For example, his strategic concept regards the existing industrial structure as a given, and less consideration is given to industrial change and how to establish a long-term competitive advantage accordingly.

It is precisely because his hypothetical industrial structure is relatively certain that the "five-force model" is difficult to use to analyze certain industries that are changing rapidly or have uncertain prospects. Telecommunications is a typical example, the rapid development of technology, the continuous change of standards, and the adjustment of government regulatory policies have made the industry full of uncertainty, and it is difficult to predict the competitive landscape of the industry with Porter's framework.

3. Hamel's thought

Gary Hamel

Gary Hamel is Chairman and Founder of Stratigos and a former Professor of Strategy and International Management at London Business School. He is a master at the forefront of strategic research and has been praised by The Economist as a "world-class master of strategy".

In 1990, Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad published "Core Capabilities of The Enterprise" in the Harvard Business Review. He believes that unlike the final products required by customers, core products are the most basic core components of enterprises, and core competitiveness is actually the knowledge and skills implicit in core products. In this sense, the core competitiveness of enterprises is actually the source of enterprises maintaining competitive advantages, but how to transform this core competitiveness into competitive advantage requires certain conditions.

In the two-person co-authored "Competition for the Future", Hamel pointed out that enterprises must break the old ideological framework, think with a positive and open mind, accept different business structures, grasp the future trend, establish strategic structures, and organize core capabilities, so as to grasp competitive advantages in innovation.

In another famous book, Guiding the Revolution, Hamel argues that corporate innovation is not about developing new products or adopting new technologies as traditionally thought, but about generating "new concepts." Therefore, enterprises should actively develop new concepts and turn the concept into the core competitive advantage of the enterprise.

Hamel's main strategic thinking is to actively establish and exert the core competitiveness of enterprises, and Chinese enterprises should pay special attention to learning in this regard.

After the WTO, China's enterprises are facing tremendous competitive pressure, from a deeper level, this is actually a kind of core competitiveness competition, how to position the core competitiveness of enterprises, is the premise of enterprises to create competitive advantages; after the rational positioning of core competitiveness, is how to give play to this core competitiveness, in practice to give full play to competitive advantages.

This requires a large strategic vision, hamel's strategic thinking is undoubtedly very instructive: in the specific strategic choice, people pay more attention to technological innovation, Hamel believes that conceptual innovation should take precedence over technological innovation, conceptual innovation may be more effective. This provides a whole new way of thinking.

4. Christensen's thought

Clayton M. Christensen

Clayton Christensen is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, a distinguished management scholar but also a hands-on management practitioner.

In his research, Christensen found that many great companies—once admired and emulated—ended up losing their industry leadership when markets and technologies changed dramatically. The decisions that led to the decline of these leading companies were made at a time when they were widely regarded as the best in the world.

Christensen points out that good management is what causes these businesses to decay. This conclusion is unexpected, but very reasonable. These companies are swayed by the will of their customers and have the courage to invest in new technologies and use them to provide their customers with more of the better products they want; they carefully study market trends and systematically invest capital in innovations that guarantee the best returns. Under such a principle, actively investing in breakthrough innovation is not a rational financial decision of these companies, so it is difficult for high-performing companies to cope with breakthrough innovation.

Christensen proposes a set of groundbreaking innovation principles that are about creating a new, independent division around breakthrough technology, not swayed by mainstream customers, and integrating itself into customers who need breakthrough technology products.

By delegating responsibility for commercializing breakthrough technologies to a smaller organization whose scale just matches the target market, it is easier to react to growth opportunities that arise in small markets. Established mindsets and existing knowledge are not enough to support judgments about breakthrough changes, so learn what you need to know in a planned way.

The malleability of organizational potential (organizational operating procedures and values) is limited. Analyze the organization's existing potentials and flaws and create a new potential to solve new problems. Pay close attention to market trends and understand how mainstream customers are using products in order to capture the key links in the changes in the competitive base in the markets they serve.

This management idea has three main implications for Chinese managers:

1. Breakthrough innovation is the core individual economic driving force in macroeconomic growth.

2. The well-accepted good management principles actually vary from time to time. Christensen's thinking helps managers decide when to follow the widely accepted principles of good management and when it is more appropriate to adopt other principles.

3. Under the guidance of the principle of breakthrough innovation, enterprise managers can do two things at the same time, on the one hand, to ensure the healthy operation of the enterprise in the near future, and at the same time to mobilize enough resources to pay attention to the breakthrough technologies that may eventually lead to the decline of the enterprise.

5. Peters' thought

Tom. Tom Peters

"The market has become as elusive as fashion and pop colors, and product updates must keep up with this 'nanosecond' era. Tom Peters, a Ph.D. in business management at Stanford University, hailed by Fortune and The Economist as "masters of management," said.

Peters believes that successful enterprises have their own characteristics, but their successful experience is simple and common, everyone knows it, and there is no "new weapon". He advocates market-oriented and customer-oriented. All the activities of the enterprise must revolve around the market and customers, and the customers should be treated as flesh and blood people, love customers, meet the specific needs of customers who are becoming more and more distinctive, and respond quickly to changes in customer preferences.

The idea of customer service has been valued in Chinese enterprises, and this idea will also become the leading idea of production and sales of Chinese enterprises. China's market is no longer the one-demand market of the past. The diversity of customer needs requires companies to make decisions from the perspective of customers and uphold the belief of customer first when conducting all business activities, so as to meet customer needs to the greatest extent and achieve corporate growth.

Competition is fierce. In the intensification of competition, product differentiation will no longer be the main focus of competition. Customer service quality will become the key to competition, and the better the customer service of a company, the more likely it is to prevail in the fierce competition.

The arrival of a new era of sales. The traditional sales strategy emphasizes more "our products are different from competitors", and the future sales era will be the era of cooperation with customers, to cooperate, it is necessary to stand together with customers, sell for the benefit of customers, achieve a unified goal, a unified strategy, and share returns together.

6. Minzberg's thought

Henry Mintzberg

Henry Minzberg is a well-known Canadian management scientist, whose management ideas are mainly reflected in organizational management and strategic management.

In organizational management, Minzberg's main contribution is the analysis of managers' work, and "The Nature of Managers' Work" is one of his masterpieces in this regard. Minzberg emphasized the enormous role of manager work for organizations, pointing out 10 roles managers take on the job:

Nominal leaders, liaisons, leaders, listeners, communicators, speakers, entrepreneurs, troubleshooters, resource allocators, and negotiators. For the first time, Mintzberg analyzed the activities of managers from an empirical point of view, and on this basis divided the types of managers into: contacts, political managers, entrepreneurs, insiders, real-time managers, coordination managers, expert managers, and new managers.

At present, the team of professional managers in China is still in the initial stage, and the role of professional managers in enterprises is gradually recognized. In this context, Minzberg's analysis of the role of managers' work on the organization is very helpful for professional managers to recognize their own value.

At the same time, professional managers should accurately locate their own types according to their own work characteristics. With the development of information technology and the application in enterprise management, the role of managers in information has undergone great changes, and the work of listeners, communicators, and speakers takes up less time.

7. Collins' thought

James C. Collins

James C. Collins received the Stanford Graduate School of Business Distinguished Teaching Award and worked for McKinsey & Company and Then Hewlett-Packard Corporation. With Jerry I. Bolus co-authored the book Evergreen. The book presents his main management ideas.

"Make a clock, not a time". Collins points out that "the founders of great companies are usually the people who make the clocks, not the people who tell the time." They are primarily committed to building a clock, not just finding the right timing and entering the market with a forward-looking product; they are not committed to the personality traits of a forward-looking leader, but to building the organizational qualities of a forward-looking company, and their greatest creation is the company itself and everything it represents. ”

Most chinese business leaders have been unsuccessful in "making bells." "Clockmaking" is the establishment of a mechanism that enables companies to survive and develop in the market by the power of the organization, without having to rely on a person, product or opportunity and other accidental things. With the further improvement and standardization of the market, enterprises must rely more and more on a good mechanism, including a good organizational structure, a good evaluation and assessment system, and good strategic management.

"Pursuit of profit above profit" and "sectarian culture". All great companies are "pragmatic idealists," and it is written in Evergreen that "profit is a necessary condition for survival and a means to greater ends, but for many forward-looking companies, profit is not an end, profit is like the oxygen, food, water, and blood that the human body needs, which are not the end of life." But without them, there would be no life. The pursuit of profit is instilled in great companies by a "sectarian culture."

For Chinese enterprises, the "pursuit of profits" is not clear and concrete, and it is often an empty slogan. Most Chinese companies are unaware of the important role of corporate culture. "Sectarian culture" refers to the fact that great companies must have strong shared values, which is the biggest challenge for Chinese companies to become great companies.

"Self-made manager". Collins found that "of the 18 great companies with a total history of 1700 years, only four CEOs came from the outside." "Self-made" managers are familiar with the company culture and are more likely to lead the company to change.

Judging from the experience of some domestic enterprises, internal managers are easy to take over, on the contrary, "airborne soldiers", that is, external managers, are not smooth to take over. Chinese enterprises should invest more energy in how to establish an internal promotion mechanism and how to train personnel, so that "their own managers can grow up".

8. Hammer's thought

Michael Hammer

In 1993, American management scientists Michael Hammer and James Champy defined business process reengineering (BPR) in the "Corporate Restructuring: Enterprise Revolution Manifesto": to fundamentally think about and completely rebuild the business processes of enterprises, with the aim of achieving significant improvements in cost, quality, service and speed. To enable enterprises to adapt to the modern business environment characterized by customers, competition and change to the greatest extent.

Compared with traditional management ideas such as "principle of division of labor" and "institutionalized management theory", BPR emphasizes full development and cooperation within the enterprise. The core content boils down to:

"Reorganization": implement horizontal integration, implement team work methods, vertically compress the organization, flatten the organization, authorize employees to make their own decisions, and implement parallel projects.

Emphasize customer orientation: consider business objectives and strategic orientation with customers as the center, and consider which business processes should be set up according to customer needs.

To implement BPR, Chinese enterprises must first meet three main conditions:

1. The quality of managers and employees must be improved. Leaders should have the courage to innovate, have a strong sense of market competition, be able to communicate effectively with the company inside and outside, and deeply understand the connotation of BPR. After the implementation of BPR, employees have more decision-making opportunities and must have corresponding high quality.

2, the technical level must be improved. At present, most enterprises in China have a low level of information technology application and backward production technology. The application of BPR to modern enterprise management also depends on the support of information technology.

3. Creation of corporate culture and business philosophy. BPR is also transforming the business philosophy of the company, which in turn requires the creation of a suitable corporate culture.

9. Kotler's thought

Philip Kotler

Philip Kotler is the epitome of modern marketing and is known as the "father of modern marketing". He has almost become synonymous with marketing – his classic book "Marketing Management" has become the marketing textbook of choice for business schools around the world, including China, and he himself has been recognized as "one of the 50 best management masters of the 20th century".

Kotler is committed to marketing strategy and planning, marketing organization, international marketing and social marketing research, and its latest research areas include high-tech marketing, urban, regional and national competitive advantage research, etc.

Kotler's book "The Great Future of Marketing" (formerly known as "Social Marketing"), launched about 10 years ago, pushed the marketing concept from production concept, product concept and marketing concept to the "social marketing" stage. At the end of the 20th century and today, when the economy is becoming more globalized, the world is becoming more multipolar, and the knowledge economy is emerging, people see a picture of serious environmental deterioration, increasing scarcity of resources, rapid population growth, global economic contraction, the prevalence of social Darwinism, the decline of public services, the spread of AIDS, the proliferation of e-waste, and so on, all of which are the subjects facing social marketing. Kotler's concept of "social marketing" pushes marketing to a higher level.

In the context of the comprehensive transition from the Chinese market to a buyer's market, Kotler's marketing theory has played a major role in promoting the popularization of marketing and the improvement of corporate marketing standards. Nowadays, customer demand, customer value, customer loyalty, integrated marketing, marketing positioning, global marketing and other concepts have been widely circulated in China, and gradually deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, many enterprises have been or are changing to "customer-oriented" enterprises, a number of excellent enterprises in the overall improvement of marketing capabilities have successfully entered the international market.

10. Cotter's thought

John P. Kotter

John P. Kotter is an authority on world leadership and change and a tenured professor at Harvard Business School. Cotter's most important ideas are the following two:

1, leadership and management are two very different concepts, the manager's job is to plan and budget, organize and allocate personnel, control and solve problems, the purpose is to establish order; the leader's job is to determine the direction, integrate the correlation, motivate and inspire employees, the purpose of which is to produce change.

2. Corporate culture has a huge positive correlation to long-term business performance, and cultural change is a time-consuming and extremely complex eight-step process, including:

A. Build a stronger sense of urgency;

B. Establish a steering alliance;

C. Forming a vision and strategy;

D. Disseminate the vision of change;

E. Authorizing employee actions;

F. Create recent results;

G. Consolidate gains and promote more change;

H. Deeply rooted in the culture.

The above 8 steps must be performed sequentially, otherwise the chances of success are very slim.

Chinese enterprise managers have always been unclear about "leadership" and "management", and the "my leader" or "the leader of the company" in everyone's mouth actually refers to the manager, and the understanding of the term is not clear, and naturally plays a bad corresponding connotation.

Chinese enterprises rarely have a long-term corporate culture, when the strongman retires, the enterprise will follow the road of failure, "rich but not more than three generations". Cote has a large number of data to support the relationship between corporate culture and business performance, which is worthy of our deep reflection.

Most professional managers only stay at the level of "Who Moved My Cheese", far from being enough to really drive change, and the eight steps to change proposed by Kurt are something we must understand