Managing organizationsWhen I was writing this book, I wanted it to appeal not only to experienced managers but also to many people who would normally never consider picking up a book on management.
Once you delve deeper into management and start taking a serious interest in it, it becomes one of the most fascinating subjects there is. The many useful and directly applicable tips and suggestions contained in this book, if diligently applied, should ease or speed up your path to success. So if the successes you go on to achieve inspire you to take a keener interest in effective management, this book will have fulfilled one of its main objectives.
Management know-how is the key to success. Having it means knowing how to succeed. This tried-and-tested body of knowledge is what all human beings—not just managers—need in order to perform well, achieve results, win acclaim, and in rare instances actually attain greatness.
People who read this book will gain a fuller appreciation of individual icons’ impact on their organization or society. In so doing, they will have appropriated its core message: that management know-how is the key to success for individuals, organizations, and societies.
Success comes to those who set and attain goals. Whoever commands management know-how can succeed, in any discipline, by combining their skills, expertise, and specialist knowledge to perform effectively and achieve their goals.
This is good news because it means that success can be learned. Anyone who works for an organization needs at least some management know-how, as this is what determines individual effectiveness and efficiency and therefore determines the success of organizations and societies, too.
This is particularly apparent from the achievements of great icons, because it was their effective application of such know-how that enabled them to make a powerful impact on their area of activity, projects, or organizations. Organizations that make sure their staff members have management know-how have a clear competitive edge over others that fail to harness such knowledge. Such organizations not only boost their level of performance but at the same time minimize their risks. Bearing in mind these times of constant, rapid change, the value of both these advantages simply cannot be overestimated.
Management know-how not only makes individuals and organizations more effective and efficient, but it also helps to stabilize society. In a modern society, practically all social tasks are fulfilled within and by organizations, making modern society a society of organizations. Organizations are not ends in themselves, but they fulfill certain social tasks in a bid to make a tangible contribution that benefits individuals and society as a whole. Effective, efficient, and responsible management produces strong and healthy organizations whose achievements help to underpin society’s stability. Accordingly, modern society needs to take the greatest possible interest in competent management.
Success can be learned, because anyone can learn how to set and attain goals. Management know-how is the body of knowledge required to do this, providing the means to harness your skills and the expertise required to achieve specific results. This know-how is something you can fall back on anytime, anywhere, when working alone or in a team, for a small organization or a huge conglomerate. Moreover, it is well-founded, substantiated, tried and tested, and—most importantly of all—effective. Management know-how and its skillful application can prove effective in a far wider range of situations than most people imagine. I reiterate: Management know-how is the key to success for individuals, organizations, and societies.
Spotlighting key aspects of the achievements of icons from all kinds of social domains clearly shows just how widely and effectively management know-how can be used to attain specific objectives. The examples presented in this book underpin this assertion by demonstrating that management know-how is not only rife—or indeed useful or essen-tial—in a business context. Many icons active in very different walks of life have utilized such knowledge, in some cases instinctively, unaware that in doing so, they were actually applying management know-how. Accordingly, icons can teach us a great deal about how we, too, can effectively apply management know-how, even though they would never describe themselves as managers.
Even as a youngster, I was always interested in biographies, fascinated by how people came to achieve what they did, how they became successful, what lessons could be learned from their choices, and how some of those lessons could be applied in my own life. Then at some stage it dawned on me that what linked my interests in management and the lives and achievements of famous people—what biographies revealed about how individuals had achieved greatness—largely concerned the effective application of management know-how.
This made everything fall into place: while management know-how may most clearly come into its own in running an organization, the knowledge underlying it is actually applied everywhere, whenever people perform, achieve results, or attain goals. This is why having management know-how means knowing how to succeed.
Anyone, then, who tries to pin down what effective management entails will stand a better chance of succeeding, not only in his career, but far beyond his professional life as well.
That said, far too few people are aware of the vital distinction between management know-how, on the one hand, and expertise and specialist knowledge, on the other.
Every discipline has its specific expertise and specialist knowledge. Art, music, culture, sports, medicine, military activities, science, administration, education and training, politics, and naturally business, too, all require totally different types of proficiency and skills if the people active in these domains are to gain expertise and display specialist knowledge. Even within these various disciplines, the degree of expertise and specialist knowledge required for the execution of different tasks can vary tremendously. This is worth underlining because of the distinction between such expertise and specialist knowledge on the one hand and management know-how on the other. Moreover, while there is a healthy widespread tendency to spotlight the importance of expertise and specialist knowledge, the importance of management know-how is often grossly underestimated. Both are important, of course, but management know-how is the engine that drives the application of expertise and specialist knowledge and directs individuals, organizations, and societies to attain their goals and enjoy success.
What relatively few people realize is that whereas expertise and specialist knowledge differ substantially from one discipline to another, the same management know-how is needed to perform well and achieve results in all areas. So required expertise and specialist knowledge differ, but management know-how does not.
This distinction is of quite fundamental importance because it tells us that people never achieve success solely on the basis of expertise and specialist knowledge. Rather, they must also know how to translate that expertise and specialist knowledge into performance and tangible results. This entails knowing how to attain goals and achieve success. And doing this requires management know-how.
By the same token, excellent management know-how alone is not enough, and the relevant expertise and specialist knowledge is a prerequisite for success. In other words, truly competent, effective managers will always have profound management know-how as well as extensive expertise and specialist knowledge because both are needed to perform effectively and achieve results. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin, necessarily complementing each other.
There are three main areas of effective management:
Managing organizations
Managing innovation
Managing people
Naturally, not everyone working for an organization who wants to be effective in it will need the same degree or depth of management know-how, so suitable judgment and a sense of proportion are called for. Indeed, depending on the tasks, duties, and responsibilities assigned to people, they will need differing degrees of both management know-how and expertise and specialist knowledge. Yet this much is clear: if they lack management know-how, they will not perform well or achieve results, just as success will elude them if they lack expertise and specialist knowledge in their respective domains. Figure I-1 illustrates this interdependence.
FIGURE I-1: The relationship between management know-how and expertise or specialist knowledge
Feel free to use this book in whatever way gives you pleasure and arouses your interest. You can either start at the beginning and work your way through it or jump in wherever your fancy takes you, starting with a person or topic of particular interest to you. Each chapter forms a self-contained unit imparting key lessons and tips about effective management. If you systematically take up the questions and points raised at the end of each chapter, you will very soon start to achieve tangible results, improving your effectiveness and efficiency as a manager.
The book is divided into three parts, each covering an area to be mastered by anyone managing an organization.
First, managing organizations, covering aspects of management of central importance to the functioning of organizations.
Second, managing innovation, which to a certain extent, intersects with both the other parts: managing organizations and managing people. In other words, rather than being a separate factor, innovation comes into play when managing both organizations and people. The ability to innovate is a core skill needed by any organization.
Third, managing people, which entails both managing others and managing oneself.
Measures taken to make people more effective also have an impact on the other two areas, in the same way that how an organization is managed will affect the management of innovation and people. This is only logical, since managing an organization actually entails managing a group of people, and people management is actually all about managing people within an organization.
The advantage of this situation is this: if you systematically establish effective management in one area, there will be a positive effect on both the other areas. The disadvantage is that neglecting one area will have undesirable consequences in the others.
So neglecting to manage effectively poses a major risk, while diligently practicing effective management will open up extensive new vistas.
Let me now conclude by making a few remarks about the people featured in this book.
The featured icons were deliberately chosen for being famous and for covering a wide range of different social domains. Where there were alternatives, I always opted for the individual who seemed to provide the clearest, most memorable example.
It is also important to stress that no individual ever “represents” a single topic. Throughout the book I present situations that highlight a certain aspect of management particularly clearly, in many cases precisely the aspect that significantly shaped the life of the individual in question. However, this does not mean that the respective person always behaved that way. Many great icons have (or had) equally pronounced weaknesses—extreme individuals often display character traits at both ends of the spectrum. But I deliberately decided not to present any such shortcomings because it is very easy to list people’s incapabilities. However, it is far more important to recognize their strengths and then make proper use of them. So this book consciously focuses on people’s strengths and shows what we can all learn from them. This not only gives the book a positive slant but also focuses the reader on essentials, like opportunities and effectiveness. After all, if people are properly deployed, their weaknesses will never come to the fore anyway.
I hope that the book’s subject matter and the many examples make for a fascinating and entertaining voyage into the world of management—and provide you with many practical pointers for your effective implementation of the insights showcased on these pages.
