This is the back story to the book Management Mysterium.
Management Mysterium is a follow-on to The Triumph of Classical Management Over Lean Management (2018) and Irrational Institutions (2020). It adds to this body of work by examining invisible aspects of leadership and management practice: the intangible spiritual, sacred, and the sometimes mysterious and mythical aspects of leading and managing organizations. Together, these books carefully examine the question of why most leaders resist or reject Lean management and other forms of progressive personal and organizational change.
Few people think about the secular spiritual aspects of management and leadership. Yet, it has a powerful influence on how leaders and managers think and what they do or do not do. Management Mysterium will substantially deepen your understanding of why top business leaders have little or no enthusiasm for Lean management — and why they instead prefer to maintain the status quo and continue to favor archaic classical management.
My goal in producing these three unique books is to help those who promote, practice, train, or educate people on Lean management to clearly understand what they are up against. It is more substantial than anyone ever imagined. So much effort has been expended in the last 30-plus years for too little result. You can continue reading the popular Lean books and try your best to make improvements. But at some point, you will realize that you are missing an essential body of knowledge — one that you will wish you explored much sooner. More knowledge means better decisions.
As a professor, a large part of my job is to do research and share the findings with others in thoughtful and complete ways. If you are committed to Lean management and creating a better future state, then you must also be committed to fully understanding the current state, classical management, and the many ways that top leaders act to obstruct progress.
I have made the problem more than just visible — it is now transparent. You might not be happy to learn the truth, but it could motivate you towards participating in a larger collaborative effort, one that is more carefully planned and better executed, to circumvent or overcome the many obstacles that exist.
Progress is made when minds are opened. Is your mind open?
Hi Dr Bob, I have been a reader of your blog for quite a while now, and as I am stuck at home here in New Zealand in corona isolation, thought I would finally get around to sending through a few thoughts.
There is a body of research that I see as addressing and explaining the obstacles to change you regularly rail against. It is the work of Chris Argyris and Donald Schōn, the ‘godfathers’ of organisational learning and is best seen the following books:
* Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional effectiveness 1974
* Knowledge for Action 1993
* Organisational Learning II 1996
For a couple of papers, try:
* Teaching Smart People how to Learn; Chris Argyris, HBR 1991
* Taking Personal Change Seriously: The Impact of “Organisational Learning” on Management Practice; Peter Senge; The Academy of Management Executive May 2003 17(2)
They don’t address Lean per se, but they address the problems all organisations have with learning and change. See what you think, and feel free to get back to me.
Yours,
Darren Hannah
Hello Darren from NZ. Thanks for your comment. I hope to visit beautiful NZ some day. I am familiar with those works, and some were featured in my earlier work circa late 1990s. However, my approach to the problem in the last 5 years or so comes from a different direction.