Reinventing Management: Smarter Choices for Getting Work Done, Revised and Updated Edition

The economic crisis was not just caused by a failure of regulationor economic policy; it was a story of the failure of management in a fundamental sense a deeply flawedapproach to management that encouraged bankers to pursueopportunities without regard for their long–term consequences, andto put their own interests ahead of those of their employers andtheir shareholders.

The revised edition of this best–selling book shows convincinglythat many of today s major economic problems in the west canbe traced to a failure of management. In this updated edition theauthor draws our attention to new examples of failed management,from Rupert Murdoch s News Corp, and the disaster at BP, tothe ongoing problems in financial services companies such as UBSand RBS. Throughout the book the references and statistics havebeen updated, to make this a current, highly relevant analysis ofthe problems besetting modern business and how managers need totackle them.

" a thoughtful, practical and readable tour thatencourages the reader to reflect on the prosaic role ofsleeves rolled up management"
Management Today, March 2010)

"This book equips readers with a framework to start gettingbetter at making smarter choices as to how they organise andmanage."
Director, March 2010

" this book is a major contribution to efforts atre igniting the debate on the way we do things atwork."
People Management, September 2010

Best Business Book 2011 Finalist Thinkers50

One of the "Best Business Books 2010"
strategy+business magazine

"a must read for managers who want to build an organizationthat′s truly fit for the future."
Gary Hamel, best–selling author of The Future ofManagement

"I read many books about management and leadership, but I haveto admit this book is by far the best and most comprehensive I haveever been in contact with. It is well written with many goodexamples and easily read as it is written for people outside theacademic world. I can highly recommend this for all peoplemanagers."
Povl Mors, Director, Commercial training, VestasCorporation (on Amazon.Com)

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xiii

About the Author xvii

Chapter 1 Why Management Failed 1

Chapter 2 What s Your Management Model? 27

Chapter 3 Coordinating Activities: From Bureaucracy to Emergence53

Chapter 4 Making and Communicating Decisions: From Hierarchy toCollective Wisdom 85

Chapter 5 Setting Objectives: From Alignment to Obliquity119

Chapter 6 Motivating Employees: From Extrinsic to IntrinsicMotivation 145

Chapter 7 Four Models of Management 173

Chapter 8 The Change Agent s Agenda 205

Chapter 9 The Leader s Agenda 225

Epilogue Broadening the Debate on Reinventing Management 251

Notes 263

Index 283

Julian Birkinshaw is Professor and Chair of Strategy andEntrepreneurship at the London Business School. He has PhD and MBAdegrees in Business from the Richard Ivey School of Business,University of Western Ontario, and a BSc (Hons) from the Universityof Durham. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the StockholmSchool of Economics, 2009.
Professor Birkinshaw s main area of expertise is in thestrategy and management of large multinational corporations, and onsuch specific issues as corporate entrepreneurship, innovation,subsidiary–headquarters relationship, knowledge management, networkorganizations, and global customer management. He is the author often other books, including Giant Steps in Management (2007), Inventuring: Why Big Companies Must Think Small (2003), Leadership the Sven–Goran Eriksson Way (2002) and Entrepreneurship in the Global Firm (2001), and over seventyarticles in such journals as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Strategy Management Journaland Academy of Management Journal. He is active as aconsultant and executive educator to many large companies,including Rio Tinto, SAP, GSK, ABB, Ericsson, Kone, Petrofac, WPP,Bombardier, Sara Lee, HSBC, Akzo Nobel, Roche, Thyssen Krupp, UBS,PWC, Coloplast, BBC, Unilever and Novo Nordisk.
In 1998 the leading British Management magazine ManagementToday profiled Professor Birkinshaw as one of six of the Next Generation of Management Gurus . He is regularlyquoted in international media outlets, including CNN, BBC, TheEconomist, the Wall Street Journal, and TheTimes. He speaks regularly at business conferences in the UK,Europe, North America and Australia.
Professor Birkinshaw is co–founder with best–selling author GaryHamel of the Management Innovation Lab (MLab), a unique partnershipbetween academia and business that is seeking to accelerate theevolution of management.