Karen Phelan "Sorry I ruined your company»

[DARPA]

Today will tell you about the book, which I have already mentioned several times in his blog - a book by Karen Phelan "Sorry I ruined your company. Why business consultants is the problem, not the solution. "
The leitmotif of the book: Management - not science.

It's no secret that one of the cornerstones upon which the entire consulting world - the idea of ​​measurable business and that only by means of measurements can be controlled. All that on which consultants are earning - the introduction of a balanced scorecard, strategy development, approaches to talent management, ranking employees, improve the efficiency of the methodology, training on SMART-goals, etc. - Karen tough and legitimate criticism, instead of offering more to consider in the management of the human factor. I must clarify: we are not talking about the rejection of measurable indicators. The author believes that they should exist, but should not dominate, offers more attentive to people and work primarily with them, rather than their numerical characteristics.

Management guru and consulting firms would have us believe that the business is logical, as the company manages, guided numbers, and that their models and theories will provide step by step "How to Succeed". Companies are trying to implement these models, or make decisions based on financial information and will never achieve the expected success because in fact business is not rational. Human capital - is not part of the business. If you remove the human capital, there will be no business, just a bunch of offices and equipment, which itself produces nothing. Business - people, illogical, emotional, unpredictable, creative, gifted strange powers and sometimes brilliant, people who do not act in accordance with the theories. This book - a reminder that we need to stop dehumanize the workplace and that, if you successfully manage the "human element", you are, in general, is immune to all the trouble.

Do not get tired of repeating the obvious: to work with numbers, reports, and other (seemingly) measurable entities - easily and talk and negotiate with people - it's hard. Any novice project manager with pleasure to spend the day on the "optimization" of the plan, on a table with information about how to download commands to report on the expenditure budget for the setting of a non-trivial accounting and other tools. All this is important, but, alas, again.

Unfortunately, most consultants are able to implement only the tools and are not willing to work with people, and the majority of companies to invite a consultant, are not ready to change the appearance of control on the hard work and co-workers. As a result, according to the author of the book, everyone suffers - of treading water and can not solve their problems, and consultants earn notoriety people useless and even harmful to the business.

I pretended that the inventory management system, which I implants - is the answer, when in fact I ensure that people at all stages of the supply chain trust each other; pretended to be engaged in reengineering the process of developing a new product, when in fact helped sales, marketing and research and development cooperation; pretended that his wonderful ability to solve problems I owe mechanical thinking computer, not human imagination. But most of all I'm tired of looking at the ratio of people as assets that need to monitor, measure, standardize and optimize. I can not honestly say what I do, because no one would buy my services, if I say that help people work better together. Instead, I pretend that sell methodologies, models, metrics, processes and systems.

The book contains many examples of rich business practices Karen, tips for beginners managers, success stories and failure of companies and teams (or even mention the infamous Enron is very out of place), recommendations to address widespread passion for the evaluation and rankings, tips on choosing consultants and much more.

I feel that in our country managers and entrepreneurs increasingly people with "technical" mentality. These people love to algorithms, figures and the best strategies - in the blood. As well as the desire to improve the process and make it independent of the human factor. They are easy to use and understand the world in which, including management, are common to all laws. Unfortunately, this is an illusion, and the illusion is very dangerous.

Equally dangerous and reckless broadcast experience gained with one team to another. "Management depends on the context," - says Karen. And on that assumption to the fore not detailed algorithms and general principles, basic managerial approaches, which are based - literate communication between people, their contacts at all levels of the company.

To sum up: great book, which tells about the shortcomings of formal management approaches and how these deficiencies can be overcome. Recommend reading all without exception.