So You Want To Be A Management Guru

Matthew Stewart in The Big Money, How To Become a Management Guru in Five Easy Steps:

The industry that Tom Peters founded succeeded largely by sticking to the formula devised by America's pioneering preachers. In a sense, Peters brought management theory back home, by reuniting it with a much broader and deeper spiritual tradition that dates from the earliest days of the American republic. To be sure, the management theory before Peters had always had religion, but its religion was a hieratic one. It came down from a priesthood on high--from popelike figures such as Frederick Winslow Taylor and Elton Mayo. Peters' achievement was to transform the religion of management into a demotic one--a people's religion. Herewith, then, are the five easy steps to establishing a popular management religion.

Stewart did a test drive of his argument in The Atlantic 3 years ago, The Management Myth. He's coming out with a new book, The Management Myth: Why the "Experts" Keep Getting it Wrong. A few years ago I did a 10 questions with Dr. Stewart (Ph.D. philosophy), and since he doesn't seem to have a website set up I regularly receive inquiries about contact information for him which I forward. If the book is successful I wonder if I'll get a "bounce" out of this soon....

For the record, I think it's clear from what I've written before that I think most of the economic growth in advanced countries is going to come through more technological & scientific innovation, not squeezing more juice out through organizational, financial or managerial efficiencies. Of course CEOs are driven to exceed their competition even by small increments on the margin, so there is a rational incentive to hire specialists who can sqeeze more juice out if innovation is lacking. By analogy, it is worthwhile to invest a lot of money maintaining your car if new models or money to purchase new models is lacking, but it will never be a good substitute for a brand new car with new features.