Rebuilding American Enterprise: Henry Mintzberg and ‘Kittens are evil’: Heresies in public policy

Two friends of mine publish the J&E Alert, a fantastic newsletter highlighting thought provoking thinking on leadership, management and business. Below I share two snippets of their newsletter.

You can subscribe directly by sending an email to the editors (Mireille Jansma & Jurgen Egges)

Article –Rebuilding American Enterprise (Henry Mintzberg, June 2013)

Mintzberg has had it. "The root cause of the American economic crisis is not economic, and so will not be resolved by economists. That cause is managerial: too many corporate “leaders” have been trashing their enterprises for quick gains, instead of managing them for sustainability. The

American economy will have to be fixed one enterprise at a time, to restore the country’s renowned sense of enterprise."

On shareholder value: "Corporate correctness dictates that publicly-traded enterprises maximize “Shareholder Value”. Don’t confuse this with anything of real value, let alone any human values. Shareholder Value is a fancy label for pumping up the price of a company’s stock as quickly as possible, so that those in the know can cash in and run before the stock sinks."

Article - 'Kittens are evil': Heresies in public policy (Simon Caulkin, June 2013)

Great analysis by Simon Caulkin of why managing by targets and incentives is harmful. The article concludes with 4 case studies.

Caulkin: "When Tony Blair remonstrated some years ago, ‘No company would consider managing without targets,’ he was nearly right. Whether organisations using them call it that or not, results-based frameworks for performance management have come to dominate management thinking in many parts of the developed world, in both public and private sectors (...). Paying people for the results they achieve – it sounds rational and plausible; indeed it sounds like management’s Holy Grail. But if that is the case, why are two of the most enthusiastic proponents of results-based management, the banks and the NHS, conspicuous for producing outcomes that are the opposite of those they were set up to deliver – impoverishing the world rather than enriching it in the case of the banks and killing patients instead of curing them in NHS hospitals? And is there an alternative?

The answers that emerged from a fascinating and disturbing event organised by consultancy Vanguard in Manchester in March were, respectively: because people persist, and have a strong vested interest, in believing that making it work is a technical problem that we can solve if we’re clever enough; and yes, there is an alternative, and not surprisingly it’s the opposite of outcomes-based approaches – starting not from the back (the result) but the front (what’s happening now)."

Simon Caulkin is a writer and editor who for 16 years was the Observer’s management columnist, writing on subjects ranging from rock ‘n’ roll to the banking crisis. He has contributed to the Economist, the Financial Times, and many national and international business magazines. Aside from journalism, Simon has worked on books with prominent business academics and leaders such as the late Sumantra Ghoshal, Andrew Campbell and John Seddon.