MANAGING WITHOUT MANAGEMENT

A POST-MANAGEMENT MANIFESTO FOR BUSINESS SIMPLICITY

Richard Koch and Ian Godden

"If there is one management book that merits reading this year, it is Managing Without Management."
Director

Large corporations are being strangled by their own management processes. Big business is not too large in terms of revenues, but it is too complex and has too many products, divisions and functions: and way too many managers. The authors, who are highly experienced top business consultants, argue that the root problem is management itself, and the answer is to manage without management as a separate activity or set of jobs.

Six ever more powerful forces can be mobilised to dispose with management - customer power; information power; investor power; global market power; simplicity power; leader power. A new breed of superleaders will emerge whose role is to become market developers and customer champions.

The authors hail the emergence of a totally different type of 21st century supercorporation that will be truly global and expand into all parts of the economy. It will be quite unlike today's big companies, with no headquarters, standardised operations throughout the globe, and very simple structures. The supercorporation will be controlled by customers and information technology and not by managers.

Richard Koch was a founder of the LEK Partnership and Strategy Ventures plc and is non-executive director of several firms. He is also the author of The 80/20 Principle, The Power Laws of Business, The 80/20 Individual and Living the 80/20 Way.

Ian Godden was a partner of Booz-Allen & Hamilton, the global management consultants.