sabato 17 novembre 2012

Managers among jellyfishes


Se pubblicassi il saggio in inglese, proporrei all'editore questo titolo. Del perché, ho già detto qui.

The ongoing protests of Occupy Movement against social and economic inequality indicate the problem, but do not provide a way out. In the meantime Business Schools continue to churn out managers unable to face the challenges of the present time.
Managers who lead today's corporations and large organizations, Francesco Varanini writes in this essay, too often are not up to the task.
The book tells the story of how, around the beginning of the Thirties of Last Century, in response to the financial crisis, the manager appears on the scene, new social figure called to lead large organizations, private or public. Its authority is based on the ability to find a balance between the different interests involved: investors, employees, customers, suppliers, local communities.
Not by chance, management -understood as an academic discipline- reaches maturity in the Sixties with the Stakeholder Theory. Stakeholders: "Those groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist", it is said in an internal memo written in 1963 by researchers of the Stanford Research Institute.
But in 1965 Igor Ansoff, in Corporate Strategy, marks a turning point: the stakeholders are not all equal. The shareholder count more than others. This opens the road to the unbearable situation of our days. Too many managers today, writes Varanini, instead of being at the service of value creation, are at the service of value extraction. They act in the interests of the financial community, rather than the interests of the company for which they work.
Described this scenario in the first part, the book presents in the second part a description of a possible manager adapted to the times, again mindful of the interests of all stakeholders.
To lead complex organizations today, writes Varanini, we need more wisdom than reason. In describing the new management -respectful of sustainability, equity-oriented and with a long-term vison- the author puts aside the management literature. Rather than in it, he finds inspiration in the Old Testament and in the Buddhist culture, and cites authors unexpected in this context: Italo Svevo, Philip Dick.
A metaphor summarizes the books meaning. The manager is now forced to swim in a sea infested with jellyfishes. It 's pointless to protect themselves from risk, control procedures are are almost always ineffective. What we need is to be ourselves, keeping up with the pace, light slipping through the difficulties.