The recognition that management theory is a sadly neglected subdiscipline of philosophy began with an experience of déjà vu. As I plowed through my shelfload of bad management books, I beheld a discipline that consists mainly of unverifiable propositions and cryptic anecdotes, is rarely if ever held accountable, and produces an inordinate number of catastrophically bad writers. It was all too familiar. There are, however, at least two crucial differences between philosophers and their wayward cousins. The first and most important is that philosophers are much better at knowing what they don’t know. The second is money. In a sense, management theory is what happens to philosophers when you pay them too much.
“The Management Myth” by Matthew Stewart
The Atlantic, June 2006
All I know is that I would rather set my hair on fire and put it out with a mallet rather than attend one more trendy, packaged management-tool presentation. Hospitals and other medcal non-profits, perpetrators the most Byzantine management debacles in the known Universe, are suckers for these sketchy gurus.
Posted by: Paul Creeden | 05/22/2010 at 05:12 AM