Welcome to my collection of mythical management ideas. I wanted to use a strong word than mythical, but in an age of political correctness, I should be more prudent. Besides, I may encounter proponents of these theories and concepts in other situations, and why make enemies, eh? This is simply my list of management theories and concepts that I think don't quite jibe with reality and common sense. See what you think.

Business is Common Sense, but Common Sense is NOT common in business

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE

Since when are businesses biological? To suggest that a concept borrowed from biology finds relevants in a business enterprise is like mixing metaphors (yes, I do that a lot, but that's another story!). We have seen so many products that obviously defy the existence of the PLC. The PLC is nothing but an over-simplification of the marketing process. To reduce marketing management to a chart is insane. If everything is fated, why do we even need marketing? Why indeed do we need any kind of management? Much recent research has shown the PLC to be a flawed theory. Unfortunately, PLC is so ingrained in academics that it continues to be taught, continues to appear in textbooks, and continues to be treated by many to be real.


ETHNIC MARKETING

There are several things with this. First, this is really a misnomer, since what we're truly talking about is how to sell to minorities based on racial makeup. Somehow reality doesn't sound too nice, so we go with ethnic marketing. But more important, the name itself is misused. Last time I checked, ethnic groups are not the exclusive domain of non-whites. And certainly WASPs are every bit as ethnic as any other group. So, what in the world does ethnic marketing mean? It's a term that means absolutely nothing. Nothing relevant anyway. Second, the idea of ethnic marketing presumes that people of an externally assigned ethnic group behave in a similar way, want and need the same things, and share in the same values. This pure and simple is illustrative of what sociologists have labelled as the "in-group heterogeneity, out-group homogeneity" misperception. We know in Marketing 101 that one of the most important variables in segmentation is benefits -- segmenting the market based on similarities in benefits sought. This is much more useful that assuming homogeneity among people who may only be similar on the basis on phsyical appearance or racial heritage.


MANAGEMENT SCIENCE

Management is no science. Maybe it is to people who have never managed. But the business enterprise is a human endeavour, and management is entirely a human issue. Humans, as we know, are unpredictable, emotional, and often times irrational. To pretend to be able to reduce human actions to a few math equations, however sophisticated the math, is a strange notion indeed. So often are we confusing statistical significance with meaningfulness. A math equation that yields statistically significant results at 0.05 but only explains 25% of the variance is essentially useless. Would you buy a car that only starts one-fourth of the time? Probably not. So why are we propagandizing theories that only work 20 or 30 percent of the time? Because we can put everything in a neat little slot?


PLANNING IS STRATEGIC

There is nothing strategic about planning. Planning is an euphenism for programming. Most plans never get read anyway. Planning presumes an ability to predict the future and prepare for it. Much of this kind of prediction of course is based on what happened in the past. The sad part, of course, is that it's most likely those things you never saw before that will come and hurt you the most. Were the dinosaurs destroyed by other beasts? Hardly. There was this little problem with meteors. Some piece of rock fell from the sky, and BOOM, their world was over. Try planning for that. Oh, we do need to plan. But planning is not strategic. What we need is a more humanized and intuitive process, what we need is thinking, vision, and total commitment.


MISSION STATEMENT

I don't know if there has ever been a greater waste of time and money in management. Why do a mission statement? Supposedly this helps to guide people towards the common goal. We all work towards fulfilling the mission. Customers love our mission, that's why they come. Workers all want to accomplish the mission, because that's what they are here for. And so on. Let's consider how mission statements are developed. Some head office types go to some nice resort retreat, spend a few days with some high powered consultant, and after much hardwork come away with a nicely stated mission statement. Wow! The world has just changed. Ask around in most companies, and you'll be surprised how few people (workers and customers alike) know or even care about the mission. So, what's the point? There is none. It's something we do, because we've been taught that this is a first step in the management process. Are we replicating the charge of the light brigade?


NUMBERS DON'T LIE

Well, this one stems from our fascination with positivism, the idea that reality can be objectively measured (in numbers), and that if it's represented in numbers (ie measured) it must be "real." Just ask the workers at Enron. Numbers lie big time. We can basically make numbers look whatever we want them to look. Are we doing surveys? Okay, if some data don't fit, throw them out. Call them outliers. Are we doing accounting? Okay, let's amortize this instead of expensing it. Let's LIFO instead of FIFO. The list goes on, folks. Face it, numbers are created by humans. They are nothing more than a game.


STRATEGIC GROUPS

There's this funny idea floating around that companies compete in strategic groups. Strategic groups are companies that pursue a similar strategy, that sort of thing. So, when studying management, one can group different companies into different groups and look at what they do. So far so good. But then, as most academics are prone to do, people go on and talk about the managerial implications this thing has. Give me a break. Do we honestly think that say, an Exxon Mobil, look at the world around them and say, okay, let's go into strategic group 1 so that we compete with Shell? This concept may be fine for analysis, but to pretend that it is actionable? It's just funny.


LEADERSHIP TRAINING

This is one of my favourites. All of a sudden we realize that we can teach people to become leaders. Sit back for a minute and listen to this again. We can teach people to be leaders. I suppose Lincoln must have had a graduate degree in leadership. As did Churchill. Oh, so some are born with it but others can learn? Sort of like people learning to be leaders at military schools, eh? Hm. Let's see, what happened at the Charge of the Light Brigade again? Leadership cannot be learned. It is a talent. Yes, we can train managers. But leaders? Right. In a 1977 HBR article, Zalenznik noted the differences between leaders and managers. Leaders, according to Zalenznik, embrace innovation, take risks, welcome change, are dynamic and intuitive. Managers, on the other hand, emphasize control, and focus on mundane, practical work, and are rule-based. This latter set of roles, we know, is the stuff of business schools. But leadership? How do we teach people to be intuitive if they are not already?


RATIONAL DECISION MODELS

Okay. One more time. People are NOT rational. Clear? We are emotional, stupid beasts. Satisfied? Sure, we rationalize our decisions, because we like to look rational. After all, were we not taught at an early age that it's good to be rational? Logic is cool, right? Well, maybe so, but that's not reality. Really, just ask yourself how rational you have been today. So, if people by nature are not rational, can an entirely human endeavour be rational? You tell me. Be rational now!






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