Self-Management simply means designing an organization that manages itself with the minimum of leadership intervention.
To understand the concept of Self-Management, it is useful to know that the discipline of management as we know it was developed in the late 19th century. The intent was to create production quotas based on the empirical capacities of machines and workers. This required a detailed choreography of worker activities. Worker input and creativity were neither requested nor entertained. Managers knew what was best based on the overall architecture of the production machine.
This top-down, command and control model made sense at the time when talent was plentiful and cheap and a company could afford the army of managers necessary to oversee every activity to make sure it was performed to spec.
In the 21st century, however, talent is neither plentiful nor cheap and the dehumanizing nature of work in the traditional management model, which has not changed much, is no longer acceptable.
In the intervening 100 years since the invention of “modern scientific management", science has undergone a revolution.
The science of complexity has shown us that order is intrinsic to the universe and that ultimately, all systems are self-organizing. Where in the natural world can you find a “manager”?
They don’t exist.
The collapse of the former Soviet Union demonstrated that economies cannot be “managed”. They are too complex. And yet Adam Smith in his 1776 classic work, The Wealth of Nations described the self-organizing principle of markets with his term, “the invisible hand” by which markets organize themselves.
Our employees are, almost without exception, dismally ignorant of business principles and practices beyond the limits of their jobs, yet often demonstrate leadership in their communities, churches and sports and school activities of their children.
Our employees are grossly under-utilized, which limits our ability to maximize the return we achieve on the expense of payroll and diminishes the lives and careers of our people.
We now know how to design companies that draw out the full capabilities of our employees. The era of “check your brain at the door and do what your told” is over. Join the Self-Management Community and become a leader in the new paradigm of how to lead, manage and design organizations that virtually run themselves.
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