Beware the next be thing - Summary

Résumé du document

Here is the summary of the article "Beware the next big thing" published May 2014 in the Harvard Business Review.

The author, Julian Birkinshaw, argues the idea that adopting new, popular management models is extremely risky for the stability of a company if the manager did not evaluate all the parameters at stake.

Extraits

[...] Self-knowledge It is vital for the manager to have a perfect knowledge of his company's strengths and weaknesses. Doing a new analysis of one's firm will help it anyways in the future to simplify any process, and not only in the management area. Conclusion Birkinshaw recommends that when the manager is trying to implement a new strategy, he must take small and wise steps while putting these ideas in place, by taking his time, underlining the firm's problematics, gathering hypothesis and finally not being afraid to experiment. [...]

[...] Main Ideas The risk of hyped new management ideas The main problem is that innovations in management get a quick and extended publicity, and these new popular ideas are sometimes put in place in companies with little or no thinking. Borrowing ideas is not something wrong but needs a pathing to be done effectively. There are two effective paths to adopt new management strategies, the first one is the "observe and apply", the second being "extract the central idea". Observe-and-apply This strategy, the most commonly used, is quite simple, but only works in very specific situations. [...]