Management adages vs contextual reality

At the heart of Busted lies a profound truth that dismantles the long-held shibboleths of management

BUSTED: Debunking Management Myths with Logic, Experience and Curiosity

Author:  Ashok Soota, Peter de Jager, Sandhya Mendonca

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 204

Price: Rs 599

A myth is a story that is told repeatedly to explain why something is the way it is without a deterministic basis of fact. Myth-busting is busting a myth, but also without a deterministic basis. Myth-making and myth-busting are both desultory and pleasurable activities. Both are a bit like punching the ether with your fists.

This book is a delightful read, not only because of the content, the authors’ light-heartedness, but also because of their irreverent style. I was reminded of a book by Matthew Stewart that I had read 15 years ago titled Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong. From that book, here is one extract to illustrate: “Frederick Winslow Taylor launched the revolution that launched scientific management and the management consulting industry…. After some time, he reached the point in his career where it was his right to speak, and others’ duty to listen.”

In Busted, the authors have chosen 17 popular myths to bust. One is: “It is lonely at the top”. They use their experiences to punch holes in this oft-quoted adage, thus producing their own new myth. For example, busting the myth that “it is lonely at the top,” they aver that “a leader can experience warmth, affection, love, pride, and gratitude from the team” and “you won’t be lonely if you could have a family to lean on and a network you can turn to for support and advice.” This reviewer, and indeed any smart reader, would argue that the original myth and the busted myth are both true. With either myth, you can punch the ether with an assertive jab of the hand, and, by the way, nobody could see the ether in the first place or see it move!

Consider another myth that the authors have busted: That the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. The authors agree with the author of this well-worn adage, which is Harvard Business School Professor, Michael Porter. They then develop their own myth that “while the statement is true, their view is that it is not the essence of strategy.” How can anyone argue strongly on either side? Both are true. No sentence in the world can define precisely what strategy is (or leadership, for that matter), nor can any sentence define the essence of strategy!

A potential reader of the book may wonder what the book is all about. It makes a very central point, not directly, but indirectly. The book elegantly demonstrates the reality about management. Management is not for ideologues with rigid, researched, opinionated shibboleths. Through my own experience, I have found the same, that it is more akin to a performing art than to a science.

In science, discovery is at the core; proof through repeatable and reliable experiments. It has strong logic, rationality, scepticism, and debate. In making this affirmative statement, I am encouraged to recall what Niels Bohr, the atomic physicist, once said, “People assume that the opposite of a truth is an untruth. Science teaches us that the opposite of a truth may be another truth.” It is on this basis that quantum mechanics developed unimaginably revolutionary ideas like Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty and the principle that an atomic particle could be at two different places at the same time!

In performing arts, like tennis and dance, the context determines what is right for that circumstance. Is a double-handed backhand better than a single-handed backhand? Is a serve-and-volley strategy right on grass courts? The answer is delightfully ambiguous: It all depends.

And it is to this reality that Busted speaks. Management pedagogy in B-schools bears the panache and rigour of a science to young MBA aspirants, who, in turn, absorb these like the immutable laws of motion or gravity. The young minds carry these myths as words of gospel. Then they hit the road with real-life experiences and find that those myths are possible and desirable to bust. That is exactly what Ashok Soota et al have done, with elan and elegance, but, to their credit, without pontificating.

I liked the chapter on medium of powerPoint charts. Over the years, presentations have become elegantly nonsensical, bewildering the observer with the confusion of whether to concentrate on reading the charts or to concentrate on listening to the effulgent vocabulary emanating from the presenter’s mouth. Ashok Soota and Peter de Jager do not wish to throw away the baby with the bathwater. Their busted version is not to blame the medium for poor outcomes, rather they advise to keep the presentation focused and relevant.

Another chapter is busting the myth that organisations are over-led and under-managed. The authors argue that leadership and management are not mutually exclusive because they are two sides of the same coin. At times, “leaders must manage and managers must lead because people thrive in an environment of balanced leadership and management.”

When managers describe their practices, their narration usually is: “In this context that approach worked for me”. Thus, three ends of a triangle are considered—the problem, the context, and the solution. Other managers may or may not adopt the practice because the context of their problem may be distinctly different. When academics write esoteric papers, many, not all, treat the subject with the rigour of atomic physics: What will work, time and again, repeatably and reliably. These academics read their papers to other academics in distinguished conferences; thus knowledge is advanced without application. Busted tries to trace the connection between myths and contextual reality by busting some myths.

The reviewer is an author and corporate advisor