Managing people successfully clearly means different things to different people, whether they are doing the managing or being managed. Some managers look for unquestioning obedience and servitude. They sustain a hierarchical structure. Their writ to their employees states the requirements which are not to be deviated from. For employees preferring to obey more and think less, this can be attractive – however, my suspicion is that the number of these is dwindling fast.
And recently I witnessed graphically the danger in this – achieved even sixty years ago - as I watched the TV documentary on the little known wartime code breaking operation at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, UK.
The narrator described how the hierarchical structure of the Nazi war machine dictated that there should be total sub-servience and unquestioning obedience to all elements including their top secret communication codes. No-one should question them.
Meanwhile the UK adopted a very different approach to code-breaking. It retained quirky mathematicians and thinkers who would simply not fit into such a hierarchical system. It encouraged them to think outside the box and question everything.
The result? The German code was broken and it is claimed it shortened the war by two years.
It was also intriguing to me to see the elements of intellectual / mathematical intelligence being adopted alongside emotional intelligence, then not truly acknowledged or identified as a valuable human resource.
More and more of us want to contribute to the business process we are involved in. Most of us respond better to inclusive rather than exclusive management styles. True, we do not see things the same way and businesses who see this as a handicap rather than a strength will continue to suffer. Those enterprises adopting flatter management styles will always be able to change far quicker than those very much managed from the top down.
More to the point, unbeknown to the world, the computer was born at Bletchley on a campus I walked alongside – unknowingly – to catch the train to school!
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