Managing the Company of the Future

Week 1: Why we need to reinvent management

• Management versus Leadership: what each one is, why we need them both.
• Evidence for the failure of management
• The underlying problem: a social technology that has not evolved.
• The future of management.
• Management model: an important concept, the guiding framework for the course.
• What is your management model?

Week 2: The "means" of managing

• Traditional and alternative approaches to coordination.
• Traditional and alternative approaches to decision-making.
• Trying out these ideas in your company: experiments in emergence and collective wisdom.

Week 3: The "ends" of managing

• Traditional and alternative approaches to motivation.
• Traditional and alternative approaches to objective-setting.
• Trying out these ideas in your company: experiments in motivation and obliquity.

Week 4: Redefining a company's management model

• Mapping your model, and how you would like it to change.
• Forces for change and those that reinforce the status quo.
• Top-driven vs bottom-up change.
• Designing and running your own management experiment.
• A broader perspective: how management ideas gain and lose currency.

Week 5: Making it personal: Becoming a better boss

• The challenge of managing effectively at an individual level.
• What does a good manager do really?
• Know your employees: see the world through their eyes.
• Know yourself: understand your own limitations.
• Tips and tricks for becoming a better boss.

Julian Birkinshaw
Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship
London Business School