Management theory has moved forward by evolution rather than revolution in recent years. Everyone should be grateful for that, because there are only so many fads and fashions that hard-working executives can handle in any quarter.
“We have to get past the idea that some huge new idea is going to come along and change everything,” Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School told the closing session of the recent Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna. Rather than the theory, Prof Birkinshaw went on, what is changing is the practice of management — which, as it happens, is also the title of one of Drucker’s best-known works.
The problem with the vacuum of theory is that would-be theorists need no encouragement to rush to fill it. This year, the forum tempted otherwise thoughtful contributors with the overarching title “The Power of Ecosystems”. As a result, the word was so drained of meaning through overuse by the end of the conference that I started mentally removing the prefix “eco” to retain my sanity.