Written By: HBR Correspondent
December: 2008
Summary
The belief that companies must
become more global is the latest in a long line of widely held and generally
unquestioned assumptions that can undermine the rational behavior of companies
or entire industries.
The management trends you might
even call them dads that grow out of these assumptions can be dangerous because
they often lead to sloppy thinking. For example the label used to describe a
trend may get stretched far beyond its original meaning. “Reengineering” had
come to mean nearly and corporate reorganization: “related diversification” is
used today to justify acquisitions within categories such as “communications
media” and “financial services” that are so bread as to be almost meaningless.
More troubling the stampede by companies to
join peers in mindlessly embracing such trends can cloud manager’s judgment
about what is worth while and achievable in their particular case. The
pathology of management fads has an underlying dynamic that is worth exploring:
Company X with talented people at the helm pioneers a new management approach
the firm does well and others take notice maybe one or two experiment with
similar innovations.
Overtime people use the now
familiar label more and more loosely. They group all manner of activities under
the heading. Despite its ambiguity there is a growing sense that activities
under the rubric are worthwhile.
Ref –Page, No 74
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