For some years now you have been hearing that “Command and Control Management” is passé and that it no longer has a place it in a business that seeks to be competitive. Yet reports of its demise appear to be greatly exaggerated and premature
Certainly “Command and Control” is logically questionable in a democratic society. After all, how can you expect people who have been raised to believe that individual rights are paramount, and that all men should be treated as equal, to accept that someone else has the right to tell them what to do and how to do it? This question alone, paradoxically, goes a long way towards answering why there are unacceptably high levels of employee disengagement and there is a deteriorating employee engagement picture. It doesn’t matter what employment contracts say or what the terms of engagement actually are, your people will always be happier doing what is required without interference. So the books and management schools that have been telling us that there is no place for Command and Control management techniques are certainly on track.
Yet, despite these efforts, and their apparent acceptance by the business community at large, the style of management remains largely unchanged. You may well have introduced initiatives to create “work-life balance” and “empower” your people, but ultimately these are largely all within the framework of existing management structures. They still bear all the hall marks of top-down management and, while they theoretically loosen the reins, they actually do very little to alter the mindset and thus behaviours tend to always revert to a Command and Control style – particularly when there is a problem or crisis.
This state of affairs can only be changed and Command and Control Management truly killed off when a new framework is introduced that will shape new behaviours and break down the old, ingrained thought patterns with their consequential behaviours. This book offers the basis for developing just such a framework and thus is essential reading for any business leader looking to meet the challenges of the 21st century and build an organisation of “FAT People” where success can be sustained.
Risk is inherent in any business or trading operation and as such business leaders are expected to identify and manage it. Their primary accountability to safeguard the organisation’s assets and act as an agent in looking after the shareholders’ interests, doing all they can to safeguard them, makes risk management a key responsibility for them. This becomes more and more onerous as the range of risks and the scale of the consequences both grow.