Why doesn’t management advance? Why are most big organizations still run in a way that leads to steadily diminishing returns, dispirits those doing the work and frustrates those for whom the work is done? There is no shortage of good ideas for improvement. Some good ideas have been around for decades. This isn’t rocket science.
And yet overall, very little has changed. Why do most firms–and their investors–still focus on maximizing share value, which even Jack Welch called “the dumbest idea in the world”? Why do firms ignore Peter Drucker’s insight that the only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer? Why is command-and-control still the order of the day? Why is it that even promising improvements don’t seem to last?
The Stoos Gathering
On January 6, 2012, twenty thought leaders from around the world will gather for two days in the ski resort at Stoos Switzerland to discuss what can be done to accelerate the transformation of management in organizations around the world.
We will be searching to see what can be done to create and energize organizations in ways that make them better for the organizations themselves, better for the people doing the work, better for those for whom the work is being done and better for society as a whole and to do so on a sustained basis.
The Agile Manifesto
The four of us believe that this is possible. We have seen how in 2001 seventeen software developers came together at Snowbird and crafted some ideas in the Agile Manifesto that did inspire many people working in the software industry to do things differently .
Granted, the agile movement is still evolving. But there has been huge progress. Tens of thousands of organizations around the world are developing software in a better way–better for the organization, better for the developers and better for the ultimate user.
Subscribing to something larger
We believe that one reason why this happened is that the Agile Manifesto created a kind of banner or umbrella or set of values that all of the people present could subscribe to, while still continuing to pursue their own individual variations on the theme. The individual activities were transformed into a large scale global movement, because the participants saw themselves as part of something larger.
The question that we will be exploring at the #Stoos Gathering is whether we can discover synergies that could accelerate the transformation of the way whole organizations are run. To succeed, we will need to find elements that we can all subscribe to and that will energize and accelerate the movement for global change.
Help us prepare!
We would like to have your thoughts on how to energize and catalyze a global movement for organizational transformation. We recognize that all thought leaders have their own brands and flavors of management. How could we we see all our efforts as part of something larger?
Probably not another manifesto.
Certainly not another alliance!
But something else?
Something that would help generate “an enormous yes”.
Will you help us?
Please give us your thoughts, ideally in less than 100 words, here in the comments section on this blog, or on Peter Stevens’s blog, or on Jurgen Appelo’s blog, or to me via email. We will make sure your information is shared with the participants at the #Stoos Gathering. Help us to stimulate our brains and contribute to a positive outcome.
Send us your input and follow #Stoos on Twitter to stay involved.
Steve Denning’s most recent book is: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management (Jossey-Bass, 2010).
Follow Steve Denning on Twitter @stevedenning