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Looking for Copernicus and Galileo

Jul. 22nd, 2010

Nearly 500 years ago, Copernicus suggested that the earth moved around the sun, not the other way round. About seventy years later Galileo upset much of the establishment thinking by supporting the approach that Copernicus had laid out. His support of this heliocentric theory was considered so outrageous that he was persecuted, found “vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Yet this approach proved to be correct and moved the understanding of science significantly forward. It took some parts of the establishment many hundreds of years to publicly acknowledge that he was right.

We need the same type of revolutionary thinking now - in the fields of management and leadership development.

We have been attempting to define and teach management and leadership for many decades now, if not centuries. It is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate the amount of money that has been spent in these arenas even over the several decades. And yet, we have not achieved much success. Maybe you don’t buy what I am saying but you only have to take a cursory Internet search to find the disasters of current leadership philosophies and management practices. On the management side, Hogan (2007) reported that “75% of working adults report that the most stressful aspect of their job is their immediate boss.” Hogan et al (2009) go on to state that “Based on the data, we conclude that two-thirds of existing managers are insufferable and at least half will eventually be fired.” On the leadership side, it doesn’t take much of a scan to recall the recent leadership failures, most notably highlighted by the CEO of BP, Tony Hayward’s recent wayward remarks and behavior.

The systems that we have in place today, tend to support the status quo. For example, a meta-analysis by Kluger and DeNisi (1996, 2000) showed that the performance evaluation processes that are in place in most companies do more harm than good. (Nearly 40% actually make matters worse!!!) In their book Hollender and Breen state it well: “It’s an almost universal truth that every corporation conducts an annual performance review, and just about everyone hates it.” But try and talk to the average HR person about standing up and changing it, and you will have a very short conversation.

This will not be improved by more of the same; we need a revolution. Companies such as Linden Labs, Patagonia, and Timberland have introduced some new concepts, but we need more. We need to rethink how we go about creating a new breed of managers and leaders – and lots of them. We don’t need more MBA’s – we need people qualified, practiced and licensed to manage and lead.

Who will join me on the search for the Copernicus and Galileo of management and leadership?

DeNisi & Kluger

Hogan, R, (2007) Personality and the Fate of Organizations, Erlbaum

Hogan, J., Hogan, R. & Kaiser, R. (2009) Management Derailment: Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, APA

Hollender, J & Breen, B. (2010) The Responsibility Revolution, Josey Bass.

Kluger & DeNisi