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Today’s episode is called “Managing the Next 10,000 years.” That could be a tall order, since managing the next 10 years will be challenging due to expected global climate disruptions, but stay with me and you may be intrigued.
Civilization began the last 10,000 years in its pre-history phase, as humans, living in small bands, were still emerging from the last ice age (at its peak about 20,000 years ago) as the climate warmed. Ten thousand years ago the oceans were about 130-140 feet lower than today, and scientists tell us that the last land bridge between Europe and Great Britain was submerged only about 10,200 years ago to become marshland (and later, the English Channel).
It is worth noting that it was about 10-12,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution that the practice of management could be said to have started. The ‘managers’ loosely involved in the Neolithic Revolution could be thought of as the first early managers, although they may not have recognized themselves as such at the time. If we broadly define management as the practice of (1) organizing a group around one or more ideas, (2) acting on the idea(s) as a community or group, (3) reviewing the results, and (4) repeating steps 1-3, the Neolithic Revolution constituted some of the earliest efforts to do just that on a significant scale.
The Neolithic Revolution was the first historically verified agricultural revolution, resulting in the domestication of several types of cereal grains (e.g., barley, wheat, rice, millet) and livestock (e.g., goats, cows, water buffalos, chickens, horses) by about 8,000 years ago. It made settled agriculture possible. The first monarchies arose during this period in Sumeria (ancient Mesopotamia) and ancient Egypt. To put that in context, it was only about 5,500 years ago that wheeled vehicles began to appear (Bronze Age technology), along with canals and sailboats. Recorded history only started about 5,000 years ago in the form of Sumerian Cuneiform script on clay tablets. Unfortunately, we don’t have much reading material to inform us about these early events.
Capitalism came much later — in the 17th century — when merchants took the first steps to convert their excess capital into early factory production technology, and the industrial revolution was born. New sources of power (water, steam, electric, and internal combustion engines, in turn) served to automate manual labor and improve productivity through the early part of the 20th century. Additionally, new technologies were used to improve the productivity of factories and farms.
So, what was management all about in its first 10,000 years? In thinking about this, keep in mind that management practice is part of a society’s culture, and it utilizes widely understood methods. Frederic Laloux, in his book “Reinventing Organizations,” notes that early organizations were either largely tribe-like (his code red), or hierarchical and command-driven (code amber) — such as the Roman Empire or the Catholic Church. More recent organizations have tended to be financially-focused and machine-like (code orange), beginning with the early factories and continuing in today’s large corporations.
Whether it was organizing large irrigation systems (5,000 years ago), building the pyramids (4,500 years ago), Roman aqueducts (2000 years ago), or today’s corporations, the predominant idea of management has been to convert inputs (e.g., manpower and other resources) into outputs (e.g., completed works or activities) in a relatively efficient manner, consistent with the technology of the day. The desired result was a completed construction project, a well-run irrigation system, or a successful corporation. On its face, the first 10,000 of management was about accomplishing tangible and visible activities under direct management control. That still hasn’t changed.
My purpose in this episode is not to recount history, however, but to consider what we need (going forward) to ensure successful management of the future. In the time we have left in this episode, let’s consider what is needed to successfully manage the next 10,000 years.
Let me suggest a context that is likely to be true going forward:
- First, organizations (collectively) will manage the next 10,000 years. Only organizations (business, government and non-profit) have enough resources, power, and control to do the job.
- Second, organizations will be nested and intertwined with other systems, large and small. For instance, organizations contain individuals, yet each individual exists within a family, a family exists within a neighborhood, a neighborhood exists within a community, a community exists within a state and nation, and a nation exists within a global community of nations. Instability within one of these layers often affects the others in various ways.
- Third, management practice (by its nature) is socially constructed and is subject to change. Broadly speaking, management is part of the cultural tapestry of society, and culture has enabled human learning and advancement over the centuries. In short, Homo sapiens have been able to dominate their environment by building up successive layers of culture. The mammal with an advanced culture now dominates the landscape. That same mammal is now managing its environment.
Given the above context, can mankind successfully navigate the next 10,000 years and create a sustainable future? Maybe, but it is important to acknowledge that today’s dominant management paradigm (let’s call it “unconscious capitalism”) has created the world we now live in, and that world seems to be spinning out of control.
The science of cybernetics, which deals with systems and their control, offers some instruction as to why the world seems to be spinning precariously. The first law of cybernetics (Ashby’s law of requisite variety) states that “if a system is to be stable, the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled.” Considering the constellation of global systems, with new technologies ever-increasing the variety of states in the system, today’s control mechanisms are unable to keep pace.
Two clear paths appear to be available to stabilize our world and bring it under intentional management control. The first possibility involves the expansion of the regulatory role of the government to provide greater control over organizations. We could point to some heavy-handed or authoritarian regimes around the world attempting to follow this path. Yet that path is generally unavailable to free societies.
A second path is available and is more congenial to open and democratic administrations. It involves instilling a culture of self-regulation and self-management within each organization in the system so that while going about its activities, it confines itself to the use of positive, higher-order values that accrue benefits to both the organization itself and the greater common good. You may be familiar with the movement called “conscious capitalism.” In a similar vein, this is what Management by Positive Organizational Effectiveness is all about. Regular listeners to this podcast will be familiar with this new approach.
Using Management by Positive Organizational Effectiveness, the task is no longer limited to converting inputs to outputs using objectives specified by management. Rather, the task is to convert inputs into meaningful outcomes within the environment. It is achieved by converting inputs to outputs (on the supply side), while also converting outputs to outcomes (on the demand side). Instead of responding to the arbitrary financial mandates of top management, each organization is reoriented to positively serve the needs of its environment, where customers and other stakeholders live. In this scenario, effectiveness is verified by observing the exchange of benefits between the organization and its environment. First-principles indicate that the exchange of positive outcome-level benefits is necessary for an organization to survive and thrive (and benefit the common good).
Within the context of Management by Positive Organizational Effectiveness, the goal of every organization is the same, that is, to be effective within its environment while improving the whole. This goes beyond the management of visible activities under direct management control (as in the past) to encompass meaningful outcomes that occur in the environment, yet outside of management’s direct control.
It is only with the achievement of meaningful outcomes in the environment that we can be sure that the organization will survive and thrive while improving its surrounding environment over time. We could call this new paradigm “positive capitalism” because it seeks to eliminate the negative aspects of today’s capitalism. Management by Positive Organizational Effectiveness provides a kind of embedded self-regulation and self-management that, when practiced widely, could keep the world from spinning out of control, and help manage the next 10,000 years successfully. I would argue that every organization has a choice to make going forward, either to be part of the problem or part of the solution.
For more information on how to reorient your organization for the next 10,000 years, pick up a copy of my 2017 book, entitled: Become Truly Great: Serve the Common Good through Management by Positive Organizational Effectiveness.
Charles G. Chandler, Ph.D. (email: [email protected])
