Process Management Improves The Horizontal Flow

"Major breakthroughs in time to market, investment, piece cost, and quality come horizontally across the organization, not vertically through individual, isolated functions. And it is our business schools that have not taught how to manage process across functions." — Louis Lataif, Dean of the School of Management, Boston University quoted in, "MBA: Is the Traditional Model Doomed?", Harvard Business Review

A group of sailors were out in an old boat. The boat hit a rock and sprung a slow leak. The group began to fight over whose fault it was that they hit the rock. Then they argued over whose responsibility it was to fix the hole. Those on the starboard side shouted that those on the port side, where the hole was, should be responsible for fixing it. All the while, the boat filled with water and floundered in the increasing heavy seas. As the shouting and finger pointing grew, a large wave swamped the boat. Everyone drowned at sea.

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Please feel free to comment or discuss the article.

Regards,
Simon

What about the "Divide et impera" principle ?

It's the opposite way of managing organizations and it has been in place ever since: it's just human nature

IMHO this is the reason why many organizations are still managed according to "divide et impera" or functional approaches.

Only managers with a long range view may deal with Process approach

At the beginning of last century there was poor knowledge in the workers and the Taylorist functional model was effective.

Nowadays the scenario is becoming more and more complex every day, managers are facing many different problems and knowledge is spread over many people in the organization.

That's why I think that functional model will be trespassed by process model, or maybe somewhere is already trespassed but the Top Management rejects the idea of losing power.

Stakeholders must understand that Processing is an opportunity, not a threat

Hello Franco,

"Divide et impera" I think in English translates into "Divide and conquer." I believe any organisation or individual manager who maintains such an approach will eventually be vanquished themselves. However, I fear that it will take a long time to achieve full transition to this modern way of managing the business. I have often as a middle manager been treated like a mushroom…i.e. kept in the dark and fed on bull#!$#!.

Have a great weekend.
Simon