Book Review: Radical Management

What we appreciate

• Stephen´s powerful attempt to address the complexity of the current work environment by presenting an appropriate concept of management.The book distills this management concept down to seven principles : delighting clients, self-organizing teams, client-driven iterations, delivering value to clients in each iteration, radical transparency, continuous self-improvement, interactive communication.
• These principles are as convincing as they are challenging, and calls for a different approach to management, leadership, organizational development and innovation. Denning questions the current practice and basic assumptions of management. Against the essence of bureaucracy that the manager knows best and stays in control at all times. “Radical Management” guides us away from the practices of traditional management such as hierarchy, command and control, tightly planned work and impersonal communication.
• The radical manager who aims for delighting his clients and stakeholders, does not only understand the current challenges cognitively. She or he is also willing to give up, as Denning puts it, “some of the psychic satisfactions of being a command-and-control manager: the thrill of exercising power and telling other people what to do, of being seen, to be in charge, of living out tiny Napoleon dreams of power, of being someone who can make an arbitrary decision just for the heck of it.” (p112)
• Consequently, Denning´s Guide tries to translate the seven principles of continuous innovation into actions points, mainly by linking “good practices” of lean management, agile thinking and current leadership debates focusing on what is called post-heroic management.
• Denning managed to include an extensive list of resources and a good summary of thinking that lead to these concepts.  It can serve as a valuable reference to new and experienced managers alike.The book is deliberately aimed at an audience wider than the software community, in keeping with the growing number of Agile teams faced with the effects of organizational change.

What we ask ourselves

• Where are the concrete starting points of becoming a radical manager, given the “pragmatic”, challenges every leader has to cope with on a daily basis? What is the learning journey like that guides you from traditional to radical management? From our point of view the practices offered by Denning are a collection of “good ideas” rather than a specific application of the principles. What are typical patterns for navigating the more than 90 practices? Communicating through this degree of abstraction is likely to leave people confused, or bored due to the lack of flow. In other words: We miss real-life case studies and specific examples how the principles are supposed to be implemented.
• Is it enough in this respect to just repeat the well-known mantra that there are no “simple recipes”, that “you have to create a story for your own, one that fits your own context, its possibilities and constraints” (p226)? For us, here is where the tricky part begins: is there one concept of radical management that fits all organizations? Let alone environmental specifications? Are all organizations equal? What about organizational dynamics powered by political interests as well as cultural values? We are not convinced that impediments resemble real “hurdles” or, “objects to be removed”. By contrast, our experience as consultants and coaches show impediments to be a complex mixture of cultural tension, lacking competence, defensive routines and human behaviour that cannot be analyzed down to a single “root cause,” nor be “solved” just like that.
• Is it wise to introduce yet another management label? Especially such a divisive and overloaded label as “radical.” Does the book build too much on a revolutionary shift of paradigm, polarizing bad and good, falsehood and truth, “deadly serious” (p. 264) traditional management and “funny” (p. 263) radical management? And in doing so, increase the problems of where to begin and how to proceed with the “revolutionary” approach?
• Are the seven principles and long list of practices enough to ensure continuous innovation?  Denning creates the impression that it is, but we feel more is needed.  Innovation does not result from principles or practices, innovation flows from a nurturing culture.

What we got out of the book

• Denning succeeded in contextualizing the importance of “Delighting clients by meeting their unrecognized desires.”  We will aim to delight, and spend time to discover unrecognized desires.
• Denning has taken a step in using process neutral language to describe demands on managers.  We will learn from his example and continue to wordsmith succinct values, principles and practices to help organizations respond to their changing landscape.
• The overwhelming list of practices served as an effective mirror of mistakes we have made with clients.  Less is always more in any journey of change.  No two such journeys are the same, yet we owe it to our clients to provide concrete starting points and techniques to navigate the abundance of management practices.
• We have been re-inspired to meet managers in their “real world,” and to actively seek ways of communicating without abstractions.

Stephen Denning. The Leader´s Guide to Radical Management. Reinventing the Workplace for the 21^st Century. San Francisco (Jossey-Bass) 2010. 326 p.

Find out more about Steven Denning

Find out more about the co-author of this review: Marius de Beer is a software engineer, coach, consultant, mentor and trainer.

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Tags: book, change management, Leadership, management