A (very) brief history of Management

The field of management has been around forever right? ... Well its actually barely 100 years old.

Here's a decade-by-decade breakdown of how we got to where we are now:

Pre-Pre-20th Century: Militarism

• For most of recent history, the biggest "organisations" have been hierarchical command-and-control style structures where decisions are made up the top and everyone else follows step.
• The influenced of military on modern business is a topic for another time ??

Pre-20th Century: Craftsmanship to Industrialization:

• Before the formal study of management, work was organized around the craftsmanship model.
• Individual craftsmen would work complete end-to-end jobs. Since they completed all the work, there was less “organisation” needed.
• The Industrial Revolution introduced the need for more structured management approaches to handle division of labor required for large-scale manufacturing.
• When the work is split up across multiple humans, the problem of "organisation" arrises.

1900s-1920s: The Scientific Management Era

• Frederick W. Taylor proposed that work could be analyzed and optimized using scientific methods.
• He advocated for time studies, standardized work practices, and incentive pay systems to improve efficiency.
• Studies conducted on factory work to break them down to the “minimal movements required” to complete any task.
• Henri Fayol's identifies five management functions (planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling) and 14 principles of management, laying the foundation for modern management theory.

1930s-1940s: Human Relations Movement

• Studies conducted at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant, suggested that workers' productivity increased when they believed they were being observed and cared about.
• This led to a greater emphasis on social factors and employee satisfaction in the workplace.
• Now-famous theories, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs introduced a deeper understanding of human motivation and its impact on management practices.
• Over-scientification of work was on the way out, and acknowledging human motivation was on the way in.

1950s: The Father of Modern Mangement

• Peter Drucker–often considered the father of modern management–introduced concepts still used today like Management by Objectives (MBO), decentralization of decision-making in organisations, the importance of clear, measurable objectives that are agreed upon by both management and employees.
• The "knowledge worker" is born –?Drucker was the first to articulate the shift from manual workers to knowledge workers.
• New management styles needed compared to manual labor workers.

1960s: Too Big To Manage

• Global organisations become so big that decentralization is embraced as a way to respond more rapidly to customer demands and to adapt to faster technological changes.
• The focus of management theory began to shift from optimizing individual tasks → to considering the organization as a whole; including the well-being and motivation of its employees.
• This holistic view helped managers think in terms of relationships, dependencies, and information flows within and outside the organization.
• Computers make optimization and analysis more influential to decision-making.

1970s: Strategic Planning & Big Business

• In a well-optimized market, “what you focus on” becomes the competitive advantage, leading to more resources and focus on strategic planning.
• Formal strategic planning processes became a staple in large corporations, emphasizing long-term planning, analysis of competition, and market positioning.
• Igor Ansoff was a key figure, advocating for a more systematic approach to strategy formulation.
• Analytic frameworks and techniques such as SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) become commonplace.

1980s: Leadership, Culture & Financial Markets

• Warren Bennis was key in drawing the distinction between “leaders” and “managers”, likely due to the rise and bloat of middle-management in large organisations.
• Leaders were for vision, alignment and inspiration, where as managers focus on processes, planning, and problem-solving.
• Corporate culture re-appears as a key determinant of organizational success in the highly complex and decentralized global markets.
• Financial market-ification of everything, filtrates into management. Managers increasingly judged on their ability to deliver quarterly earnings growth and manage stock prices.
• Technology (e.g. Microsoft Excel) continues to rise and be incorporated into every level of the business.

1990s: MBAs, Reengineering and Globalization

• Leaders coming out of newly created MBA programs, focus on redesigning business processes to achieve significant improvements in critical measures of performance, (cost, quality, speed).
• "Business Process Management" started gaining popularity thanks to new technology enabling it to be digitized more effectively.
• Managers were expected to think beyond day-to-day operations.
• They needed to understand broader business strategies and align their team’s work with the organization’s strategic goals.
• Continuous professional development, employee satisfaction are added responsibilities of the manager.

2000s: The Digital Boom and Birth of Agile

• The Agile Manifesto is written in 2001 and defines how software teams run to this day.
• Toyota popularizes lean management principles to reduce waste and focus on moving value through the organisation in a “pull/just-in-time” approach.
• A now fairly mature management discipline starts incorporating wider “emotional intelligence” for better performing teams.
• Digitalization and internet-based “e-Businesses” transformed every business.
• Data-driven management (performance benchmarking, etc) becomes standard practice.

2010s: Agility, Innovation, and Culture

• Agile spreads to other areas of the business, emphasizing flexibility, customer value, and adaptability.
• Eric Ries popularises the The lean startup methodology which influences large and small businesses alike, focusing on rapid iteration, validated learning, and customer feedback.
• Employee wellness starts recognizing the importance of mental health, work-life balance, and creating a positive, inclusive work environment.
• Holocracy (operating businesses as self-organising teams without managers) gains some popularity but never gets of the ground.

2020s: Remote Work, AI Integration and ???

• COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of remote work due to global knockdowns.
• Management by butts-in-seats dies with hybrid-remote becoming the new norm.
• Zoom calls become commonplace for meetings and interviews.
• General purpose AI chatbots enable automation of a range of traditionally hard-to-automate tasks.

Did I miss anything major? How do you think management will change over the current decade?

Let me know in the comments below.

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