Fourth Generation Management

The New Business Consciousness

McGraw-Hill, 1994

15 min read

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What's inside?

What will replace managing-by-objectives? Managing by outcome, and here is how it is done, with a focus on customers, quality, and fixing systems not just products.

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To survive in today’s business environment, it’s not enough to just keep improving – you have to do it faster than the other guy does. Brian L. Joiner provides valuable direction in how to get better faster. This approach transcends goal-based management by focusing on the needs of the customer. Only then do apparent contradictions between customer service and cost-cutting become manageable again. The author admits that the teachings of management guru W. Edwards Deming heavily influences his advice. getAbstract recommends this very helpful work to managers searching for a more enlightened, more effective approach. It will be particularly useful for those who need a strong rationale to do what they already think is right.

Summary

Shortcomings of M.B.O.

Fourth Generation Management is the most effective way you can run your organization. First Generation Management was management by doing - "if you want something done, do it yourself." Second Generation Management was also management by doing - the boss ordered people around. Third Generation Management is management by results - also known as management by objectives. It involves telling your staff what you want done, but not how to do it.

Third Generation Management is an improved method, but not the best. In complex organizations where teamwork and interaction are critical, managers soon learn that there are only three ways of getting better results. First, they can make fundamental improvements that lead to better quality and greater efficiency. This can be difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and risky. Second, managers can distort the circumstances, improving the measured result at the expense of unmeasured factors. These factors are equally important but not quantifiable, or they affect another department, and thus are not in the manager’s departmental report. The third way to achieve stated objectives is simply to distort the figures...

About the Author

Dr. Brian L. Joiner studied management practices for many years. A graduate of the University of Tennessee and Rutgers, he began as a statistician working in quality management. He spent eight years with the U.S. National Bureau of Standards. In 1963, he met W. Edwards Deming, the management innovator who so effectively taught the Japanese about quality. Deming influenced all of Joiner’s subsequent work. Joiner and other experts worked ten years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to find way to use statistical principles to improve management. He worked extensively with Japanese quality experts, including Professor Noriaki Kano.

Brian L. Joiner

Fourth Generation Management

The New Business Consciousness

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Shortcomings of M.B.O.

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