Short audio preview

“Welcome to the revolution!” exclaimed Jo Owen to the London Business Forum. According to Owen, modern management has had its day, it’s no good conforming to the “universal truths that modern management sought.” Owen argued that the advantage is now to be gained from being different, from taking risks and turning opportunity into success.

“Who,” he asked, “was the father of modern management?” Sir Isaac Newton is perhaps not the first name that comes to mind but Owen argues that his enquiries shaped the world of science and modern management. His quest to unravel the mysteries of the universe “opened up the floodgates of the Enlightenment.” The Enlightenment meant that everyone wanted to discover the universal rules that enabled them to better understand and improve the world around them.

Owen argued that there are five drivers of the management revolution and these he said, “will keep it moving forward to the new world disorder.” These drivers are technology, education, affluence, globalisation and recessions. Technology started with the Industrial Revolution: “Technology is not a new thing, it has been with us since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution,” explained Owen. Since the start of this revolution, technological and social progress has been unstoppable and technology will continue to be a driving force for change. For management, technological advancements mean new ways of working, including how you organise and compete.

Globalisation is perhaps one of the most important drivers, particularly because we need to change the way we view it. It is no longer about the globalisation of US and European based companies. “It is about the rest of the world, especially Asia entering the global economy.” China is the number one exporter in the world, the number one investor in Africa, the number one emitter of carbon emissions and is one of biggest economies in the world, second only to America - “We have seen nothing yet!”

Owen urged the London Business Forum to liberate management and to stop following the “universal” rules to management success. Success in “the new world disorder” will not be defined by conformity but by freedom. “When the success model was American it was easier for us to handle,” argued Owen, but we need to understand that “there are fundamentally different rules for survival and success wherever we go.”

The best management book “that you never need buy” said Owen, is Jack Welch’s Control your Destiny or Someone Else Will because “the title says it all.” He concluded by suggesting to the London Business Forum that “finding universal solutions is a bit like searching for smoke in the fog – they don’t exist.”