There’s no substitute for business advice that’s practical and useful. Yes, I’m talking about suggestions that actually work — as in, they make things better in the real world.
Drivel, on the other hand, is defined as “silly nonsense.” Unfortunately, there’s plenty of it floating around in the field of organizational development.
At their best, management tips and techniques have helped me navigate tough organizational challenges and find clear, successful solutions.
But when you’re in the middle of a structure, process, or people challenge, it’s tough to rise above the chaos and see a way forward. Yes, management thinkers really can be your best friends.
However, not all management thinking is created equal. In my experience, most of it falls into three buckets:
Bucket 1: Interesting, But Not Practical
Much of the academic work around management presents clever concepts that have limited real-world application. These are the kinds of ideas that are fun to think about — but when Monday morning rolls around, you’re left asking, “What exactly am I supposed to do with this?”
Take leadership styles, for example. The theory categorizes leaders as dictatorial, authoritarian, consultative, or participative. Great. So let’s say you want to be more participative — now what? What actions do you take, and what do you tell your team to create that environment?
These theories often answer the what without ever addressing the how. They describe what it means to be a manager, but don’t provide much guidance on how to actually do it. Interesting? Yes. Helpful? Not so much.
Bucket 2: Practical, But Not Useful
In this bucket, you’ll find management ideas that seem practical — but fall apart in execution. These are the ideas that leave you saying, “Well, it looked good on paper…”
One example is the business reengineering craze many organizations jumped on a decade ago. Reengineering called for reinventing the way work was done by redesigning processes and workflows. Sounds practical, right? But in practice, it often resulted in mass layoffs without improved performance. Employees quickly caught on that volunteering for a reengineering initiative wasn’t in their best interest.
Tony Carter, After the Aftermath of Reengineering (1999)
You can usually spot theories in this bucket by how your team responds. When you introduce these ideas, they’re often met with skepticism or confusion. Employees either ignore the advice because they suspect it won’t work, or try it and see poor results. These ideas are quickly abandoned.
Bucket 3: Practical and Useful
As in so many areas of life, we have no shortage of opinions — but wisdom is much harder to find.
Once we set aside the first two buckets, what we’re left with is a smaller group of management approaches that are both practical and useful. The good news? There’s less to learn — because you’re focused on what actually works.
The tools in this bucket are real organizational interventions. They consistently help people navigate structure, process, and people challenges. These are the approaches I’ve leaned on time and time again.
Here are a few examples that have stood the test of time in my own work:
Structure: Jay Galbraith’s Organizational Design Principles
Galbraith emphasized using design principles to ensure that organizational structures achieve their goals. These principles guide the design process, help with trade-off decisions, and keep everyone focused on a shared outcome.
This method helped me align a dozen independent marketing groups within a Fortune 100 company so they could quickly respond to customer needs and unexpected challenges.
🔗 www.jaygalbraith.com
Process: Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle
Deming’s PDCA framework is my go-to for managing improvement projects. It keeps teams focused on gathering data, analyzing root causes, and making meaningful change.
I’ve used this approach to save millions of dollars while improving the quality of products and services.
🔗 asq.org/learn-about-quality/project-planning-tools/overview/pdca-cycle.html
People: Start/Stop/Continue Exercise
‘Start/Stop/Continue’ is a simple group exercise any manager can run. It helps teams move from strategy to action, and it improves alignment, effectiveness, and efficiency.
I’ve had employees tell me this tool has been transformative for their teams — it’s that effective.
🔗 www.mindtools.com/pages/article/SKS-process.htm
There’s a huge volume of management thinking out there — but only a small slice of it is truly practical and useful.
If this post helps raise awareness about the need for real-world, actionable management thinking, then mission accomplished.
This blog does not reflect the opinions of my clients.
[Note: this post, first publishing in 2018 has been updated with new content]
Kevin Anderson, Dr. Organizational Design 