The Current Management System Is Obsolete

The current management system was created during the Second Industrial Revolution. At that time (1871–1914), machines had already entered manufacturing, workers had to man the machines, and managers had to manage the workers. The main goal of the system was efficiency: managers had to come up with the most efficient way of doing things, and workers had to do it. Thinking and doing, therefore, became two separate activities assigned to two different groups of people: managers were the thinkers, and workers were the doers.

Now we're in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Machines became robots, and robots became AI. Manual workers became knowledge workers. The main goal of the system moved from efficiency to innovation, change, speed, agility, resilience. And yet, we still use the old management system built for different times, different goals, and different actors. Why?

I don't think anyone can answer this question, but I’ll provide some food for thought:

1. We don't know anything else. It’s a habit. It's how things are done everywhere around us. So when we start scaling a business and things get too complex too fast, we default to the only thing we know.
2. Creating something new is not easy. It takes a lot of time, effort, and trial and error — and there are no guarantees of a successful outcome.
3. Power corrupts (and absolute power corrupts absolutely). Managers are in a position of power, and they have no intention or desire to let go.

To break this pattern, you have to implement a different operating system from the start. What that system will look like depends on your values and goals. It will require some controlled experimentation to shape it because it will be custom-based and, therefore, unique. But that’s the only way to be sure you’re not fighting old-age problems to get to where you want to be in this new age.