21st Century Management - Where everyone manages

In the 20th century, management was largely handled by managers and supervisors who communicated with the people doing the work. In most cases, workers were responsible for managing their own time to get work done.

Near the end of the 20th century, globalization, developments in technology and outsourcing caused managers to start looking for management solutions that can operate both within and beyond their organization. At lot of solutions were proposed, but most were incremental improvements to existing management practices.

At the start of the 21st century, technological advances have facilitated the rise of social media websites that allow people to communicate with other people from any browser from anywhere at any time. Mobile web browsers have further expanded this connectivity. However while social media solutions offer the potential to be used for managing work, there are few practical examples of this use.

One of the greatest strengths of social media is that it provides enough structure for people to interact in a meaningful way when they want to. However the type of structure provided is unsuitable to plan, implement and sustain work.

There is a valid concern that social interactions take time away from productive work. Also, social media lacks the structure required to manage work. However a management solution that provides the ease of use, reach, access, and data handling capacity of social media websites offers significant potential for a 21st century management solution.
Some examples of current constraints and workarounds that need to be overcome are:
•Working together requires both parties to use compatible methods - so relevant training is important.
•There are so many management methods that it is hard to work out which methods are best for your situation - so consultants with experience are employed.

•Your team may not posses all the knowledge and skills required to do a particular job - so parts of the work are outsourced.

•You need to know what is happening - so meetings, requests for information, and reports are used to find out. Often the people doing the work find these interruptions unhelpful and they feel untrusted.

•People need to know what to do - so they work out what tasks are relevant to them and what they need to do for these tasks. Usually they keep a list of actions they need to do, so they don't forget to do something.

•To allocate work, managers need to know what people are doing - so they keep asking people. This causes interruptions and breaks down trust.

•Work needs to be coordinated; so time needs to be allocated for meetings, phone calls, emails, instant messaging, videoconferencing, etc. to keep all team members on the same sheet of music.

In the future, many current constraints can be overcome by smart methods and technology. Most importantly, the success of social media shows that people are willing to participate when they see real personal benefits.
This take up of networking technologies suggests that the time is right to introduce the management methods and tools that can do a lot of the management processing that was done manually in 20th century solutions. This will provide the ease of use, reach, access, and data handling capacity needed to eliminate many 20th century constraints, and most importantly, the workarounds currently employed.

By eliminating these constraints, everyone can manage their work faster and easier with significant cost savings in time, training, and consulting. Most importantly, reducing the need for manual processes that reduce trust and generate stress, will give more time for value adding management functions like leading and strategic planning.
By,
Dr Neil Miller.