The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a Competitive Organization

Chapter 5The ZookeeperToday's Manager

I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.

—Ender Wiggin, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Manager of the Past/Today

Now that we have a picture of what employees of the future look like and how they will work, the next step is to understand what future managers are going to look like and how they need to adapt their approaches and leadership practices.

Frederick Winslow Taylor was a mechanical engineer who is credited as being the father of scientific management, a concept designed to improve labor productivity and operational efficiency by analyzing work. His original idea focused on having more managerial control over workers, which meant more managers. Although Taylor died in 1950 it's hard to look around today's corporate world and not see many of his ideas in action today. Take, for example, the role of the manager as someone who should control and enforce.

According to Taylor (Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management, cited by Montgomery 1989, 229):

It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.

Now, although the concept of scientific management ...