The Heretic’s Guide to Management: The Art of Harnessing Ambiguity

225 Pages·2016·3.59 MB·English

by  Paul M Culmsee

The Heretic’s Guide to Management
The Art of Harnessing Ambiguity

PAUL CULMSEE
AND
KAILASH AWATI
The Heretic’s Guide to Management The Art of Harnessing Ambiguity
Copyright © 2016 by Paul Culmsee and Kailash Awati All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic,
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information
storage retrieval system without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.
While the publisher and the authors have used good faith efforts to ensure that
the information contained in this work is accurate, the publisher and authors
disclaim all responsibility for error or omissions, including without limitation,
responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance on this work. Use
of the information contained in this work is at your own risk.
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links
contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer
be valid ISBN: 978-0-9946314-0-4 (e-book) ISBN: 978-0-9946314-1-1
(paperback) ISBN: 978-0-9946314-2-8 (hardcover)
Heretics Guide Press
PO Box 3816
Marsfield NSW 2122
Australia www.hereticsguidebooks.com First Printing: 2016
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Six Easy Steps…
2. The Unbearable Inconsistency of Management Knowledge
3. Seesaws and Fetishes
4. What a Bunch of Needy Types
5. Causes, Conditions and the Replication Crisis
6. Wicked Problems
7. Good Teddies, Bad Teddies
Coda
It Ends With Us
References
About the Authors
More Publications By the Authors
Acknowledgements
Paul:
To my colleagues/friends/collaborators who either influenced or helped shape
this book. In no particular order, John Robertson, Mike Kapitola, Neil Preston,
Andrew Jolly, Chris Tomich, Peter Chow, Du Le, Bill Cullen, Paul Taplin,
Robert Bogue, Lou Zulli, Simon Buckingham-Shum, Lee Horn, Ryan Scott,
Arthur Shelley, Vanessa Oats, Margot Wood, William Wardlaw Rogers, Jeff
Conklin, KC. Burgess Yakemovic, and Jess Steele.
To my father, Mike Culmsee, who once again reviewed the manuscript and
made us take out our excessive use of parentheses.
Especially to my wife Terrie and my wonderful kids, Ashlee and Liam. For their
support, feedback and patience.
Kailash:
Management books tend to draw heavily on the experiences of their authors.
This book is no exception. To this end, I've been fortunate to interact with a
large number of individuals who drew my attention to some of the paradoxes
and subtleties of managing ambiguity. They are too numerous to mention by
name so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them collectively.
A big thank you to Yasuhiro Nishimi, En-Hao Chua, Anusha, A. Alexis-Ann
Dizon and Joe Helo for their help and support over the last few years.
It is my pleasure to acknowledge interesting conversations on ambiguity and
other matters with Chris Tomich, Simon Buckingham-Shum and Karuna
Ramanathan.
I’ve benefited from the ongoing support of numerous friends from the BITS
Pilani alumni community. Thanks guys … and I know you’ll all forgive me for
not calling you out by name.
Finally, and most crucially, my deepest appreciation to Arati, Rohan and Vikram
who, quite unambiguously, make it all worthwhile.
Paul and Kailash:
We have to call out one person in particular. Ashlee Culmsee, a very skilled and
talented artist whose wonderful work graces not only the cover of this book, but
all of the diagrams throughout. In between study for final year exams, she still
managed to not only bring our ideas to life, but give them a character all their
own. Thank you so much, Ashlee. You did an outstanding job!
Preface
The first thing that will strike anyone who has read (or even just browsed) our
previous book is this one is considerably shorter. This is deliberate: after
churning out a book that ended up being 411 pages, this time around we wanted
to create something a little less like a double quarter-pounder with extra cheese.
In keeping with that, we will be equally brief with this preface.
Our first book, The Heretics Guide to Best Practices, was written five years ago
(three years ago if you count the reprint). In between, a lot changed for us
professionally: Kailash moved to Singapore to set up an IT Service Centre and
Paul had a go at the world of start-up companies. In that time, we spoke to each
other regularly, and one of the topics that kept coming up in our conversations
was that we should do another book. The basic theme presented itself gradually
through our almost daily experiences in dealing with ambiguity.
Most management techniques aim to reduce or eliminate ambiguity.
Unfortunately, they usually suck at it and somewhat ironically, often increase it.
This is reflected in a tragedy that plays out over and over again: a new technique
or approach promises plenty, but when applied, delivers much less and ends up
being labelled a fad.
Although most fads start out as legitimate efforts to finally get things organised,
they all seem to come undone because of inherent contradictions that become
apparent only after they’ve been around for a while. There is good reason for
this: management techniques deal with what can be seen—the external
manifestations of thoughts, actions and events. By and large, they do not address
the effect that ambiguity has on people’s thoughts, intentions and behaviours.
But this is precisely where the problem is. Unless one understands ambiguity
and its effects on individuals, it is highly unlikely that any management method
will get anywhere at all.
In this book, we place ambiguity centre stage, and do so in a way that we hope
you will find both informative and entertaining. Like our previous book, there is
irreverence and humour, but be warned that you may have your cherished beliefs
tested. Ah, and as the cover suggests, you’ll likely meet a few teddy bears along
the way, teddies you will probably recognise as being tightly held by your
colleagues and friends.
Enough said! We hope you’re intrigued enough to read on.
Paul and Kailash (Perth/Sydney, June 2016)
1
Six Easy Steps…
Guru: Hey! Who wants to get rich today?
Homer Simpson: (among a chorus of voices): Me! Me! - Me! Me! Me! Me! I
said it first.
Guru projects a picture of a pyramid on a flipchart marked with a red cross
Guru: “Let me assure you that this is not one of those “shady” pyramid schemes
you've been hearing about…”
Guru replaces pyramid picture with projects a modified one with a flattened top
Guru: Our model is the trapezoid that guarantees each investor an 800% return
within hours of your initial…
Sirens blare in the distance…
Guru: Uh-oh! The cops!
Guru jumps out of the window…