By Joseph Pistrui & Dimo Dimov
For almost 100 years, management has been associated with the five basic functions outlined by management theorist Henri Fayol: planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling.
These have become the default dimensions of a manager. But they relate to pursuing a fixed target in a stable landscape. Take away the stability of the landscape, and one needs to start thinking about the fluidity of the target. To help organizations meet today’s challenges, managers must move from being:
Directive to instructive
What will be needed from managers is the ability to think differently about the future in order to shape the impact AI will have on their industry. This means spending more time exploring the implications of AI, helping others extend their own frontiers of knowledge and learning through experimentation to develop new practices. Learning, not knowledge, will power organizations into the future, and the central champion of learning should be the manager.
Restrictive to expansive
Too many managers micromanage. Managers today need to draw out everyone’s best thinking.
Exclusive to inclusive
Managers need to bring a diverse set of thinking styles to bear on the challenges they face. Truly breakaway thinking gets its spark from the playful experimentation of many people exchanging their views, integrating their experiences and imagining different futures.
Repetitive to innovative
Organizations need managers to think much more about innovating beyond the status quo—and not just in the face of challenges.
Problem-solver to challenger
The role of today’s manager calls for finding better ways to operate the firm—by challenging people to discover new and better ways to grow, and by reimagining the best of what’s been done before.
Employer to entrepreneur
Being entrepreneurial is a mode of thinking, one that can help us see things we normally overlook and do things we normally avoid. Thinking like an entrepreneur simply means expanding your perception and increasing your action—both of which are important for finding new gateways for development. And this would make organizations more future facing—more vibrant, alert, playful—and open to the perpetual novelty it brings.
Joseph Pistrui is a professor at IE Business School in Madrid. Dimo Dimov is a professor at Bath University in England.