Management Perspectives - 2nd edition

In management, the administrative ideal often boils down to a universal, infallible technique that guarantees success. In this light, all you need to do is master a technique, and you're in business! But the reality is far from simple. Managers have to meet the challenges of productivity, efficiency, competitiveness and legitimacy, all at the same time, with no guarantee of success. However, they have no choice but to attempt to meet the challenges that reality imposes on them, and to do so, they can rely on four administrative frameworks with a technical flavour: operational, structural, strategic and governance frameworks. Above all, managers must be able to combine these four frameworks coherently. They must design a strategy that respects the governance framework, while implementing an appropriate structure and operations.

Moreover, as if implementing administrative frameworks and finding the alchemy that brings them together weren't already a highly delicate and complex task, now managers must also know how to handle social perspectives so as to be able to decode the human reality at work beneath technical frameworks. They need to understand that an organization cannot be effective unless its human reality is taken into account. To deny political games, to turn one's back on symbolic issues, to neglect psychological stakes and to ignore the cognitive dimension of organized life, is not only to deprive oneself of an understanding of the reality of the organization, it is to put at risk the achievement of its objectives. To be relevant, today's managers must therefore deal with the complex reality of organizations, a reality that is both technical and social. Playing the complexity game, wielding techniques and juggling social perspectives - that's the challenge facing managers who aspire to be as effective as they are human, and that's the aim of this book.