As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and reflect on the impact that his seminal work, ‘The Origin of Species’ has had on modern day thinking what about the evolution of the engineering manager – is ‘survival of the fittest’ still true in today’s turbulent times?
Management, in itself, was not recognised as a ‘profession’ until the mid 20th century. Up until then business enterprises were small concerns and owners ran their businesses by and for themselves. Arguably the first management book printed was Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’ published in 1776. It is a fantastic book and still as relevant today – even as financial institutions seemingly fall apart around us.
Nothing much changed in the world of commerce over the next 150 years. Although many philosophical and scientific papers were published in the interim but these were only accessible to a privileged few. The first edition of the Times newspaper appeared in November 1814, made possible by the purchase of one of the first models of the Koenig and Bauer steam press (based upon Gutenberg’s 15th century screw press). And the thoughts and ideas including those surrounding the science of engineering began to reach the populace.
Mass production arrived with the industrial revolution and the size and complexity of organisations grew rapidly. This made it necessary to divide responsibilities between owners and day-to-day ‘managers’. And with mass production came the concept of piece work and the science of time and motion spearheaded by F.W. Taylor who published ‘The principles of scientific management’ in 1911. His view was that by analysis the ‘one best way’ would be found.
In 1946 Peter Drucker published his book ‘Concept of the corporation’ and with it earned the title ‘the father of modern management’. Based on research carried out within General Motors he was the first business thinker to consider a large organisation as a socially responsible entity. In so doing he observed how the division and management of labour affected efficiency and hence profitability.
Charles Handy started writing management books in 1983 after a successful career with Shell International. He published ‘Gods of management’ in 1985 where he correctly predicted that the paternal (Zeus) organisational culture would have to give way to a more existential (Dionysus) culture to capture and retain the management talent leaving full-time education today – euphemistically called Generation Y.
During the period between Drucker’s and Handy’s organisational treaties management in itself became recognised as a ‘profession’ and the MBA a given for any young wannabe manager. Advancement is now in the hands of the individual and gained more by moving role and less so on tangible results. If an organisation does not contain a healthy mix of differing personality types then process and procedure can be sacrificed in the rush to embracing the ‘Dionysus’ culture. In these cases keeping track of a manager’s and indeed the organisation’s performance can be a challenge.
Do our academic institutions produce fully mature engineering managers or do these creatures only emerge after some years of industrial nurturing? In his ‘The Origin of Species’ Darwin observed that species survived because they evolved to make the best use of their constantly changing environment. So successful engineering managers develop in the real world and do not emerge fully-fledged from academic institutions. Indeed if these institutions continue to adapt and broaden their syllabuses to attract, and more importantly retain, students there may be fewer and fewer engineering graduates entering the marketplace.
As our traditional heavy industries migrate to the Far East and are replaced by service industries run on CRM a gap is opening up between creative engineering and day-to-day management. Yes, leading edge industries still remain in the West but many thousands complete for places within them. A young person today may be forgiven for thinking that a successful career as an engineering manager is beyond their reach and take an ‘easier’ option – I understand media studies is currently very popular.
For as long as the dance between technology and customer driven markets continues the management of engineers by engineers will be required. So in order to underpin the business of the future we must put engineering managers on the endangered species list right away.
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