In this month’s Boss magazine there is a 1/4-Page article by Narelle Hooper titled Tool Time that compares the Top Ten ranked management tools of 2006/07 versus 2008/09.  Hooper reports that ‘the recent lurch in imperatives to cost cutting is reflected in a rising popularity of techniques and outsourcing’.  She reports that 2008/09 business leaders ranked management tools in this order…

  1. Benchmarking
  2. Strategic planning
  3. Mission and values statements
  4. Customer relationship management
  5. Outsourcing
  6. Balanced scorecard
  7. Customer segmentation
  8. Business process re-engineering
  9. Core competencies
  10. Mergers and acquisitions

What is interesting to me is that there is no mention, or even hint at, the use of tools for creative thinking, or indeed any disciplined thinking approach, and innovation is also conspicuously absent.  Indeed it seems to reflect a return to the same techniques that created most of the problems companies face today.  I can only assume that business leaders do not see creativity or innovation as valid management tools.

  • Strategic Thinking needs to precede Strategic Planning
  • Understanding process capability precedes process re-engineering
  • We need people who can see things in new ways before benchmarking, or developing mission and values statements
  • The competency to ‘think’ should be the core competency companies develop in their people is , but there is no mention of this

Will our leaders ever understand that success is driven by creative, perceptive, and inspired people who can think divergently to find new solutions – not just old style use of the primarily convergent methods they rank so highly?