Marvin Bower (1903 – 2003)
American business leader, considered by the Harvard Business School as "the father of modern management consulting.
Planning the organization structure: ...
Establishing policies: ...
Establishing management programs and operational plans: ...
... for all the reasons we have discussed in these pages, judgments brought to the board by leaders are likely to be better than those coming to the board in a command company. Moreover, the effective working relationships between leaders and directors in a leadership company further ensures the exercise of sound judgments for such momentous decisions ...
In large-scale organizations, the factual approach must be constantly nurtured by high-level executives. The more layers of authority through which facts must pass before they reach the decision maker, the greater the danger that they will be suppressed, modified, or softened, so as not to displease the "brass". For this reason, high-level executives must keep reaching for facts or soon they won't know what is going on. Unless they make visible efforts to seek and act on facts, major problems will not be brought to their attention, the quality of their decisions will decline, and the business will gradually get out of touch with its environment.
People should be judged on the basis of their performance, not nationality, personality, education, or personal traits and skills.
Fourteen basic and well-known managing processes make up the components from which a management system for any business can be fashioned.
Providing facilities: ...
Providing control information: ...
A business of high principle attracts high-caliber people more easily, thereby gaining a basic competitive and profit edge.
I believe that leaders and leadership teams working together in a proper design will run the business more effectively than by hierarchical, command-and-control managing. But I can't prove that. And there are no models.
Establishing procedures: ...
Developing a company philosophy: ...
Decisions should be based on facts, objectively considered — what I call the fact-founded, thought-through approach to decision making.