The future of work is high on chief executives’ agendas. But, at a recent forum where senior managers from major companies agreed that changes, such as automation, artificial intelligence, the rise of non-traditional competitors and advances in manufacturing, were imminent, few had conceived strategies for how their organisations might respond.
It is surprising because mainstream management thinking assumes that managers reign supreme in determining the affairs of their company. The manager, as homo economicus — the “rational agent” beloved of economists and finance theorists — chooses the most preferential strategic option from a range of scenarios based on rational calculation of what will achieve the optimal economic outcome. And MBA courses are part of the problem.
Choice equals control, and the more information we have at our disposal, so the theory goes, the better we can exercise choice. Data are ever more abundant and accessible, so surely managers are increasingly capable of exercising choice and controlling the conditions necessary for success?