REACTION PAPER

REINVENTING MANAGEMENT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY BY BARY HAMEL

Gary Hamel, expert in business management, an entrepreneur and author talked about
in his speech the need to reinvent management in this 21 st century by building organizations
that are not only fit for the future but fit for human beings as well.

He highlighted that for him, the single-most important invention in the last two decades
is the invention of management taking into account the creation of tools, methods or strategies
we use to bring people together and organizing the resources to gain end results.

According to Hamel, these existing management tools, principles and methods are
already outdated which were legacies handed down from gurus, former CEOs and thinkers but
now needs to be reinvented. Change is necessary because organizations now are facing new
sets of challenges on which he identified as 1) Accelerated rate of change, 2) Hyper-
competition, and 3) Knowledge now being a commodity.

Exponential changes, innovation and engaged talents are what organizations need to
take into account in order to start reinventing. As answer to these challenges, Hamel presented
rules that are deemed essential in reinventing the management such as 1) Aim high and start
working, 2) Challenge the Dogma, and 3) Learn from the Fringe.

He closed his talk by motivating people to always be grateful because we are given the
chance to think and live for ourselves; and that we should not underestimate ourselves and just
to continue moving forward for we are resilient and pliant as a bamboo.

Listening to Gary Hamel made me realize that there are indeed people who are gifted
with the skill to make an impact or influence others through words. He is a very good speaker
that all throughout his talk, I only have affirmations on everything he said.

I do agree on his notion that management is one of the greatest inventions in the
history of mankind and I cannot imagine what the world would be without it. I also agree that a
lot of organizations are facing challenges that push them to adjust in order to adapt and
survive. With globalization and passing of time, changes are indeed inevitable, competition is
becoming tight and fierce and everyone is striving for survival. For organizations to survive, they
hire pool of talents that are knowledgeable and can whose contributions are essential to keep
the organization running. However, challenges continuously hunt every organization and one of
which is the challenge to keep their people especially the skilled ones engaged and from
leaving.
 Gary Hamel pointed out some of the challenges I mentioned and even advocated
solutions will really made sense. However, I wished that he elaborated further on what
particular area or practice of management that needs to be reinvented. Despite agreeing to
most of his points, I do believe that management has already started evolving even from years
or decades back. He is not also the first person who proactively talked about the needed
changes.

I believed that management has been continuously evolving. Traditional management is

still used by some but most organizations has long been innovating and growing from the
tradition and basics of management. In most organizations, they have mixed different practices
from old to new and developed their own culture, practices and rules.

Take Japanese people for example they have lived and worked under the influence of
Kaizen, which is a Japanese philosophy for continuous improvement. They improve their crafts
more and more because they believe that theres no more way to go but moving forward. Same
goes with management, people from years or decades ago have already thought whether
unconsciously or consciously and as change demanded that the way they do things, bring
people together and manage their resources need to improve and adapt to this fast-changing
world.