Reengineering Management Essay Research Paper Reengineering Management

Reengineering Management Essay, Research Paper

?Reengineering Management (RM)? is a great book written by James Champy. Other than the one published before, which was ?Reengineering the Corporation?, this books directed to all managers in all levels. It is about changing managerial work, the way we should think, organize, inspire, deploy, measure and reward the value-adding operational work.

This book is a following one for ?reengineering the Corporation? written by Michael Hammer and James Champy. You?ve redesigned your company?s processes, organization, and culture. Now, how do you manage it?

Champy examines the successes and failures of reengineering, and cites the failure of management to change as the greatest threat to the success of reengineering. Champy attempts to develop a subject that was not given adequate attention in Reengineering the Corporation. Managers must change how they work if they are to realize the full benefits of reengineering.

Champy begins with the impact of reengineering on managers. Managers must create change, big change and fast. According to Champy, managers most fear the loss of control. Modern managers do not command or manipulate, but share information and educate. They must replace old ways of thinking with new ideals and expectations associated with letting go. These include replacing perfectionist thinking with experimental thinking, and “getting it right” credos with “making it better and better” credos. Managers must have faith in human beings to do the right thing. The authority of the organization chart is giving way to the ability to do a job better for the customer. Customer needs, not internal values, should guide the manager’s performance.

Reengineering changes everything. Managers cannot successfully support a reengineering effort unless they too change. And they need to change in the areas of purpose, culture, processes, and people. But what does that mean? Champy tries to answer this question. He suggests that managers today must focus on four questions:

1. What is this business for?

2. What kind of culture do we want?

3. How do we do our work?

4. What kind of people do we want to work with?

The book is based on answering these questions, defining what they include, and outlining behaviors that managers should use to answer them. Champy states that management processes are the underpinning of management reengineering, and defines new core management processes for the reengineered manager.

Champy is successful at communicating the impact of change required for managers. It provides an understanding of what a manager’s job will be in the new era. In the new order, one of a manager’s most critical jobs is to explain what is going on and why (purpose). In doing this, the manager must be able to restate the business purpose and fully mobilize the company for change. Not only must the manager communicate why the company is changing, but he/she must give a vision of what the organization is moving toward, so that people can cope with the sense of loss associated with change.

With reengineering, hierarchy will be reduced. The quality of people’s attachment to their work and to each other will be rearranged. Culture will determine how the organization runs, not structure. Managers who can reorganize high-morale teams around the needs of changing processes will be successful in the future. There must be a tight fit between the values of the company, the language in which it expresses them, and the way it makes its profits. Leaders, according to Champy, must embody these values and communicate them by acts as well as words. Champy provides steps for changing the culture:

1) Determine what values are deeply shared by people.

2) Articulate what values and behaviors are important.

3) Examine management processes to determine if they support aspirations for values and behavior.

4) Start teaching, doing and living the values to define the culture.

Perhaps Champy’s strongest contribution through this book is his explanation of how managers will do their work. He identifies five core management processes that need to be reassembled in line with the core mission for quick dramatic bottom-line results. These include mobilizing, enabling, defining, measuring and communicating. Mobilizing is the process by which a company and its people are brought to the point where they accept the changes that reengineering entails. It includes a compelling reason and vision. Enabling is redesigning work so that people can exercise their skills and capabilities to the fullest extent possible. This is also known as empowering. Mangers have to give up control. The culture needs to purposefully assure that people will behave the way the business needs them to behave. Defining/Dedicating is leadership through continuous experimentation that includes learning from comparisons and then learning to act on what is learned. Measuring includes identifying process results that will accurately evaluate business performance. Measurement in the new era includes self-assessment, peer evaluation and assessment of managers by their direct reports. And finally communicating involves managers continually making the case for change in specifics that identify the “what’, the “how”, and the impact on employees’ lives. The manager as coach must give employees the tools they need to do their jobs, remove obstacles that hinder team performance, and challenge the imagination by sharing information. The sum of all the coach’s actions is to give the team ownership of the game and to build trust.

Champy focuses on people, their skills and, most important, the values that people bring to the company. This is people-focused management as Champy calls it.

Champy examines the challenge of bringing recruiting, performance evaluation and compensation in sync with culture, customer results and the business of the organization.

According to some interpreters Champy?s communication style is inspirational and motivational, but is not very well organized. Hammer and Stanton are more pragmatic with their “bite the bullet” advice for participating in their book; ?The Reengineering Revolution?. Champy, on the other hand, just announces a new revolution.

Johnson and Johnson used the system and prevailed. Also Tenneco Inc. uses the book as a required reading for their managers.

In conclusion, the process Champy defines is costly to the company and is hard to set, but well worth it.

Bibliography

MBA student