The Very Practice of Management No Longer Works

THE VERY PRACTICE OF MANAGEMENT no longer works.

The old ways — annual reviews, forced rankings, outdated competencies — no longer achieve the intended results.

The American workforce has more than 100 million full-time employees. One-third of those employees are what Gallup calls engaged at work. They love their jobs and make their organization and America better every day. At the other end, 16% of employees are actively disengaged — they are miserable in the workplace and destroy what the most engaged employees build. The remaining 51% of employees are not engaged — they’re just there.

These figures indicate an American leadership philosophy that simply doesn’t work anymore. One also wonders if the country’s declining productivity numbers point to a need for major workplace disruption. If American companies were simply to double the number of engaged workers from one-third to two-thirds, spirited employees would reverse our seriously declining national productivity. America needs to historically transform the practice of management similar to the way Six Sigma and lean management improved processes in the 1980s.

– JIM CLIFTON, CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF GALLUP

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