Jurassic management

Abstract

Current orthodoxy in management text and training is the human resource management model which has its origins in the excellence and quality models of US business writings. Investigates the failure of “Jurassic management”: visioning, consensus value systems, proactively created teams, and development planning. Just as Jurassic Park failed, so will self‐managing schools and colleges unless they recognize that certain management development programmes are leading them into disaster. Argues that organizations should not be seeking stability with the environment and meeting the needs of customers, but should be creating the environment and celebrating professional competence. Shows that Chaos Theory can be applied to educational institutions in order to identify that survival in turbulent times is based on the capacity of educational managers to make rather than control the future. Management development is at a critical point whereby the choices will create the future: the key learning outcome from Chaos Theory is that self‐organization and micropolitics are essential to understanding organizational survival and development.