Organizational Partnership

The management style prevalent in the 20th century is referred to by Peter Drucker as “command-and-control management”. The consensus of today’s cutting edge management theorists is that the partnership style of management is the most effective approach for fully utilizing the capabilities of knowledge workers in 21st century organizations. The shift from a command-and-control management style to a partnership management style is a change of paradigm. Riane Eisler in her book The Chalice and the Blade advocates the importance of developing a partnership culture as a means of creating a positive future for humankind.

Organizational leaders who seek to build a partnership culture need to have both a clear understanding of the end in mind, i.e., the characteristics of the organization they wish to establish, and a clear understanding of why those characteristics will enable the organization to prosper in today’s rapidly changing and increasingly competitive marketplace and concurrently contribute to the well-being of organizational members and society.

In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolution, Thomas Kuhn asserted that scientists are often unable to grasp a new theory because it is inconsistent with what they already know to be true. This characteristic influences management’s ability to grasp and embrace a new paradigm of management that breaks the old rules. This challenge is highlighted in tab 4 “A Challenge” under the Human Evolution tab.

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