Barely managing

It seems to me that it is the acts, decisions, behaviour, and even the sheer existence of managers that cause public services and so many other businesses to be as bad and expensive as they are.
Bit extreme?
I don't think so. I'm not criticising the people themselves. Although I believe that at least a few managers, at least occasionally, realise that what they are actually doing is creating high cost, low quality services. We've seen it in local government, the health service, housing associations, and all manner of other more commercial businesses.
Our modern conception of management is basically the same one devised by Frederick Winslow Taylor over 100 years ago.

That's him.
He devised Scientific Management. He was very important and his ideas, together with those of Henry Ford, led to leaps in the way manufacturing, commercial services and government administration is organised. A very important change in thinking which revolutionised the way organisations work. The basic principles remain the same today embedded in this command and control philosophy. Top down functional hierarchies, controls, such as performance management frameworks with their "baskets " of Performance Indicators and SMART targets, and Golden Threads, cascading objectives, Mission Statements and the ultimate insult to humanity - "corporate behaviours" (where people are sent on courses to teach them how to empathise!) Bloated Human Resources departments, and Organisational Development & Business Improvement Directorates. It all seems so normal, so par for the course, making up the hegemonic values - the tacit assumptions and "common sense" of modern management.

However, a new revolution in management thinking is now needed. Indeed it has begun.
Systems Thinking is not understood by most managers. It will be considered alongside project management approaches like 'Prince 2' and becoming more popular - "Lean" as another tool or set of tools. But it is not a tool. It is different way - markedly different from the last 100 years of management thinking. You can't apply it using the same tired old assumptions, half baked methodology and flawed psychology. You can't add it to your toolbox!
'Management' has to unlearn everything it thinks it knows, including most of what is taught on MBAs.

Another day, I'll tell you why.