The Book Series - Management 3.0

* Management 1.0 is traditional top-down decision-making.

* Management 2.0 improves upon traditional management with agile principles adoption and continuous improvement.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the summary I never remember when I think of this book. 

I love this book. Jurgen Appelo is a great speaker and a greater writer. He is characteristically blunt. One of the chapters goes along the lines of: a manager delegates to his team members is not an art of altruism, he does it so that he has the time to do things he wants to - and proceed to retreat to his ivory tower. , Though he probably would prefer "Dutch frankness" instead. He tells jokes with an emotionless straight face. My kind of joke.

Management 3.0 laid out a complete framework to revamp leadership. There were 5-6 principles built around some other theories, like complexity, game, and network. There is more to that half-ass summary, the details are just a Google away if you are interested. What makes this book unique to me is actually the discussion of management theories before diving into good/bad practices. Each principle is split into two chapters, one on the theory and the other on the execution. Other works in this genre tend to be more dogmatic if I could say so.

 

I am no expert in complexity science. There is a non-zero chance all this theory inclusion is pseudo-science. But I like the attempt and pseudo or not, there is a framework to cling to when in doubt. And there will be a lot of doubts. Management-books-praise-human-ability-to-self-organize-but-that-doesn't-seem-to-cover-my-staff-inertia-to-stay-put kind of doubt. To be frank, the stark contrast between fiction and non-fiction typically comes with management literature exists here as well. There is no unicorn.

Management 3.0 since its debut a decade ago has exploded in popularity though. There are training courses, consultant programs, and god damned certifications. It is going down the dark commercial beaten path all so well-known Agile has trodden before. And that dented my heart a bit. But hey one can only retreat to his ivory tower with a fat bank account.

I still think you should give it a try though.