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2020 | Book

Lateral Management

A New Approach to Strategic Transformation in the Digital Era

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About this book

This book highlights lateral management as the answer to the strategic opportunities and challenges posed by digital transformation. Digitalization is now changing the economy and society as dramatically as the dawn of electrification a century ago. Production methods, products, sales structures, marketing, and even markets themselves are set to change in the digital era.
In addition to introducing readers to the concept of lateral management, and detailing the structure and functioning of 'lateral companies', the authors show how leadership and cooperation norms carried over from the 20th century need to be adapted for the digital era. They demonstrate the opportunities that digitalization offers companies, employees and managers in terms of enhancing their freedom, individuality, job diversity, and creative and innovative power. The authors also provide a unique management instrument, the 'Lateral Culture Index®', which measures the hierarchies of leadership; provide new benchmarks; and identify seven essential factors for lateral companies. Readers will learn how to implement lateral management in their companies and be familiarized with the instruments that can help them do so.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Creative Destruction—The Digital Revolution and Its Consequences
Abstract
During the reading of the last chapter, you may have wondered what the digitization of football has to do with our economic world. Well, football has always been an indicator of social conditions. Because in the microcosm of football it is always about the relationship between the individual and the team, about business and emotion, about competing systems. For example, the former coach of the Argentinian national team, César Luis Menotti, and the German ex-football professional Günter Netzer stood for “left-wing football” in the 1970s and represented the spirit of the times. Jürgen Klinsmann’s DFB players redefined the “Brand Germany” in the “Summer Fairy Tale” 2006—and introduced the principle of self-responsibility into the DFB team, which had previously been characterized by hierarchies.
Roland Geschwill, Martina Nieswandt
Chapter 2. A Brief History of the Management Ideas of the Twentieth Century
Abstract
At the turn of the century, around 1900, a new working class gradually introduced itself into the modern production lines. Managers also appeared in new guises. At the end of the nineteenth century, when the “manager” was head of a variety theatre in the USA, managers took over the management of factories, companies and banks without being personally and economically liable for mistakes.
Roland Geschwill, Martina Nieswandt
Chapter 3. Cracks in the World View of Classical Management
Abstract
In the 1970s, information technology began its triumphant march through German companies. At first electronic data processing, which was unpopular with traditionalists, was only seen as a cost factor, but this soon changed. In all corporate forms, Weber’s staff and line model and Ford’s logic of division of labour and hierarchization of workflows came under functional pressure.
Roland Geschwill, Martina Nieswandt
Chapter 4. A Brief History of Successful Lateral Organizations
Abstract
Lateral management is based on the principle of self-responsibility. The idea behind this is that people in companies work more motivated if they can take responsibility and make their own decisions. Tom Peters and Bob Waterman describe eight outstanding characteristics of top companies in In Search of Excellence. One is called: Productivity through people.
Roland Geschwill, Martina Nieswandt
Chapter 5. Lateral Management in the Twenty-First Century
Abstract
If one looks at studies on digital transformation, then new forms of leadership and cooperation seem to play hardly any role in companies. In a 2015 study conducted by Cisco together with the International Institute for Management Development (Global Center for Digital Business Transformation 2015), more than 1000 decision-makers from 12 industries and 13 countries were interviewed.
Roland Geschwill, Martina Nieswandt
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Lateral Management
Authors
Dr. Roland Geschwill
Dr. Martina Nieswandt
Copyright Year
2020
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-46496-7
Print ISBN
978-3-030-46495-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46496-7