False Prophets: The Gurus Who Created Modern Management and Why Their Ideas are Bad for Business

James Hoopes (Persus Publishing, 2003)

Review by Ken Mitchell

 

The basic premise of this book is that the fundamental theories about the use of organizational power, as conceived by the founding gurus of organizational be-havior theory, have misguided manag-ers. Hoopes zeros in on eight well-known gurus who include Frederick W. Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, H. L. Gantt, Mary Parker Follett, Elton Mayo, Chester Barnard, W. Edwards Deming, and Peter Drucker. Hoopes, himself a scholar on American culture, intellectual history, and business his-tory, examines these gurus from their professional and personal lives. He then fathoms out insights about how they affected their contemporaries and the subsequent theorists and practitio-ners that followed them.

 

He perceives Taylor as quite mean spirited and somewhat myopic in his perception about human’s behavior in the organization. Taylor though, he argues did understand that organizational power is top-down. Hoopes argues the fact that hierarchical power is the fundamental way power must flow in organizations. It is that way from a moral and practical perspective in his view.

 

Flawed Theory of Power

The remaining gurus, according to Hoopes, focused the establishment of organizational power as a bottom-up phenomenon, and hence got it wrong. He perceives the Gilbreths and Gantt as trying to soften the force of their mentor Taylor and hence began to conceive of and leverage power as be-ing properly flowing from the bottom up in the organization. Mary Follett, he argues, was the best one as a scholar and practitioner. Her views on the giving of orders still stand today as pioneer work. Nonetheless, she con-tributed to the flawed theory of power, reinforcing the bottom-up theory.

 

By the time the reader heads into the chapters on Mayo and Barnard, it becomes clear as to why Hoopes is challenging the gurus’ conception of power and why they tried to shift it. The careers of Mayo and Barnard are where Hoopes sees the deepest set-back to organizational behavior theory. Mayo and Barnard seemed to legiti-mize the theory that power flows from the bottom up. He viewed Mayo as deeply deceptive, while Barnard he found very conflicted, juggling among various philosophies over this career. He sees Deming as well intended, but naive. However, he admires the revo-lutionary changes that Deming preached. In Drucker he saw a man trying to moralize and tame American management after witnessing the abuse of power from Nazi Germany. He credits Drucker as a great devel-oper of management ideas and techniques, but alas, Drucker too did not break out of the already established trend set by his predecessors.

 

Hoopes does not disclose what methodology he uses to develop his critic on the professional history and biographical analysis of the gurus he challenges. This presents a hindrance to the reader to discern some efficacy of his assessment. In my opinion he falls somewhat short of providing enough evidence to affirm his thesis. Hoopes, nevertheless, definitely chal-lenges the existing paradigm of man-agement thought in organizational be-havior today. His contention is that the democratic values, as they have evolved in America, have in many cases become juxtaposed into corpo-rate organizational life. And intention-ally, democratic values, under the guise of bottom-up management have shielded the reality of organizational top-down power based on the ideas and recommendations of the gurus.

 

Hoopes is not presenting a new idea here. But what he does effectively is to point out the weaknesses that still exist in American management thought. Fundamentally, the use of power in or-ganizations is still in need of valid theory. He opines that almost all writ-ers of management books (especially those on leadership) over the last 20 years have only superficially considered power in organizations, if at all. This is a shortcoming as he sees it. One wonders whether public administration can answer Hoopes’s challenge?

 

Ken Mitchell is director of organizational development for the Analysis Corporation in Fairfax, Virginia and a frequent contributor to The Public Manager.