Tell Me About The Managerial Grid ? Grid Leadership Training ?
Q: I am reviewing a new training package for a client. I was surprised to
see that the package's approach to leadership is designed around (teaches
an abbreviated version of) Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid III. This
is the first time I've seen it in circulation for some time.
Over the years, I have gotten the impression, through my training,
that The Managerial Grid is not only passe, but somewhat discredited
as an "attitudinal" (-vs- "behavioral") model. I have always been put
off by some its assumptions and absoloutes. I lean (heavily) toward
supervisory and leadership approaches that revolve around Hersey and
Blanchard's Situational Leadership model(s).
I would appreciate hearing from people who have experience with the
Managerial Grid either academically or in extensive practice. Either
email or a post here works for me.
A:-I am suspect of any management theory written by people who have never
met payroll, never hired nor fired employees and who never ran a
business. I take material for my training and consulting straight from
the horse's mouth. Andy Grove, Sam Walton, Lee Iacocca, Ken Hakuta, and
from people who have dedicated most of their lifes to studying the
secrets of success such as Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits, Tom
Peters, Peter Drucker and Michael LeBoeuf --- and my own success with
some 39 startups. Get your data from people who have been there and done
that.
-Isn't it amazing how often this kind of thing happens?
It's like DISC, and Myers-Briggs, and synectics, and a whole lot of
other ideas that have been "improved" and extended into areas where
people think they apply.
I've just come across a course purporting to be the latest and greatest,
which uses Mazlow's hierarchy of needs as the justification for a lot of
the structures incorporated into it.
Of course, some of the "old" ideas are still applicable. But some people
are stil discovering them for the first time.
For example, I thought that the "right-brain/left-brain" theory