The 21st Century has seen a shift away from shout media to discussion media, the internet blogs, wikis, forums. I call these ‘whisper’ media because whispering has that air of intimacy that characterises them. Relationships with employees are following the same trend.

‘Shout’ management still flourishes in some places. It is giving way to ‘discuss’ management. Had it done so earlier it might have prevented the arrogance that led to the near-collapse of capitalism.

Why is ‘discuss’ management only slowly taking root?

The easy answer is pride. Those who think only they know the solutions aren’t going to waste time listening to arguments of people they regard as intellectually inferior. But pride is a manifestation of the problem, not a cause of it. Indeed, I suggest that the underlying cause is a lack of personal pride or, as I would put it, confidence.

What we see as overt pride is insecurity. Not honest doubt but fundamental uncertainty about who the proud person is, what standards he aspires to, what he sees as his role in society and what his life objectives are. The shouting manager is noisy because he doesn’t want anyone to notice this weakness. He doesn’t realise that shouting simply advertises it.

We teach the theory of “Servant-Master” but fail to apply it. Intellectually we know it is right but we lack the confidence to practice it because we think to do so may show us as weak. In fact it does exactly the opposite. The truly strong do not need to shout.

There is, however, a second problem. In our search for ‘one-solution-fits-all’ we try to define the good manager as some static model fulfilling a checklist of desirable attributes. It doesn’t work like that. The very process of discussion changes the model of the manager if he or she listens to their charges and explores what is behind the feedback.

The new ‘whisper’ media are changing communications in general. Humans have always enjoyed a good gossip and provided it is not malicious, why not? Rural villagers pass on news and views over their daily chores to sate the appetite for involvement in our neighbours’ affairs.

The mass media made coffee-housing less necessary and time pressures prevented the intimate exchanges that had made society interesting, challenging and fun. The media shouted at us. We shouted at each other, often without realising that the very act of shouting is an act of aggression, whether intended or not – noisy workplaces have more disputes than quiet ones.

All that is changing fast. The twitter, the blog, the forum, the Facebook, the Linkedin and the other online societal groups make one-to-one communication easy and fast. They can be misused, but so can a motor car and a glass of wine. Handled properly the new media keep us informed without the underlying suspicion that we are being seduced into purchases and actions we don’t want.

For the same reason, they provide the valuable feedback every manufacturer has been seeking since the start of market research, with the added advantage that views can be pinpointed with remarkable accuracy and continuously plotted. A blog is as public or as private as you want to make it. Think of the implications for a new restaurant with daily assessments of what people are saying about the food and service. The customer really is King, at last.

Sensible businesses use the information provided by the new media to change and adapt their products and services, and to communicate directly with Consumer Leaders, that influential group that dictates fashion and whim and spurs us to greater achievements.

A sign of the importance of the new media is the monitoring services that are developing. Singapore has its own innovative version of this in Brandtology, a business that uses a combination of high technology and personal inspection to provide the sellers of goods and services with a day-by-day analysis of the internet criticisms and plaudits by consumers. Manufacturers can see how consumers are reacting to their long-established products as well as to newcomers just launched.

This has already been dramatically demonstrated in the computer world. For decades, computer manufacturers and software producers have dictated what sort of computer and platform the consumer may buy, with very little reference to what the consumer actually wants. I wrote an article on the ideal laptop nearly five years ago. Only now are the computer manufacturers paying heed to consumers’ demands, and all because – logically – the first subject of internet consumer comments was the computer.

Service providers are able continuously to keep tabs on the performance of their businesses in the eyes of the users and seeing how their competitors are faring at the same time. As a way of keeping a business on its toes I can think of none better.

Could a producer also manipulate the new media in somewhat the same way that the old media adapted advertisements and editorial to produce the advertorial? Such is the new software sophistication that, combined with a modest amount of personal inspection, deliberate attempts to ‘rig’ the internet comments can be identified and eliminated and only genuine observations and exchanges are examined. They are, for the most part, amateur comments, the views and feelings of the inexpert consumer. In other words, precisely what a producer needs to know.

Perception is all in a world that is so rapidly becoming part virtual, part real.

Don’t get me wrong about this, I’m an IT buff as well and I enjoy exploring the latest gadgets and software advances. It’s a lifetime’s work. But when it comes to business I try to be a little more hard-nosed about the tools I am going to use.
When I was building Cerebos Pacific I asked my senior managers to let me know, if they could only have one hundred figures of reporting a month, which would they be?

Of the six MD’s who reported to me, five came up with almost identical lists. The sixth ran a totally different sort of business and his priorities reflected the nature of it.

I didn’t force any of them to limit their monthly ration to one hundred figures but I noticed that, after the exercise, all of them, without exception, vastly reduced the amount of information going across their desks. Why?

They had grown up with the correct idea that data is power. They had assumed that all data is therefore useful. But it isn’t. Some data is vital, some useless and some positively misleading. Knowing which is which today distinguishes a good manager from a bad one.

The amount of information flowing to us is growing exponentially. What we now know is probably about one percent of what we will know by 2050. A hundredfold increase in our knowledge will need very special handling if it is not to overwhelm us completely.

How shall we handle it?

First, we must make the software work harder for us. To achieve that we must ourselves be more specific about what we really need to know. Take the simple example of ‘budgets’ and ‘actuals’. The one bit of information we do not need is to know that they are the same. We do need to know when they vary by a significant amount, and why. Default reporting of data has been around for a long time. Why don’t we use it? It can save vast amounts of time.

In the process of defining what we need to know we must also avoid the trap that everything can be reduced to numbers. It can’t. There is a qualitative side to business and work that cannot be measured very accurately. So how do we assess this tricky, undefined quality?

By giving ourselves as managers enough time to observe, listen and learn the finer points of human relations and motivation. IT is there to sound the alarm bells, to point us to what needs attention. It is not there to make our decisions for us. For the time being, at any rate, the human brain can process more – and more complex – data than even the best of computer software.

That time will not last much longer. The pace of knowledge change, of data processing speed and of communication facility is so fast that we need to prepare now to be able to handle the data flood that is soon to break.

A list of the information you couldn’t live without is a good way to start that process. It will also help you to sort your records, find simpler ways to manage the essential information and give you time to do the real job of life – managing and helping others.