Mountaineer Malik leads managers

Regarded by management guru Peter Drucker as a leading expert on management in Europe, especially in German-speaking countries, Fredmund Malik is sharp in his criticism of Anglo-Saxon management practices, which he says are partly responsible for the current global financial meltdown.

In an era of globalization when everything is becoming increasingly complex, "we should think twice about the American way of management", the German-speaking Swiss said.

And he offers an alternative: his complexity management theory.

The development of complex systems is never predictable with certainty, Malik said, "but if we know how complex systems work, we should be able to know how to handle them correctly and how they strike back when wrongly handled".

The professor, who believes that fundamental laws of effective management do not change even when external circumstances are continuously evolving and changing, said his complexity management theory is general enough that it can be applied to not only to business but also in family and daily life.

In today's complex world, the professor says, those who master complexity better than their competitors will survive, prosper and probably dominate the world one day.

Malik developed his management theory at university, which he entered after several years of factory work.

While teaching at the University of St. Gallen, Malik set up his own consulting firm in the 1970s when "it was almost unthinkable for a professor to start his own business", he said.

"If the management theory is correct and practical, it should also work for my organization as well," he recalled - which it seemed to have done.

Starting with three partners, the firm, Malik Management Zentrum St. Gallen, has grown into a business employing more than 300 consultants and professionals and one of the biggest management consultancy houses in the Europe.

"He is a commanding figure in the theory as well as in the practices of management," Drucker once said of Malik.

Malik said China's complexities should enable it to embrace his theory to cope with its problems.

"China is where complexity management theory will find its place," he said.

Like many Swiss countrymen, Malik is a regular mountaineer. He is also the author of bestselling books including Managing, Performing, Living published in 2000.

"I have to stage a great performance and cope with many limitations and uncertainties during mountaineering," Malik said

"It's like the management of complexity."

(China Daily 06/15/2009 page2)