The critical 20th-century management skill — making things and people fit into systems that execute efficiently — will inevitably be transcended by a different 21st-century critical management skill: creating the conditions in which people of widely varying backgrounds, behaviors, and inclinations can maximize their particular contributions to economic value. This is certainly happening in most firms in developed economies, yet most managers (especially IT managers) have not yet come to grips with it. With this Executive Report, we move away from our usual format and revisit an "ahead of the curve" Council Opinion by the Cutter Business Technology Council, which highlights what has now become a major corporate movement.
Executive Report
Managing Differences: The Critical 21st-Century Management Skill, 2nd Edition
By Robert Austin, Lynne Ellyn, Tom DeMarco, Mark Seiden, Lou Mazzucchelli, Ronald Blitstein, Tim Lister
Posted September 1, 2015 | Leadership |
About The Author
Robert D. Austin is a Cutter Consortium Fellow and a member of Arthur D. Little's AMP open consulting network. He is a regular speaker at the annual Cutter Summit and often delivers Cutter Bootcamps. Dr. Austin served as a professor on the faculty at Harvard Business School for more than a decade, and then as Professor of Management of Innovation & Digital Transformation at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He is currently Professor… Read More
Lynne Ellyn is a Cutter Consortium Fellow. She retired in 2011 as the Senior VP and CIO at DTE Energy, a Detroit-based diversified energy company. During her 32 years in IT, Ms. Ellyn managed organizations with as many as 1,200 employees. She has deep experience with large established corporations, global software teams, and startups.
During her years as a CIO, Ms. Ellyn was consistently recognized as an exceptional business and IT leader. In… Read More
Tom DeMarco is a Cutter Consortium Fellow. He served on the Editorial Board of Cutter IT Journal (now Amplify) for more than 2 decades. Tom has been a frequent keynoter and moderator at Cutter Summits. Mr. DeMarco is a principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild. He was the winner of the 1986 Warnier Prize for "lifetime contribution to the field of computing" and the 1999 Wayne Stevens Prize for "contribution to software methods." His best-selling… Read More
Mark Seiden is a former member of the Cutter Business Technology Council. He has consulted since 1983 in the areas of security, network, and software engineering to companies worldwide, with clients including startups, major computer and communication companies, financial institutions, law firms, UN agencies, online content providers, ISPs, research organizations, and nonprofits. As an independent consultant, and in varying roles at Securify (… Read More
Lou Mazzucchelli is a Fellow of Cutter Consortium and a member of Arthur D. Little's AMP open consulting network. He provides advisory services to technology and media companies. He will lend his broad expertise (and considerable wit) to Cutter Summit 2022 as its Moderator. Recently, Mr. Mazzucchelli was the coordinator of Bryant University’s Entrepreneurship Program, where he retooled and taught senior-level entrepreneurship courses. He… Read More
Ron Blitstein's 30-year career includes extensive international operations experience and spans all aspects of information management. This includes technology strategic planning, program management, mergers and acquisitions, IT turnarounds, business process reengineering, software solutions development, ERP deployment, security/risk management, outsourcing negotiation, and network/operations management. Ron served as Director of Cutter's… Read More
Tim Lister is a Cutter Consortium Fellow and a member of Arthur D. Little's AMP open consulting network. He is also a frequent keynoter and moderator of the ADL Summit, powered by Cutter.
Mr. Lister, who has more than 40 years of professional software development experience, consults, trains, and lectures at enterprises worldwide. He assists IT organizations in tailoring methodologies and selecting tools for software development groups to… Read More
Don’t have a login?
Make one! It’s free and gives you access to all Cutter research.