UlasanAnime.com – The author expresses a cynical view on the management principles presented in “Moshidora,” particularly when viewed through an American lens and in the context of the current economic landscape.
The author’s American-style thinking leads to an inability to take a story about Drucker’s management style, adapted for a 21st-century audience, seriously. This isn’t necessarily a statement on American cynicism, but rather a personal reaction to the narrative’s perceived disconnect with modern realities.
Steve Denning, a Forbes columnist and economic writer, recently highlighted challenges facing the American economy in the new century, with management being a key concern. Denning’s blog post, which the author references, points to a significant shift in market power.
Over the last couple of decades, there has been an epochal shift in the balance of power from seller to buyer. For the first two-thirds of the 20th Century, oligopolies were in charge of the marketplace. These companies were successful by pushing products at customers, and manufacturing demand through advertising. But this situation changed.
Today customers have instant access to reliable information and have options: they can choose firms who delight them and avoid companies whose principal objective is taking money from our wallets and putting in their own. The result is a fundamental shift in power in the marketplace from the seller to the buyer: not only do customers not appreciate being treated as “demand” to be manufactured: now they can do something about it. If they are not delighted, they can and do go elsewhere.
The second is a fundamental shift in the workplace where the nature of work has shifted from semi-skilled to knowledge work. Meeting the business imperative of delighting customers can only be accomplished if the knowledge workers contribute their full talents and energy to contribute continuous innovation. Treating employees as “human resources” to be manipulated undermines the workforce commitment that is needed.
As a result, the 20th Century management system—the goose that laid America’s golden egg—stopped delivering. The monumental study by Deloitte’s Center for the Edge shows that the rate of return on assets of US companies is one quarter of what it was in 1965; the life expectancy of firms in the Fortune 500 has fallen from around 75 years half a century ago to just 15 years today and is falling fast. Only one in five employees is fully engaged in his or her work. And a study by the Kauffman Foundation showed that firms older than five years produced almost no net new jobs in the period 1980 to 2005 (whereas firms younger than 5 years created around 40 million jobs in that period.)
Following this analysis, Denning’s section title bluntly states: “The world changed but management didn’t.”
Drucker’s seminal book was published in 1973, representing the zenith of 20th-century economic power.
The author notes that “Moshidora” incorporates fundamental concepts from Drucker’s work, specifically highlighting “customer” and “innovation,” along with a results-oriented approach to measuring success. These concepts retain their original meaning in “Moshidora” and are considered the most valuable takeaways for learning management. However, the author argues that the way Minami transforms Kodobuko’s baseball team is not reflective of how modern marketplace leaders in successful American companies operate.
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This leads the author to question the relevance of “Moshidora’s” approach, suggesting a preference for understanding how characters like Mikado from “Durarara!!” (DRRR) develop and apply their human resources, as this seems more aligned with current and future trends. The author views “Moshidora’s” methods as outdated, reminiscent of a “post-war” Japan. While acknowledging exposure to various management ideas, the author questions the value of classic management principles if they haven’t yielded positive results for Japan’s economy. Furthermore, if tasked with teaching baseball team management to young individuals, the author would prioritize instilling the value of cyclic innovation and empowering small, autonomous groups, believing other management aspects would naturally follow.
