Myth-busting management ideas

Professor Todd Bridgman explains why he’s spent the past 15 years myth-busting management.

Ideas about how best to motivate and lead people, organise work, develop culture, and transform organisations originate from famous theorists such as Abraham Maslow, Adam Smith, Max Weber, Frederick Taylor and Kurt Lewin. These ideas are taught in university business schools, leadership programmes, and reflected in popular books written for managers. While influential, these ideas often bear little resemblance to what theorists originally wrote.

In this lecture, Professor Todd Bridgman will explain why he’s spent the past 15 years myth-busting management. He argues misrepresentations contribute to organisational dysfunction and damage, and understanding how and why this happens creates space for alternative ways of learning about and practising management. Given the pressing environmental, social, and economic challenges facing the world today, Professor Bridgman will share why we need to think more critically and creatively about people, organisations and how we work.

This is Professor Bridgman's inaugural lecture as Professor of Management Studies at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

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