Down With The Boss-Man

The Future of American business depends on sweeping changes in management style and structure, says Dan Dimancescu '64, guest faculty member at the Thayer School of Engineering and author of The Seamless Enterprise: Making Cross Functional Management Work. The traditional vertical organization, he argues, leads to employees who overspecialize in small tasks and have little appreciation of process. Cross-functional management, on the other hand, encourages lateral communication within a corporation. Says Dimancescu, "When people focus on process rather than waiting for solutions to be handed to them through the vertical chain of command, waste is continuously stripped out of corporate systems."

"Holistic" management practices, he adds, will do more to restore vitality to the American economy than any other public or private initiative.