Fads: Innovation Meets Convention

What is a fad? How does one figure out if something is a fad or is the next true breakthrough? Trying to identify and define fads is tricky. Business-management faddism is A Slippery Target. Indeed, that’s the title of the first chapter in a book by Margaret Brindle and Peter Stearns: Facing Up to Management Faddism: A New Look at an Old Force. This book is unlike the popular (and faddish) business management books you might read; it’s an academic book: dense, analytic, but also engaging.

Why was this book written? The first paragraph of the first chapter sums it up well.

Anyone in management or management training knows about contemporary business faddism. They may shy away from the name “fads” because, as we will see, management faddists try to circumvent the label, hoping that each current new style will prove durable. But they know that buzzwords and the focuses of staff retreats change almost as predictably as the seasons. And yet management faddism has rarely been studied. Many of us know more about faddism and its foibles from reading the cartoon Dilbert than from any extensive analysis. There is nothing wrong with Dilbert, but faddism affects life in management seriously enough that we need more than good jokes about it.

I happen to find Dilbert hilarious, and I used to read it regularly. While I’m partially shielded from the business management world as a full-time academic, I have many friends who experience management faddism. One of them sent me this hilarious video ("I’m An Expert"). That being said, I have worked in administrative roles in academia, and also closely worked with Student Affairs over the years, so I have some exposure to management fads. I’m likely seen as a stodgy resister to innovation, but that’s mainly because I ask a lot of pointed questions. I enjoy trying creative new things, but I’m very careful with how I spend my time and energy. I also read widely about the education sector, where I see many old things repackaged as new. That’s one characteristic of a fad. After a short phase of celebrity it seems to die, but then like the proverbial zombie it rises from the dead. But with new shiny clothes. And maybe lots of deodorant.

How does one identify management trends and fads in the business world? It’s easier to do this in hindsight. That’s what the authors do. They analyze trends primarily across the hundred years of the twentieth century, with faddism accelerating greatly in the 1970s onwards. Their book, published in 2001, doesn’t account for the latest trends, but I would say that the principles that they dissect over the last century remain applicable. Things have only gotten more faddish this century, but the authors would likely not have been surprised.

One key feature of fads is that they exhibit what the authors call Change and Continuity. I call it Innovation Meets Convention, hence the title of today’s blog post. There is an inherent tension between change and continuity resulting in a ding-dong effect. What’s old becomes new again. But upgraded of course. At least that’s what the latest fad will try to sell you on. In the business world, one of the key tensions is the balancing of (production) efficiency versus keeping the workers happy and productive. Thus, one sees the ding-donging between centralization and decentralization strategies. Books have been written about these, and I even occasionally blog about them.

Why do fads exist? More importantly, why do they persist? You’d think that after a fad has died away that managers would have learned their lesson. But it’s more complicated. Fads exist and grow unabashedly for several reasons. Most of us can think of the many bad reasons, thanks to Dilbert. Yes, there are power-mad, self-absorbed, seemingly maniacal leaders and managers, trying to assert and promote themselves. They might even call themselves visionary. But our authors dig deeper with the purpose of trying to help leaders, middle managers, and just about anyone who might be subject to fad-pushing to deal with the issue constructively. After all, fads are here to stay. I predict we will see continued acceleration in faddish trends, because of what revives and sustains fads.

Let’s consider some key features of fads, as detailed by the authors. First, fads are responses to real problems that may exist in a business or an institution. They are promoted especially in times of uncertainty, and go some way to assuage the anxiety of executives and other management higher-ups. In the U.S. especially, management practices are historically closely intertwined with the evolution of business school curricula and the establishing of consulting firms, with the business schools and consultants provide a positive feedback loop into management fads. Globalization has increased anxiety, both by opening up opportunities and competition; management fads can provide a standardized language that allow a multinational company some degree of control. Fads can also provide a cohesiveness to organizational culture; think “this is what makes our organization distinctive!”

Chapter 6, “The Role of Consulting Firms”, was particularly eye-opening for me. I’ve been rather skeptical of the increasing intrusion of consulting companies into the education world. Whenever I’ve heard external consultants present their ‘results’, I get annoyed thinking about how much money was paid so that someone from outside could tell us what we already knew. Clearly I wasn’t in the meetings when consultants made their pitch to the higher-ups as to how their services will be vital. I’m sure I would have asked lots of very pointed questions. That’s not because I think that external consultants are all shams. I think they can be very useful, especially if they truly have the necessary expertise. I’ve seen them work, when these were carefully chosen individuals, and not from the big-name consulting firms or supposedly acclaimed gurus. It’s not that big firms can’t provide good services. They can. But by and large they offer what’s needed to sustain faddism – that mix of Innovation and Convention – in the form of something that sounds both familiar (because it is) but with a new-ish quality. The authors summarize this well.

Fads provide consultants with urgent new products. In turn, consultants add not only wider – even international – currency to the fads process but also the vital quality of standardization, which helps billing and reassurance alike. Just as consumer fads offer exciting new products that quickly become oddly uniform, so consultants help create the blend of innovation and conventionality essential to management faddism in the contemporary world.

Billing? What the heck is that? And what does it have to do with how consulting firms package and offer their services? You’ll have to read the book to find out. Another reason to read the book is that it actually offers some reasonable strategies for the middle manager or employee to manage the challenge of faddism, especially if you’re feeling skeptical of a particular idea. The authors also exhort the importance of slowing down and thinking, rather than simply reacting negatively to what seems like faddism. There are questions one should ask about a fad. “Who’s pushing it and why, and what professional advantages are being gained? What problems does a fad purport to solve? Are the problems legitimate and does the fad have some real promise of providing at least a partial solution?” Note the word partial. Utopian claims should almost always trigger a warning alarm.

I close with some closing conclusions from the authors worth emphasizing.

Fads are imprecise responses to problems, whether the issue is globalization or executive anxiety… But if imprecise, they are responses. A blanket verdict on their utility is hard to achieve… [Faddism] deliberately camouflages continuity in favor of exaggerating change. It complicates the intelligent assessment of ongoing issues. Yet the alternation between efficiency and participation emphases may get the job done, in allowing changes and flexibility in a herky-jerky fashion. Fads also mediate between structure and individualism… [But] it is possible to improve management quality [without fads]… An intelligent response also involves modifying the approaches of consultants and gurus. We can use the impulse to faddism better than we have done to date.