Methodological School of Management

Methodological School of Management V. B. Khristenko A. G. Reus A. P. Zinchenko et al.

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

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Contents List of figures and tables List of acronyms and abbreviations Foreword by Lord Bell Preface Works by Georgy Shchedrovitsky published in English Introduction to the English version of the Methodological School of Management series

Part I Selected Works: A Guide to the Methodology of Organisation, Leadership and Management

xv xxii xxv xxvii xxi xxxiii

1

G. P. Shchedrovitsky

Preface: how to use this book (by A. G. Reus) Workshop and toolkit for organisers, leaders and   managers

3

The concept of organisational management activity

9

Purpose of this collection 7; The engineering nature of organisation, leadership and management work 7; Technical knowledge 7; Technical and scientific knowledge 8 The act of activity 9; The activity of transformation 10; Organisational management as a sociotechnical activity 10; Scientific-methodological support 12; Knowledge of the objects of sociotechnical work 12; Historical and theoretical reconstruction of the origin of scientific and technical knowledge 12; Science 13; Practice 14; Science and practice 14

7

Taking up a new post: a means of organising ideas

15

The activity of organisation, leadership and management

20

Being included in a place and the attitude of inclusion 16; Joining the group 16; The organisation 17; Group and organisation 18; Individuality and organisation 18

Management 20; Cybernetics 21; Natural and artificial 22; Objects of management activity 23; Artificial-natural and natural-artificial objects 24; The category of nature 24; Types of object 25

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Typological characteristics of organisation, leadership and management

25

The system–object management scheme

30

Mental activity and pure thought

33

Theory and practice

51

First systematic presentation of the leadership apparatus

53

Problems and problematisation

59

Entering the place of the leader

63

An action plan

70

Organisation 26; Management 27; Leadership 27; Organisation, management and leadership 28; The organisation as the result and the means of organisational work 29; The organisation as a form of the life of the collective 30; Management thinking 32; Politics 32; Knowledge in management 32

The situation of collective action 33; Types of situation 35; Reflexiveness 36; Types of reflexiveness 38; Communication 39; Understanding 40; Meaning 41; The structure of meaning 42; Reflexive and active understanding 43; Understanding and thinking 44; The reality of thinking 44; Logical rules and ideal objects 46; The reality of mental activity and the reality of thinking 47; Connections and the elimination of connections 48; Idealisation 49 The practice of thought 52; The orthogonality of mental activity and reality 52

Rules for dealing with empty spaces 53; Systemic organisation in a group of managers 56; Workplace and club 57; The human unit and the individual 58; Formal and informal organisational structures 58 The transition from object analysis to the design of analytical tools 60; Systems analysis 61; Where is the boundary of the system? 62 The administrative-organisational structure of places 64; Self-determination 64; Schematisation 66; Designing a development programme 66; Management 66; The object-theme and the object of analysis 68; Object-theme structure 69; The ‘object-theme’ environment of humanity 70 Self-organisation 72; Making activity into an object-theme 72; Processes and layers of mental activity 73; Ways of solving problems 74; Actuality of the principal’s thought 76; Reflexive position and goals 77; Activity-based approach 78; Formation and self-awareness of the individual 79; The subject–object relation 79

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Elements of systems analysis

80

The systems movement

87

The first concept of a system

89

The second concept of a system

98

Historical preconditions 80; Formulae of composition 81; The systematic character of knowledge 81; Object and thing 82; The engineering approach 82; From parts to unity 82; Structure 82; The category 83; The category of structure 84; The notion of bonds 84; The structure of bonds85; Processes 85 The cybernetics movement 87; The history of the systems approach 88 Measuring and articulation of parts 89; The part–whole category 90; Connecting parts into a whole 91; Elements 93; Place and content 94; Self-organisation by place and breaking out of the system 95; Functional property 96 Systems analysis 99; The object as a schema of procedures for working with it 101; The art of schematisation 101; Operational systems 103; The problem of the sign–object correspondence 103; Ideal objects 104; Technical, target, nominal, naturalised and natural objects 105

Design and implementation

107

Capacities of the second concept of a system

112

Principles of self-organisation in an activity-based approach

113

Signs and schemata

117

The principle of the artificial and the natural

124

Transition from the schema to activity 108; Principles of project implementation 109; Schema projects and schema models 109; The dual content of the schema 110; Ways of reading schemata: processes 110; Ways of reading schemata: functional structures 111; Ways of reading schemata: morphology 111; Ways of reading schemata: the material 111 Accounting for natural processes in an object 112; Setting boundaries to the object 113

Engaging with the world 113; Cognition 114; Transferring experience 115; On the value of development 116; Communication and understanding 116; Knowledge in actions 117 The schema of the category 118; The schema of dual knowledge 119; Formal ontologisation 119; Searching for the object in concepts 119; The object ‘itself’: an ontological picture 120; Scientific knowledge 122; Social sciences 123; Formal thinking 123; Content-based thinking 123 Structure and organisation 124; Category analysis 126; Exit to content: systems mathematics 126; Conjunctive tables of meaning 127; Organisation of the process 128; Functional

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structuring 128; The concept of a polysystem 130; ‘Naturalisation‘ of organisation and leadership 131

The purpose of methodological self-organization

Functions of knowledge 133; The engineering approach 135; The choice of position – self-determination 136; Position and self-organisation 137

132

Part II Rails, Pipes and Cables: Experience of

Managing Infrastructural Complexes 139

V. B. Khristenko

Foreword by A. G. Reus

141

Rails, pipes and cables Work in government

147 147

The fuel and energy complex

197

Energy strategy The oil complex

205 211

The gas complex The coal complex The electricity complex

223 229 235

The infrastructure complex

243

Management staff training Integration in the CIS

257 261

No more economic romanticism for us

281

A Kreshtomatia 141; Lifting the curtain 141; Continuity 141; Method must be transmitted142; Management practice during the reform of the Russian economy 142

In economics, miracles never happen 151; Sources of growth 156; The system of governance 158; Budget revenues 166; Budgetary federalism 173; The development of budgetary federalism in Russia: from dividing up money to separation of powers 174 Tariff policy 200

Oil exports 214; Oil transportation 216

Legislation in support of reform of the electricity industry of the Russian Federation 237 Transport 243; Housing and utilities 248

Approaches to integration 261; Advantages of the unrealised potential in co-operation with Kazakhstan 264; The Single Economic Space: political ambition or economic utility? 270 Russia–Japan and Russia–Europe ‘power bridges’ 286; Fellow Russians 287; Energy dialogue with the European Community 288; Developing the natural gas market 298

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Part III Energy for Industrial Growth

305

V. B. Khristenko

Foreword The objective of the Ministry of Industry and Energy management system Groundwork: Energy Strategy 2020 Creating a system for balanced development of industry and energy in Russia, 2004–08

309 315

2004–08

375

Epilogue

435

Part IV Airplanes Come First: Principles and Plans for the Implementation of Industrial Policies and Development Strategies at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Energy and the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, 2004–12

443

The oil and gas sector 320; The electricity sector 361 The Russian energy industry in the global dimension,

Defining the problem of global energy security 375; Golden ratio of the pipe 386; Global energy security 389; In search of a security formula 395; Ensuring energy stability and security 401; Trust in Russia 406; Practical development of a ‘global sustainable energy development’ concept: demand for gas should be transparent 408; Energy policy and energy security 412; Humanitarian principles of sustainable energy development 416; Sharing energy 421; Who’s left on the pipeline 423; Global energy issues 430

307

317

V. B. Khristenko

In lieu of an epigraph: ‘from the sewers to space’

445

The aircraft industry

465

Development strategy for the automotive industry Shipbuilding The iron and steel industry

483 505 519

Introduction 445; ‘Learn by doing’ 446; Industrial policy 447; A systemic approach 450; Organising collective work 454; How this part of the book is arranged 455; Strategy as an instrument of industrial policy 458; Integration and strategic planning: two different processes of industrial development 458; Integration of finisher and assembler industries at the global level 460; Public–private partnership 462; A diagram of the method 463 Woe from oil 467

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The pharmaceutical and medical products industries Technical regulation Overview of work completed so far: management, control and politics in the sphere of industry and energy

How things turned out for us 564; Historical reconstruction leading to a definition 565; Managing industrial development processes 565; Politics as a battlefield and an environment for elaborating industrial development strategies 570 Afterword: transitioning to a plan for further action

Part V Knowledge in Management and the Management of Knowledge: An

Experience of Integrating

High-Technology Industries

533 551

563

573

575

A. G. Reus

Foreword

577

Training The Russian White House: designing and testing managerial principles

585

At the controls of OJSC UIC Oboronprom

613

The principal task 579; The meaning of the title of this book 579; The principles of management 581; The five principles that I rely on in management 582

What was used, where they were used and why? 597; Participation in the overhaul of infrastructure 598; How to choose an object of management correctly 598; The infrastructure approach 604; Organising team operations during the design and planning of the Ministry of Industry and Energy 606; Industrial policy 608; Head office analysis 609 The situation 613; Managing a modern industrial corporation 614; From machines to systems 615; The type of object of management: the project-programme approach 617; The system of managing a corporation 618; The corporation as a polysystem 618; The principles behind the set-up of the organisational power verticals of the Soviet Ministry for the Aviation Industry 620; The collapse of the Ministry for the Aviation Industry 621; Consolidating the industry’s resources 622; Programmes for production and innovation integration 623; Programmes to concentrate industry resources in order to advance the breakthrough projects that will carve out and

597

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increase the corporation’s share of the world market 623; Programme to enlist managers, design-engineering staff and plant engineers in operations to implement lean production tools and models 624; Programming the innovative growth of the corporation 625; Programming a comprehensive organisation to ensure the development of the corporation’s programmes and projects 625

Knowledge management: the corporate university A talent pool

627 631

Programmes and actions: excerpts from open source articles and interviews

635

The principles behind working with a corporation’s talent pool 631

The principles behind the creation of a new system of training for personnel in the aircraft industry 635; Industrial policy: the infrastructural approach 639; It would be rash of me to assert that with the arrival of Oboronprom all these problems will be solved immediately 643; The work of the Samara businesses is critically important for our strategic aviation 646; I believe that it’s vital to keep all these processes under my own personal control 651; I have always been and remain a team player 659; The image of us as Oboronprom ‘terminators’ is just a figment of someone’s sick imagination 669; We need to be predicting the market and not reacting to it 677

Appendices: 1

2

3 4

The 14 principles of ‘lean production’ (Toyota Production System, 1980) 14 principles of quality management (W. Edwards Deming, 1950) 14 principles of administration by Henri Fayol (1916) The tools of systematic thinking and the organisation of work by head offices

Part VI On the Knowledge Management Method:

Integration Processes for a Mechanical

Engineering Corporation

690 691 694

701

A. G. Reus, A. P. Zinchenko, S. B. Kraychinskaya and D. Talyanskiy

Methodology: how we work

689

What do we mean by knowledge management? 703; How it works: the ‘knowledge management’ arrangement 704; Who needs to manage knowledge and why? 705; Position and objectives 706; The knowledge manager’s area of activity 707; Methodology: historical forms 708; Methodology: techniques of schematisation 710;

703

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Methodology: three concepts and three types of knowledge 711; Phases and stages of the technological process of knowledge management in stage gate schemes 714; Knowledge engineering: general concept and typology of ways of working with knowledge in the corporation 715; The way we organise work on an industrial scale: the place of the corporate university in the management system 726; The purpose and interconnection of different organisational forms in the KM system 728; The work of the communications organiser in building concepts, schedule maps and organisational-activity schemes 731; Principal schemes for organising communication on KM at PAS 733; Delivery of performance results 734

Practice: two examples of our development work – OJSC Russian Helicopters and OJSC United Engine Corporation

739

Work on the instruments: the concept of competence in mechanical engineering

767

Demonstration and mastery of knowledge management instruments: principles of personnel policy

787

Changing object patterns in managing the reorganisation of OJSC RussianHelicopters 739; Corporate integration and anti-crisis measures 740; On course for systemic reorganisation and an initial public offering 745; Changing object patterns in managing the reorganisation of OJSC United Engine Corporation 748; Corporate integration and anti-crisis measures748; Three approaches to resolving the problem of system organisation 751; Constructing a model of the corporation (the integral picture) for the future 753; We combined everything we could 756

A catastrophe of understanding 767; Forms of thought and typology of working 767; The concept of competence in mechanical engineering 771; Organisational forms in manufacturing 771; The industrial enterprise 772; Technology-driven production 773; The infrastructure form of organising manufacturing 777; The system category: principles of organisation 778; Strategic horizons 779; Design according to prototypes versus the transfer of experience 780; Two types of problem-solving programme 781

Corporate personal development games 787

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Part VII Knowledge Management in Working

with Corporate Personnel (Corporate

Anthropotechnics) at OAO UIC

Oboronprom

795

A. G. Reus, A. P. Zinchenko and S. B. Kraychinskaya

Foreword Introduction: what is corporate anthropotechnics?

797 799

Experience in organising the training of a managerial reserve

807

The managerial reserve workshop

839

Tools used during workshop training of the managerial reserve

863

Anthropotechnics is not a pedagogical programme 799; Anthropotechnics is not educational work, nor is it psychotechnics 799; Anthropotechnics is not a school but a workshop 800; Anthropotechnics is not concerned with ‘consciousness-changing’, but with showing how to think through work 800; Corporate anthropotechnics 801; The purpose and function of corporate anthropotechnics in management 804

Our principles (A. G. Reus) 807; Assessing the state of affairs and ‘environmental’ factors in conducting personnel policy 811; The scope and organisation of human capital management work within the organisation 815; The personnel management system at various stages of the process of corporate integration and reorganisation 822; The Corporate University: its purpose and the results of its work 826; The programme of work carried out by the Corporate University 829; Conclusions to be drawn from current results of work at the Corporate University 833 Why a workshop and not a school? 839; The purpose and function of the workshop 841; Goals and objectives of workshop training 842; The principles underpinning workshop training 843; The contents of the practical workshop training programme for the managerial reserve 845; Differences in the organisation of work in the managerial reserve workshop and in the ‘class and lesson’ system of education 848; Actions of the game organisers 855; The structure and methods of the game design team 858; The knowledge management game and knowledge management training 859

The attitude of the apprentice 863; The difference between the processes of learning and teaching 865; Brief instructions for those entering the world of apprenticeship 867; Constructive thinking: what it is and how it works 872; Examples of conceptual structures obtained during knowledge management training in the work of the

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Corporate University 879; What is meant by the ‘system’ of work with personnel? 881

Appendix: List of events and projects carried out by the Corporate University of OAO UIC Oboronprom

899

Index

913

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Foreword

Some may ask, why would Lord Bell write the foreword to a book on a subject that seems so distant from his immediate interests? I asked this question myself and quickly found the answer: passion and flair. I recognise them in life immediately and have a great regard for both. The best results in what we do, as professionals, are achieved when we work with passion and flair. Without these qualities the process as well as the outcome is that much more tedious and laboured.

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the methodological school of management

When I first met Andrei Reus, one of the authors of this weighty volume, I sensed this passion when he was telling me about the book and what he believed it would bring to the English-speaking world. I also recall the admiration and respect showed to his teacher, Georgy Shchedrovitsky, and this further stirred my curiosity about the project. All the authors are extremely successful in their careers, and this is a clear testimony to the value of Shchedrovitsky’s research, ideas and the body of knowledge he left behind.

In my line of work, in order to convince, persuade or alter people’s perceptions and attitudes, I often need to present the best argument possible. Clarity of thinking about a problem will usually be reflected in the clarity of the solution. The readers of this book are presented with ways of tackling various problems, resolving tricky managerial situations and achieving organisational targets. The techniques of thinking offered here will be useful for professionals working in various fields – government administration, management of individual companies and state-run corporations, corporate governance and general decision-making practices.

But this book is not just about theoretical approaches to methodology of management, it raises the curtain on a host of practical issues and offers tremendous and exciting insights into modern Russian history and realities. The Methodological School of Management will be met with interest by a wide range of specialists – historians, political commentators, industrialists – but most of all, it would be invaluable for those who are learning how to manage people and issues alike.

So, read it, enjoy it, use it!

Lord Bell

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Preface Dear Reader, Our publishing house is pleased to present a unique monograph containing key results of work by Russia’s Methodological School of Management.

This school is not well known to Western specialists in systems engineering methodology and management. But we believe that its long history and the achievements of its proponents merit close attention, and that the school deserves a place in the global systems engineering landscape. We have therefore undertaken the translation and publication of this book.

The school was created by the pupils of Georgy Shchedrovitsky (1929–1994). Important Russian predecessors of the school include Alexander Bogdanov, the author of Tectology: Or a Universal Organisational Science, Alexei Gastev, who wrote How to Work, Platon Kerzhentsev and his Principles of Organisation, as well as several other Russian specialists in matters of work organisation.

The school and its pupils were grounded in the rich intellectual environment of Soviet Russia’s rapid industrialisation (Shchedrovitsky’s father was a key figure in the creation of the Soviet aviation industry). The school also gained much from the analysis and development of work by the best foreign thinkers in the field of management expertise and methodology.

The Methodological School of Management sees itself as a part – justifiably, in our view – of what has been called the ‘systems movement’, which evolved during the second half of the twentieth century in the works of such well-known Western thinkers as Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Russell Ackoff, Ross Ashby, Stafford Beer, Jay Forrester, West Churchman and many others. This movement forged tools for complex intellectual work and a language for systemic thinking and management organisation. Its ideas have entered the tool kits of most major control systems and corporations in the world’s leading economies, from NASA and Toyota to retail chains.

Management science in Russia developed for a long time along its own trajectory, but always taking account of the international

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preface

systems mainstream. Numerous programmes and projects were implemented in Russia for the creation of large organisational and technical systems (the term comes from Ackoff). The best-known among them are probably GOELRO (the programme for electrification of the Soviet economy), industrialisation (the creation of heavy industry, machine building and the Soviet aircraft industry), the evacuation and reassembly of a huge number of enterprises from western to eastern parts of the country at the beginning of the Second World War, and of course creation of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme and the missile and space industry. The list might be continued. The preparation and implementation of these programmes created a wealth of organisational and management experience. Unfortunately, the transmission of this expertise to new situations and to new generations of managers was on a personto-person basis, without the systematic planning that could have ensured the best results.

We are not aware of any deep analysis or major publications of a theoretical and methodological nature that illuminate the Soviet systems experience. This is partly the fault of the extreme closedness and secrecy that attached to programmes and projects in the defence industry during the Soviet period, and the resulting shortage of opportunities for communication and discussion between leading experts, engineers and organisers in the USSR. It also reflects the climate of suspicion and distrust, which existed in the USSR towards all new trends in managerial and scientific thought that were not sanctioned by Marxist-Leninist theory (cybernetics was branded a ‘bourgeois pseudoscience’, genetics came in for criticism as the ‘a handmaid of capital’, and so on). Georgy Shchedrovitsky’s Methodological Problems of Systems Research was only published in 1964 (see page xxix) and a first omnibus entitled Systems Research came out in 1969.

Such was the context – alongside the global mainstream and sometimes in advance of it – in which Shchedrovitsky’s systems methodology took shape and was developed by the Moscow Methodological Circle (see the list of publications in English on page xxix).

Leading Western systems analysts have noted and continue to note the significant contribution of Shchedrovitsky’s ideas to systems science and to the approach championed by this science.1 1

See, for example, Harold Bud Lawson’s A Journey through the Systems

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For various reasons – historical and other – the advances made by the Methodological School of Management were not widely propagated, and did not generate a major flow of publications or the creation of university departments. But the basic concepts, tools and methodologies of systems thinking and systems engineering developed by the Moscow Methodological Circle have been transmitted and used by numerous groups of Shchedrovitsky’s pupils in various spheres of engineering and management science. These groups have continued their teacher’s work on the formation of systems thinking and systems language in Russia. The Methodological School of Management is one such group.

The first part of this volume presents excerpts from the works of Georgy Shchedrovitsky, while the following parts (II to VII) contain works by the present leaders of the school: Viktor Khristenko, who has more than 15 years’ experience in senior posts in the Russian Government; Andrei Reus, who has headed some of Russia’s largest machinery-building enterprises; and Alexander Zinchenko, who has set up a number of innovative educational institutions. Works by other proponents of the School are also presented.

The works of these authors add up to a substantial body of methodological literature. The products and results of their reflexive thinking and the conversion of their experience into knowledge that is capable of transmission are made accessible by the texts and diagrams brought together in this monograph.

To conclude this introduction, it is worth formulating a few points that might summarise the place of the Methodological School in international management science and organisational technologies. ◆ The Methodological School is not an educational institution, but a range of tools – capable of transmission – which are used by its leaders in their current managerial practice. And this practice extends to a number of fields: government administration, management of economic sectors, corporate governance and the management of individual corporations. These tools require constant updating and extension to reflect new developments and new fields of activity. ◆ The Methodological School is a mechanism for knowledge Landscape, translated into Russian and published by MQM Press, Moscow, 2013, p. 21.

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management (the project and programme approach, the phasegate system, ‘lean thinking’ and life-cycle management) in order to achieve new standards of management theory and practice. ◆ The Methodological School is a method for the creation of a communication space in large organisational systems in order to achieve product goals.

We wish you enjoyable reading and proper understanding of the management situations in which the decision-making practice of the Methodological School of Management has taken shape. And we hope that you will be able to make useful application of its concepts, knowledge and schemata in your own work.

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Introduction to the English edition of the Methodological School of Management series Dear Reader, The weighty volume that you are now holding consists of seven sections, bringing together texts and documents created in the course of a decade. They were all previously published as separate monographs, and were republished in 2012 by Alpina Publishers as a series of books in a single package. Each of these books was prepared for publication as a separate work devoted to management analysis of a particular group of situations in the working careers of the authors. Each is preceded by an introduction and ends with conclusions from the analytical work which was carried out in that situation. We can say that each book belongs to a particular stage of recent Russian history, and this fact defines the differences between their subject matter and structure.

However, these texts and documents have a common idea and common historical logic, which justifies their treatment as an integrated whole. All of them present the theoretical basis and practical application of the concepts, schemata and knowledge of Russia’s Methodological School of Management.

This is why we have decided to prepare the English edition as a single volume, consisting of seven parts that reflect the current state of development of the school, to which we all belong, in the most comprehensive manner possible.

The purpose and objective of the authors is to acquaint an English-speaking audience – businesspeople, government administrators and specialists in management methodology – with the original and applied thinking, methods and approaches used by the Methodological School of Management, which was established in the Soviet era and still operates successfully in modern Russia.

The first part of this volume stands apart. It is an anthology of works by our teacher, Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky

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(1929–1994), under whose leadership a body of knowledge – the ‘starting capital’ of the Methodological School of Management – took shape. So the first part of the volume acquaints readers with the basic principles and ideas of organisation, leadership and management methodology, and sets a benchmark for understanding the spirit and meaning of the management work that we have carried out.

This part contains only a few of the principles of this methodology and examples of their use. For a fuller acquaintance with the legacy of Georgy Shchedrovitsky, we invite readers to visit the websites ww.fondgp. ru and www.mmk-documentum.ru Several important texts by Shchedrovitsky have been published in English in their full versions. They can be found at http://www. fondgp.ru/gp/biblio.

The origin and content of the ideas of the Russian Methodological School of Management might be better understood if we precede them with a few words about the difficult historical and social context in which the school took root and evolved.

The long-term goal or horizon, which Shchedrovitsky resolved to work towards in 1952, was to restore Russia’s professional classes after many decades of devastation, and thereby to enable our country to regain its rightful place in the world (Georgy Shchedrovitsky, I Have Always Been An Idealist, Moscow, 2001, p. 301). Shchedrovitsky made his resolution shortly before the death of Joseph Stalin (in March 1953) and the decline of Soviet totalitarianism. The ending of Stalin’s oppressive regime and the subsequent thaw led to an unprecedented surge of energy among young and talented people.

Shchedrovitsky was a student at the time: he was enrolled first at the faculty of physics and then at the philosophy faculty of Moscow State University, where many of those who would go on to become the best minds of post-war Russia and leading lights in various fields first met and communicated. This was the intellectual melting pot in which what would later be called the Moscow Methodological Circle first took shape.

In this environment tasks were formulated in order to achieve progress toward the long-term horizon described above. We can reconstruct these tasks as follows.

To create a technology of thinking based on study of the works of prominent thinkers from all times and peoples, and extraction from them of methods, operations and procedures for

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efficient thought (Shchedrovitsky, ‘The technology of thinking’, Izvestiya no. 234, 1961). This involved study of the works of Plato, Aristotle, de Cusa, Descartes, Locke, Bacon, Condillac, Hegel, Kant, Marx, de Saussure, Popper, Lakatos, Toynbee, Ackoff and many other thinkers.

To equip the vanguard of Soviet (Russian) society – managers and engineers, people who create the future and are responsible for the consequences of their actions – with this technology of thought, and primarily with a capacity for systemic thinking. This, in essence, is what Shchedrovitsky believed to be necessary for a methodology of organisation, leadership and management (see particularly his ‘Methodological organisation of systems-structural research and development: principles and general framework’, General Systems, Vol. XXVII, 1982, trans. A. Rapoport).

To enable the reproduction and transmission of a technology of thinking to new generations of managers and engineers, not in the form of theoretical knowledge, but through solution of the current practical problems of specific enterprises, organisations and economic sectors. Shchedrovitsky created what he called ‘organisational and activity games’ for this purpose (see Shchedrovitsky and S. I. Kotel’nikov, ‘Organisational activity games – a new way of organising and a method for developing collective thinking activity’, Soviet Psychology, Vol. XXVI, Summer 1988).

This manner of setting objectives was unique in world history, because it was based on the special features of the social and cultural situation in Russia at the time.

It is interesting to make a comparison with how management methodology evolved in the West. The ‘managerial revolution’ in the twentieth century had led captains of industry and finance to understand that an arm-wrestling contest between the ‘visible hand’ (the term belongs to Alfred Chandler) of organisers, managers, analysts, planners and decision-makers, on one side, and the ‘invisible hand’ of the market (as formulated by Adam Smith and classical economic theory) on the other side, ends in the victory of the former. Economics with its ‘signals’ is only one of the many tools used by a manager, and the ‘laws of the market’ are adjusted at the right time and in the right place by competent people to support and implement their management decisions.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, the first person to work seriously on the description, standardisation and rationalisation of management,

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devised simple and clear rules which could teach workers the best way to load sand, transport iron and so on, and workers who used the system improved their productivity exponentially. The figure of the manager who rationalises and organises the work process gained credibility worldwide. Taylor presented his results as the scientific organisation of work, but in fact he produced what would today be called work methodology and technologisation.

The summit of achievement in the tradition issuing from Taylor is the Toyota production system, in which the Japanese united the best international practices for maximising productivity.

We, the authors of the present monograph, consider ourselves to be Shchedrovitsky’s pupils. We studied the art and science of management under his leadership for several decades, in which time we tested his methodological principles in practice, incorporated the best international experience as part of the resources of the Moscow Methodological School, and nurtured Shchedrovitsky’s legacy. We continue to train new students and to work on our own self-improvement, and we want to see the diffusion and expansion of interest in the Methodological School of Management. Therefore, as we emphasise once again, the later parts of the of this monograph (Parts II to VII) have been prepared with one simple goal, which is to make the main body of knowledge in management methodology and our accumulated experience accessible to an English-speaking audience worldwide.

The largest portion of the present monograph – Parts II to VII – consists of books that are already in the public domain. These are three books by Viktor Khristenko: Rails, Pipes and Cables (Part II), Energy for Industrial Growth (Part III) and Airplanes Come First (Part IV), followed by three books that have been prepared by a team led

by Andrei Reus: Knowledge in Management and the Management of Knowledge (Part V), On the Knowledge Management Method: Integration processes for a mechanical engineering corporation (together with A. P. Zinchenko, S. B. Kraychinskaya and D. S. Talyansky) (Part VI) and Knowledge Management in Working with Corporate Personnel (Corporate Anthropotechnics) at OAO UIC Oboronprom (together with A. P. Zinchenko and S. B. Kraychinskaya) (Part VII).

In our management projects we have mainly applied three groups of ideas (approaches, schemata and techniques) which were developed by members of Shchedrovitsky’s Moscow Methodological Circle. We should emphasise that this represents only one small

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fragment of the legacy of this remarkable man, and of his colleagues and students in the Circle. These approaches have helped us to address the tasks and challenges that we have had to face in our own work as managers.

The three groups of ideas are: â—† a systematic approach and a methodology for systematic thinking, which we have used to make schematic models of public and corporate governance structures (see Parts II to V); â—† a concept of knowledge, which we have developed into an original method of knowledge management (see Part VI); â—† a method for designing and conducting organisational activity games, which we have used and continue to use in projectanalytical sessions as a tool of personnel management (or human resource management) in order to develop the next generation of managers at large corporations (see Part VII).

Our primary audience for these works is people training to become managers. But we are also keen to reach the (almost unlimited) audience of anyone who is interested in what can be achieved by the application of intellect to the organisation of work. We want to show how this is being done today in Russia.

We invite all of our readers to ask us questions and make criticisms. We are keen to engage in dialogue and to participate in discussions via the Internet.

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“For those that cannot imagine that anything can be learnt from Russian management, this volume would be a real mind changer. It has a wealth of insights that a wide range of readers would find highly original. Shchedrovitsky and methodological circle may soon become an unavoidable part of textbooks on management and social change.”

Slavo Radoševic, Professor of industry and innovation studies, UCL, and Director of the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies