TE20151128 by MrDi

Author:MrDi [MrDi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: News, The Economist
Publisher: The Economist
Published: 2015-11-26T16:37:57.382005+00:00

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This article was downloaded by calibre from http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21679225-how-minecraft-being-used-teach-northern-irish-pupils-about-past-crafty-lessons/print

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Apprentice managers

End of the accidental boss

Business gets serious about running a business

Nov 28th 2015 | From the print edition

THE low productivity of British workers has several possible culprits. Inefficient family-run companies are sometimes blamed, as are poor workforce skills. But whereas these problems are well documented, another factor is glossed over: the mediocre performance of British bosses. John van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, argues that the standard of British management is “significantly below” that in leading countries. His team carried out 14,000 interviews with employees around the world and found that British workers rated their supervisors lower than those in countries such as America, Germany and Japan (see chart). “We are not in the premier league,” he says.

Management as a skill has rarely been taken seriously in Britain, where the cult of the gifted amateur prevails. Ann Francke, the head of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), says that four out of five bosses are “accidental managers”: they are good at their jobs but are then promoted into managing a team or a department, without further training. Unsurprisingly, “they flounder”, she says. Mr van Reenen reckons that about half the productivity gap between Britain and America could be attributed to poor management.

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