It's time to reinvent management. You can help.

Introducing the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation

by Polly LaBarre on May 24, 2011

Humanocracy

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Introducing the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation

We have a big dream here at the MIX: to create organizations that are fundamentally fit for the future—and genuinely fit for human beings. As much as "modern management" has delivered to the world, we believe it is time to radically rethink how we mobilize people and resources to productive ends. And we believe that's not an undertaking for any one individual or organization--it's everybody's problem.

That's why we're delighted to introduce our most comprehensive contest ever, dedicated to reinventing management for the 21st century: The Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation. We can't think of better partners when it comes to casting the widest net and enlisting the most progressive thinking to the collective effort of improving what we call "the technology of human accomplishment."

The Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize will unfold over the course of a year and include three separate phases focused on leveraging technology, reinventing strategy, and rethinking organizations. The first leg is The Management 2.0 Challenge, which launches right now.

With the Management 2.0 Challenge, we're seeking the most progressive practices and disruptive ideas when it comes to how the governing principles and tools of the Web can make our organizations more adaptable, innovative, inspiring, and accountable. Specifically, how can the values that undergird the Web (such as transparency, collaboration, meritocracy, openness, and community) and the approaches that contribute to its power (social technologies and architectures of participation including wikis, blogs, social networks, crowdsourcing initiatives, prediction markets, and online games) be unleashed to overcome the design limits of Management 1.0--and help to create Management 2.0?

Do you have a STORY (a real-world case study of a single practice, an initiative, or a broad-based transformation that you led or were involved in) or a HACK (a disruptive idea, radical fix or experimental design) that illustrates how the principles and tools of Web 2.0 can help create Management 2.0? Share it with us--and with the world.

We know that people are experimenting with radical management practices all over the world in every kind of organization at every level. Management innovation is not the exclusive province of brand-name companies or the executive suite. You don't have to be a guru or a CEO--or even a "manager" by title--to be a management innovator. You just have to be frustrated by the status quo and willing to ask a courageous "What if?" (And, to participate in the M-Prize, you just have to register for the MIX. You can find more details on the rules of play here.)

If you do, you earn the opportunity to have your ideas considered by a stellar roster of judges, including Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Clay Shirky, an original thinker on the Internet and decentralized technologies (and author of Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age), our own Gary Hamel, thought leader and author of The Future of Management, Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab and author, The New Capitalist Manifesto, Eric Hellweg, editor of Harvard Business Review online, Lynda Gratton, a professor of management at London Business School and author of The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here, James Manyika, director at McKinsey & Co, and Mark McDonald, Group Vice President, Gartner Group.

What's more, the winners will receive significant recognition as management innovators on the MIX and in the various channels of Harvard Business Review and the McKinsey Quarterly. Winners will also earn the chance to appear and tell their story at the MIX Live gathering scheduled for late spring 2012.

Of course you can't win if you don't play—and if you play, we all win. The more progressive management ideas and practices we unearth and advance, the more effective all of our organizations will be—and the more engaging, productive and rewarding work will be for the people inside them.

To get your engines revving, Gary Hamel offers up his challenge on the subject of Management 2.0 in the next post. For inspiration, you might also want to review the stories and hacks that have already begun to populate the Management 2.0 Challenge pipeline. And watch this space for weekly highlights and analysis of the best contributions, provocative points of view from leading thinkers, and helpful tools as the M-Prize unfolds.

As always, let us know if you have any questions or feedback about the contest. And good luck!

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