“A US psychologist, Carl Rabstejnek, has identified at least 100 management fads since the second world war, from ‘acceptable risk’ at one end of the alphabet to ‘zero defects’ at the other.

He argues that fads reflect managers’ need to appear to be ‘in the know’ and to talk the language of change even when actual change is imperceptible.

The largest financial support for fads comes, he argues, from large companies that are actually slow to change: no parallel to the NHS, clearly.”

Source: Hawkes, N. (2013) Take Me To Your Leader. BMJ 2013;346:f2092.

Related Article

• Is Design Thinking Built-To-Last Or Just Another Management Fad? (mootee.typepad.com)