Management needs to be simpler to cope with the speed and complexity of business. The simplicity needs to operate on two fronts. Firstly it needs to make it easier to hit targets; to deliver the immediate corporate objectives. Secondly, and in parallel, it needs to refine and develop management capability so that delivery of objectives becomes progressively easier and more certain.

To achieve this level of simplicity, we need to change our management habits. This requires a re-examination of the way managers are integrated and separated, and how the management effort as a whole is controlled. In effect, we must treat a large part of management activity as process and approach it with the same scrutiny and intent that Ford once applied to the production of the black Model T.

In many ways making a business manageable is getting back to basics. It is about stripping back or de-cluttering management and making sure that the management resources, processes and information are structured and combined to be most effective. This is change from within and as such, it is rooted in the familiar. This type of change becomes self anchoring so that it can be rippled out from the centre, quickly and simply.