The past century may have seen the rise of great management thinkers - W. Edward Deming, Peter F. Drucker, Clayton Christensen, Michael Porter, John Kotter, to name but a few - but many managers still have not learned many of the lessons of the management greats. It's about time that changed, says John Hunter, consultant, blogger and author of a new book out called Management Matters : Building Enterprise Capability.

In this Process Perspectives podcast, Hunter talks about the publication of his recent book, explains why he believes management hasn’t improved much in the last few decades, and argues that there should be two more deadly diseases added to the list of Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s original 7 deadly diseases.

Questions addressed in this podcast:

• There have been so many books on management written over the years it’s got to be nearly impossible to say something new. But you think that the problem is not a lack of great management ideas, but rather that we ignore them. Can you tell me more about that?
• Your view on management systems is heavily influenced by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, particularly his System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK). Could you take us briefly through the four key principles of SoPK?
• Why do you think Deming’s work still has so much relevance today?
• In this book, you say that precisely none of Deming’s 7 deadly diseases for organizations have been addressed in the last several decades. Why do you think that we’re not learning those lessons?
• You also argue that in addition to Deming’s original list of 7 deadly diseases - there are two more that should be added to the list. What are they and do you think they’re diseases that weren’t around in Deming’s time?
• Finally, if there was one thing that you would want a reader to take away from reading your book, what would it be?

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