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By FTDynamo FTDynamo, 14 August 2001 09:00

COMMENT With a thud, the publisher's envelope landed on the desk. This is an ordinary daily event for journalists, there being no shortage of new titles to read and review. But this particular envelope contained something of a surprise, and not an entirely welcome one at that. The parcel had inside it an updated and revised edition, with a new introduction, of Michael Hammer and James Champy's early 1990s best-seller "Re-engineering the Corporation - a manifesto for business revolution". The eager reader turns to the new introduction and finds the following three words standing as a bold prologue to the new edition: "Re-engineering is back." Forget money supply indicators, inflation rates, growth figures or consumer spending. At last we have real evidence that a serious recession is on the way, and that ingenious publisher, Nicholas Brealey, has brought out the book which proves it. Remember re-engineering? Remember those happy recession-torn days of ten years ago, when senior management teams had gone so far off the rails that only urgent, radical surgery could cure us of our corporate ills? Remember "corporate killers", those CEOs who slashed and burned while collecting multi-million dollar salaries? It looks as though nostalgia-freaks may be about to get a dose of something they will find deeply satisfying. Re-engineering helped set the tone for business and politics in the pre-boom 1990s. US corporations were suffering a crisis of confidence as apparently invincible Japanese firms built market dominance. Unemployment rose in Europe and the US as "downsizing" - a euphemism for job cuts that were justified with reference to the re-engineering analysis - became rife. Job insecurity rose as well, and with it the unpopularity of political incumbents of the centre-right. The Clinton/Blair, "Third Way" hegemony fed on the doubts of the former believers in free markets and the inherent rightness of capitalism. Hammer and Champy, the authors of the original and definitive re-engineering tract, have arguably been traduced. Re-engineering does not simply mean sacking people. Firms and organisations that embark on "business process redesign" may even end up hiring more people if smarter design leads to better performance, and increased demand for products and services. Indeed, the authors would be entitled to claim at least a passing connection between the hacking off of dead corporate wood in the early to mid 90s, and the amazing boom of the late 90s. Did firms' leanness and efficiency leave them better placed to exploit the growth and excitement of the "new economy"? That is the generous interpretation. In practice, however, re-engineering became synonymous with the most brutal job cuts seen for many years. Hammer and Champy's influential work, however carefully conceived, was used by managers to support simplistic and damaging restructurings that left employees and organisations confused and disheartened. The BBC, for example, re-engineered with unflinching vigour and is only now beginning to bind up its corporate wounds. (In fairness to the Birtian terror, of course, the Beeb has survived politically with its charter and licence fee intact.) All over the business world re-engineering led to the throwing out of valuable corporate babies with the murky bathwater. And in the new edition of their book the authors are scarcely more convincing than before when it comes to explaining what they mean by re-engineering. Challenged by the thought that re-engineering runs counter to an earlier and (in many ways) proven management theory, Total Quality Management (TQM), Hammer and Champy merely state that there is no conflict. "Re-engineering gets a company where it needs to be fast; TQM moves a company in the same direction, but more slowly. Re-engineering is about dramatic, radical change; TQM involves incremental adjustment. Both have their place." A Swiss cheese-maker couldn't produce finer holes than this. The authors repeat their assertion that, because re-engineering is at times painful, unhappiness in the workplace should be expected; but good managers plough on through the unhappiness to reach their goals. If it isn't hurting, the authors believe, it isn't working. This has, repeatedly, been a prescription for failure - and misery - in the workplace. And no-one is immune to the Hammer/Champy analysis: "The principles of re-engineering can even be applied in start-up companies and other new ventures." The statement is self-evidently absurd. But in a new downturn, and in increasingly desperate times, a new audience may come forward to absorb the gospel according to Hammer and Champy. There may even be some former re-engineers ready to repeat the mistakes of the past. Almost anything will come back into fashion if you wait long enough. In business, the cycle sees to that for you. Hammer and Champy have seized their moment. "We hope that this book will be as useful for the new wave of re-engineering as it was for the first one," they write in the new introduction. Yes indeed. Re-engineering is back. FTdynamo, the management website from FT Knowledge, where the latest in business thinking is put into context and delivered to your desktop, is now live. Visit us at http://www.ftdynamo.com and register for a FREE two week trial subscription.