Book review:Gary Hamel argues that we have tweaked, stretched and pushed th e current management paradigm to its limits, and his solution is nothing short of a revolution. Managers be warned: ignore this book at your peril, writes Dr Robert Galavan

When management guru and London Business School professor Gary Hamel writes a book, only the foolhardy manager would ignore it. Hamel is responsible for putting "strategic intent", "core competence" and "expeditionary marketing" into the management lexicon.

What makes his books so special is not that the ideas are necessarily new - indeed, some have a distinct vintage to them. What makes his work important is his ability to coalesce a range of ideas into a unifying, central theme. When Competing for the Futurewas published in 1997, it refocused strategy from the mechanised approach of Harvard's Michael Porter and put the skills and capabilities of the workforce back on centre stage, and there they have stayed for a decade.

His second book, Leading the Revolution, hit the bestseller list, but had nowhere near the same impact and had the unfortunate infamy of mentioning Enron in glowing terms. Well, we all get caught sometimes.

Ten years on from his seminal work, Hamel is back, and he's calling for yet another revolution. In his new book, humbly titled The Future of Management, he teases us with the thought that we may have reached the end of management, leaving us the appalling vista that this is as good as it gets.

Thankfully, he means that we have reached the end of management based on the current set of rules. Rules which he rightfully points out were embedded in management practices when the son of a Cork man, Henry Ford, was putting the first Model-T Fords together 100 years ago.

Hamel argues that we have tweaked, stretched and pushed this management paradigm to its limits. In the 21st century, we have peaked operational efficiencies with six-sigma processes commonly counting defects in parts per million; we see product innovation move at such a pace that, regardless of patents, most products are quickly leapfrogged; and even the best strategic innovators such as Apple, Ryanair and Zara can see the writing on the wall.

Hamel's contention is that nothing short of a management revolution will allow us to continue with our progress, and his new book will be the one that brings the term "management innovation" into the 21st-century boardroom.

This book has few exemplars to point to, however. Perhaps this is because, as one approaches a paradigm change, there are few examples to point to, or perhaps Hamel is wary of pointing to industry leaders that may go the way of Enron.

To be fair, though, if your argument is that best practice, whatever that is, is not good enough, then a longlist is an unreasonable ask. The shortlist of management innovators includes WL Gore (the maker of the Gore-Tex fabric), which has developed what Hamel describes as an "Innovation Democracy" through lattice structures, egalitarian leadership, freedom to experiment, commitment and energy. Google also makes the list, not because of its technology, but because of its "Evolutionary Advantage", driven by a sense that it has a chance to change the world, by structures that are flat and decentralised, and by self-managing teams that operate in "bozo-free" zones.

Hamel provides an extensive list of ideas to help inspire the management innovation revolution.

Central to his suggestions are: encouragement to challenge precedent; getting to war with your beliefs; and exposing the self interests that stifle change.

This book is both challenging and frustrating. I do absolutely accept the central thesis that we need genuine management innovation if we are to move forward and prosper in the connected globalised economy that we face.

The frustration is whether our current cohort of leaders are dissatisfied enough with their management tools to innovate and relearn their trade. Add to this the fact that one of the central tenets of management, which Hamel suspects we will need to leave behind, is the traditional hierarchy. This immediately makes me think of turkeys voting for Christmas.

Those at the top of the pile should be warned, however. Ignore this book at your peril - you may not be ready to leave behind the ineffective assumptions of the planning, organising, leading and controlling process, but generation iPod simply can't wait.

• Dr Robert Galavanis director of the Centre for Business, Management and Innovation Studies at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth

• The Future of Management By Gary Hamel Harvard Business School Press£15.99 (€22.79)