We’ve heard it before: “______ won’t be around long. It’s the flavor of the month.” Fill in the blank with the latest management fad: zero defects, quality circles, SPC, TQM, systems thinking, balanced scorecards, reengineering, and most recently, Six Sigma and lean. What exactly is meant by tagging something the flavor of the month (FOM)? Should practitioners even care when their special initiative is the target of this unwelcome label?

Originally, of course, the FOM was a marketing promotion for Baskin-Robbins. It still is. December’s FOM was, appropriately, Egg Nog. But who really cares what last month’s FOM was? It’s yesterday’s news. This is one of the defining properties of the label. It’s here today, gone tomorrow. Lots of hype, enthusiasm, and fanfare. Then… nothing.

Despite the cynicism and naysaying, savvy corporate politicians know that FOM programs are opportunities to grab resources, expand empires, and extend jurisdictions. Many FOMs are a response to the problems created by hierarchical organizational structures. Although this is the dominant form of organization in use, modern organizations add customer value by way of “heterarchies,” not hierarchies. A heterarchy is a network resembling a fishnet. Authority in a heterarchy is determined by knowledge and function. When we use tools such as process deployment flowcharts or interrelationship diagrams, we’re creating heterarchy diagrams.

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