Reinventing the Wheel in Organizations

Reinventing the Wheel in Organizations

Reinventing the wheel…
- What does it mean (in an organizational context)?
- How is it affecting the organisation and its effectiveness?
- What kind of solutions are possible?

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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands

Reinventing the Wheel and Management

Thanks for your question. Here are some ideas:
To reinvent the wheel means to duplicate creating an approach or method for solving some problem/issue that previously has been already created or optimized by others.
Reinventing the wheel is a metaphor for inefficient conduct. The wheel is an archetype of historic human ingenuity. Because the wheel has already been invented, and has few (or no?) operational flaws, any attempt to reinvent it would normally be quite useless and a waste of time and resources which could otherwise be spent elsewhere on possibly more valuable goals.
Organizations have a purpose, goals, etc. The task of managers is to plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control all efforts to achieve these goals (see 5 elements of management by Fayol). So management and managers could be seen as one major solution to avoiding reinventing the wheel in organizations.