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Enterprise Anorexia Concept
Enterprise Anorexia is an expression
created by Gary Hamel and by C. K. Prahalad in “Competing for the
Future” to criticize the abuse committed with downsizing. The expression
was created to describe the organizations that continuously search to
reduce costs and the number of employees, without worrying in redefining
functions and processes or revitalize the organizational culture.
Prahalad had even defined enterprise
anorexia as the disease of diet fanatics in human resources. According
to him, “Downsizing can make the company skinnier and thinner, but not
necessarily healthier. There is the need to create muscle and not only
to reduce the fat. With downsizing was lost some fat, but also muscle.
Was lost a lot of the company’s intellectual capital. Was lost a great
part of the company’s memory. Finished that becomes very difficult to
rebuild skills”.
Later, also Michael Hammer, the creator of
the reengineering concept, through his new book Beyond Reengineering
made an effort to separate reengineering from the downsizing tools’
package and to connect it to the enterprise growth for the twenty-first
century.
Translated from Portuguese
by Susana Saraiva, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese translation
specialist. Contact: spams@sapo.pt.
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