William James Reddin

William James Reddin also known as Bill Reddin (May 10, 1930 – June 20, 1999) was a British-born management behavioralist, theorist, writer, and consultant. His published works examined and explained how managers in profit and non-profit organizations behaved under certain situations and conditions. The focus of his work was to understand to what extent managers were effective in their role and successful in managing situations to have the right impact on the organization's objectives.

Through extensive research Reddin concluded that there is no ideal management style. He put forward that there was only one realistic and unambiguous definition of managerial effectiveness, the extent to which a manager or leader achieves the output requirements of the position. This is the manager's or leader's only job: to be effective.

Reddin was often quoted as saying both in his writings, to his clients and to his students, that there is no ideal style of managing; and there is no one way to make an organization more effective. He wrote in his 1988 book, ''The Output Oriented Manager'', "… no list exists in the world showing characteristics of effective managers, or, of effective organizations, which apply generally. He went on to write that his works' intent were to serve as a substitute for prescriptive management-guru advice prevalent in modern business, to enable the manager and leader in diagnosing what is the true situation and what are the true needs. They served managers and leaders to make sound decisions on how best to arrive at their planned objectives. This concept of managerial effectiveness is the central issue of Reddin's research, teachings, writings, diagnostic material and in his consulting and training.

Reddin advanced a theory to explain a critical and fundamental aspect of organizational success. He called it the 3D Theory.

This theory was contrary to popular management-belief at the time. Where Bill Reddin maintained that managerial effectiveness is defined in terms of output rather than input, meaning what they achieve rather than what they do, his colleagues in behavioralist studies and human psychology held that there were indeed ideal styles of management behavior. Provided by Wikipedia