MANS (Management and Labour New Style) was founded in 1982 as an association. John James Peereboom took this initiative together with a number of companies, supported by employers’ organisation FME and the ministry of Economic Affairs. They saw the Dutch economy suffering from a severe crisis while those of Japan and the US were booming. They found out that quality management such as Kaizen and Total Quality Management was commonplace in these countries.

MANS organised large-scale meetings with business tycoons such as Honeywell, Rank Xerox and DAF whose CEO’s were also member of the board. Important politicians, such as Ruud Lubbers and Frans Andriessen, were member of the board as well. They stimulated professionalization of business management during the eighties and nineties. MANS had 6,000 members at that time.

Unique for MANS was that it integrated the hard and soft side of management in one method. In 1994 MANS became a commercial business consultancy, led by drs. Jane Zuidema. The purpose of the association had been achieved.

As a pioneer in TQM, MANS was also one of the initiators of the Instituut Nederlandse Kwaliteit (Institute of Dutch Quality). Thus, it was only natural that MANS contributed considerably to the INK-model. During the nineties and the beginning of the new millennium, MANS became one of the experts in supporting organizational development based on this model.

In recent years, MANS developed Open Mind Management©: a powerful and logical continuation of TQM and INK, in which MANS combines its experience with organisational change with aspects from neurology, psychology and business administration. The addition of analysing behaviour is the ultimate way to manage, to speed up and to secure change properly.