The article critically observes two development tendencies in the social work today: A turn towards management and method-glorification. It is argued that these obstruct the third current development tendency, that is, the desire to have more client involvement. The main argument of the article is to abandon the instrumental thinking that is the result of the cocktail of modern management theory and the current desire to have method books for action plans. The article presents examples from recent studies of the social area, the current debate on competence development (which our minister of employment just launched) and from the research of Nanna Mik-Meyer.
