Excerpts from The Future of Management As much as we might deplore "bureaucracy, it still constitutes the organizing principle for virtually every commercial organization in the world, yours included. And while managers here and there may work to ameliorate some of its stultifying effects, there are few who can imagine a root-and-branch alternative. "When it comes to innovation, most companies have a barn-sized blind spot. competitive Perversely, the sorts of innovation that are least likely to produce long-term those that get the innovation and product i operational advantage most attention. Yet if you accept the lessons gleaned from 700 years of military conflict innovation that yields competition, it is management and a century-plus of industrial performance the biggest, longest-lasting advantages innovation yields an enduring advantage when one or more of three "Management conditions are met: the innovation is based on a novel management principle which chal- encompassing a range orthodoxy; the innovation is systemic lenges some long-standing of processes and methods; and/or the innovation is part of an ongoing program of rapid fire invention where progress compounds over time." "Over the coming decades, an accelerating pace of change will test the resilience of opportunities every society, organization and individual. Luckily, perturbations create as well as challenges. But the balance of promise and peril confronting any particular organization will depend on its capacity for adaptation. Hence the most important question for any company is this: Are we changing as fast as the world around us? Turns out that in an age of wrenching change and hyper-competition, valuable human capabilities are precisely those that are least manage-able the most Nerve, Valor. Derring do. These are the Artistry. Elan. Originality. Grit. Non-conformity orderliness. qualities that create value in the 21st century. Self discipline, Economy, Fastidiousness. These are the human Moderation. Reliability. Rationality. Prudence. qualities modern management was designed to foster and reward. No wonder most organizations are less resilient and inventive than the people who work for them