Innovation Tips

…ideas to foster collaborative innovation

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The New Realities—The Great Divide

In Peter Drucker’s convincing book, The New Realities, he outlines the dramatic changes afoot in virtually all walks of life. He describes a new world order that was already upon us well in advance of the much-heralded new millennium. It is a world order that will directly impact each of us and the organizations we join.

The Divide

History illuminates epochal divides—those dramatic transitional periods when the creeds and paradigms that gird the social structure are ineluctably altered. For Drucker, the most recent divide occurred sometime between 1965 and 1973, when the world was ushered over to a new terra incognita—a social, economic and political landscape dramatically different from that which had prevailed for the previous one hundred years.

Governments across the globe lost their effectiveness to deliver the ideal society. Socially and politically, the world became highly pluralistic with multiple power centers, each concerned with its own vested social task. In economics, the world could no longer be modeled or described by former economic theory; the relationship among economic forces became simply too complex and too unpredictable.

But the most significant change occurring out of this divide, one that, according to Drucker, far exceeds the significance of all others, is the rise of the specialist in a knowledge-based society. We are emerging out of the more rigid command-and-control organizations that, in their day, served highly effective and productive purposes, into organizations that have far less need for managerial control.

In the new knowledge-based economy, work is highly specialized. The managerial structures that formerly oversaw productive work must now change in character to coordinate and draw out the strengths of specialists in productive teamwork.

What few "managers" will be left in this new order will be those who can draw on highly independent team members to work cooperatively toward common objectives. Succeeding in this new environment will be those who have developed the cooperative teamwork of diverse people with highly specialized knowledge. ____________________________________________

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