Management Challenges for the 21st Century

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Management Challenges for the 21st Century PETER F. DRUCKER Contents Introduction: Tomorrow’s “Hot” Issues 1 Management’s New Paradigms 2 Strategy—The New Certainties 3 The Change Leader 4 Information Challenges 5 Knowledge-Worker Productivity 6 Managing Oneself Acknowledgments About the Author Books By Peter F. Drucker Credits Front Cover Copyright About the Publisher iii Introduction: Tomorrow’s “Hot” Issues Where, readers may ask, is the discussion of COMPETITIVE STRATEGY, of LEADERSHIP, of CREATIVITY, of TEAMWORK, of TECHNOLOGY in a book on MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES? Where are the “HOT” ISSUES OF TODAY? But this is the very reason why they are not in this book. It deals exclusively with TOMORROW’S “Hot” Issues—the crucial, central, life-and-death issues that are certain to be the major challenges of tomorrow. CERTAIN? Yes. For this is not a book of PREDICTIONS, not a book about the FUTURE. The challenges and issues discussed in it are already with us in every one of the developed countries and in most of the emerging ones (e.g., Korea or Turkey). They can already be identified, discussed, analyzed and prescribed for. Some people, someplace, are already working on them. But so far very few organizations do, and very few executives. Those who do work on these challenges today, and thus prepare themselves and their institutions for the new challenges, will be the leaders and dominate tomorrow. Those who wait until these challenges have indeed become “hot” issues are likely to fall behind, perhaps never to recover. This book is thus a Call for Action. These challenges are not arising out of today. THEY ARE DIFFERENT. In most cases they are at odds and incompatible with what is accepted and successful today. We live in a period of PROFOUND TRANSITION—and the changes are more radical perhaps than even those that ushered in the “Second Industrial v
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