The Daily Drucker: January 30 – Terrorism and Basic Trends

Management of an institution has to be grounded in basic and predictable trends that persist regardless of today’s headlines.

The terrorist attacks of September 2001 and America’s response to them has profoundly changed world politics.  We clearly face years of disorder, especially in the Middle East.  Management of an institution – whether a business, a university, a hospital – has to be grounded in basic and predicable trends that persist regardless of today’s headlines.  It has to exploit these trends as opportunities.  And these basic trends are the emergence of the Next Society and its new and unprecedented characteristics, especially

·                     The global shrinking of the youth population and the emergence of “new workforce”

·        The steady decline of manufacturing as a producer of wealth and jobs

·        The changes in the form, the structure, and the function of the corporation and of its top management

In times of great and unpredictable surprises, even basing one’s strategy and one’s policies on these unchanging and basic trends does not automatically ensure success.  But not to do so guarantees failure.

ACTION POINT: Write down three basic social trends that your business is based on.  Are these trends still all intact?

                                                                                                Managing in the Next Society

Quoted from The Daily Drucker, January 30, page 32