Living Strategy: Putting People at the Heart of Corporate Purpose

FIRST TENET We operate in time

Living in a world where financial and technological capital has dominated, what are our assumptions about the nature of time? I believe there are two implicit assumptions. Changes in performance can take place within a relatively short time frame. Consider, for example, the time it takes to raise financial capital or to put a new piece of technology into operation. Second, the present dominates the past and the future. Consider the emphasis on immediate, short-term performance.

These two assumptions have profoundly influenced the way in which organizations have been created and are run. In part this short-term approach is driven by the perceived short-termism of the financial capital markets which emphasizes immediate ...