Managing in a Time of Great Change

CHAPTER ONE

The Theory of the Business

NOT IN A VERY LONG TIME—not, perhaps, since the late 1940s or early 1950s—have there been as many new major management techniques as there are today: downsizing, outsourcing, total quality management, economic value analysis, benchmarking, reengineering. Each is a powerful tool. But with the exceptions of outsourcing and reengineering, these tools are designed primarily to do differently what is already being done. They are “how-to-do” tools.

Yet what to do is increasingly becoming the central challenge facing managements, especially those of big companies that have enjoyed long-term success. The story is a familiar one: a company that was a superstar only yesterday finds itself stagnating and frustrated, ...