The New Nature of Business

Epilogue

The previous chapters demonstrated that our current economic system is not fit for purpose, and that the status quo is no longer tenable. Humanity's future on the planet is at risk. Our value creation mechanism, which has brought prosperity, is outstretching planetary limits in a nonsustainable way. Commerce and industry must become net contributors to the system. But we also showed how a different approach is possible, and how some companies are already leading the way. In this epilogue, I want to add some thoughts to close out our book.

In its most basic form, management can be defined as taking over the responsibility and control of the individual household (oikos in ancient Greek means “house,” and oikonomos means “household management”—whence the English word economy). The family, the property, the house was the first stepping stone for the development of our civilization. It is the basic unit of society and led to the architecture of society as we know it. First came the individual, followed by the family, and eventually, the tribe. Each step of that journey increases the difficulty of the management task.

We all have experience of how family governance can be complicated, and there are countless examples of failures in the matter. The tribe leads to the village and to the region, the country and eventually, the empire. Each step of the process is a minefield, and the rate of success tends to decrease with size. The complexity of handling these agendas is huge ...