What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

5.1

CHALLENGING THE IDEOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT

Here's a word that probably doesn't get much airtime in your organization: ideology. Do a search of your company's internal website and I'm willing to bet you won't find a single reference. That's a problem. As managers, it's our creedal beliefs that prevent our institutions from being more adaptable, more innovative, more inspiring, and more noble–minded. We are limited by our management ideology.

Human history is a chronicle of ideological conflict: polytheism versus monotheism, materialism versus idealism, mercantilism versus free trade, totalitarianism versus democracy, and communitarianism versus individualism. Occasionally, an ideology trumps its rivals, usually because it produces better social ...