There is little argument that the pace of life and work is ever increasing. Our businesses have to be globally competitive and individuals are stretched to manage keep pace with the demands placed on them. Futurists have heralded the impact of technology in every aspect of contemporary life and the phrase “permanent white water” seems to describe best the rate of change in today’s societies.

The application of Information Technologies has increased business’ ability to adapt and change – to a point where re-engineering is so common today we no longer even to use that expression, which was the rage just a decade ago. The rapid growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web - combined with business processes automation solutions – are finally leading to the emergence of true e-businesses even if the term is now embarrassingly passé.

So what is management doing while the enterprise is constantly reinventing itself and the best in management thinking has a half-life of around five years? I for one don’t think we are doing nearly enough! Try this little experiment – go to your bookcase and see how many management tomes you have can be reliable guides in the present business environment. The answer may surprise you and get you a lot of free space on your bookshelf.

We need to shake off the command-and-control styles of management (see A History of Governance) that are simply inappropriate for the flat, collaborative organizational structures modern businesses aspire to. Traditional hierarchies simply do not scale. They cost way too much for one thing and the original idea of the business as an army with all employees moving in lock-step is not sustainable in turbulent times. These traditional management structures do not allow for innovation which is essential if a business is to adapt to the changing world. A single, controlling viewpoint must be allowed to be challenged and tested; with even good ideas having a half-life of less than a decade there is little time to mobilize an army. What we need are more collaborative techniques to allow for coordinated action because when the hierarchy fails we need a new means to mobilize and align our business teams so they work towards common goals.

The key to this is that even as the world changes rapidly and technologies evolve, people change little, if at all. As I heard BJ Fogg say recently, the good news is that understanding how people behave and what they need to be effective is a timeless investment. The managers who can cope with complexity and ambiguity while motivating their people to work towards common goals will be the ones that have the most promising careers going forward.