Management Challenges for the 21st Century
by Peter Drucker

Introduction: Tomorrow's "Hot" Issues

Where, readers may ask, is the discussion of COMPETITIVE STRATEGY, of LEADERSHIP, of CREATIVITY, of TEAMWORK, of TECHNOLOGY in a book on MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES?

Where are the "HOT" ISSUES OF TODAY?

But this is the very reason why they are not in this book.

It deals exclusively with TOMORROWS "Hot" Issues—the crucial, central, life-and-death issues that are certain to be the major challenges of tomorrow.

CERTAIN? Yes. For this is not a book of PREDICTIONS, not a book about the FUTURE.

The challenges and issues discussed in it are already with us in every one of the developed countries and in most of the emerging ones (e.g., Korea or Turkey). They can already be identified, discussed, analyzed and prescribed for.

Some people, someplace, are already working on them.

But so far very few organizations do, and very few executives.

Those who do work on these challenges today, and thus prepare themselves and their institutions for the new challenges, will be the leaders and dominate tomorrow.

Those who wait until these challenges have indeed become "hot" issues are likely to fall behind, perhaps never to recover.

This book is thus a Call for Action.

These challenges are not arising out of today. THEY ARE DIFFERENT. .

In most cases they are at odds and incompatible with what is accepted and successful today.

We live in a period of PROFOUND TRANSITION and the changes are more radical perhaps than even those that ushered in the "Second Industrial Revolution" of the middle of the 19th century, or the structural changes triggered by the Great Depression and the Second World War.

READING this book will upset and disturb a good many people, as WRITING it disturbed me.

For in many cases—for example, in the challenges inherent in the DISAPPEARING BIRTHRATE in the developed countries, or in the challenges to the individual, and to the employing organization, discussed in the final chapter on MANAGING ONESELF—the new realities and their demands require a REVERSAL of policies that have worked well for the last century and, even more, a change in the MINDSET (mental patterns) of organizations as well as of individuals.

Paragraphs dissected and colored to make comprehension easier.

See Management Challenges for the 21st Century Table of Contents