What Is the Future of Management? Part 2

"On the International Day of Peace, September 21, 2021, Dr. Ichak Adizes shared his experience on the future of management with members of the Heartfulness Institute, USA. In part 2, he highlights the need for differences, integration, and complementary teams based on mutual trust and respect."

- By Dr. Ichak Adizes

To manage change, you have to make decisions, and you cannot make decisions alone. Would you agree with me that nobody’s perfect? So, what do you need? A complementary team. Look at your marriage. Look at your partner. You are with somebody who’s different from you. Why?

You need complementary teams to make good decisions. But the moment you have a complementary team, it means difference. Then what’s going to happen? Conflict. And to implement a decision, you need the cooperation of the people whom you need. Why should you all cooperate? Because you have a common interest.

Do we have common interests? Often we don’t. So, that’s another source of conflict – conflict of interest. So, we have conflict of personalities and conflict of interests. The more the differences, the more the conflict.

How do we integrate a complementary team? And how do we integrate common interests? That is, how to integrate diversity of styles, diversity of nationalities (if you are looking at the world), diversity of religions, social diversity, any diversity? For that we need mutual respect. Look at this extended hand with five fingers together. This is a symbol. You see it everywhere; in all religions the saints are standing like this. What do you see? Different fingers together. That’s a blessing. Different together.