The Future Is the Heart

DR. ICHAK ADIZES leads us through an evolutionary journey from pre-human times up to today. He looks at what qualities and attributes leaders have needed, and he predicts why, in the future, it will be the heart

- VIRINAFLORA

In order to predict the future of management, we need to predict the future. Then, in order to predict the future we must understand the past, whether it projects itself into the future or is there some discontinuity or major disruption from the past into the future.

Let's take a look at the big picture of the past to see whether it predicts in any shape or form the future.

At the beginning, according to Darwin, we were chimpanzees, and the strongest chimpanzee was a leader. Then we became a nomadic society, and the best hunter was the leader. Then we settled and became an agricultural society. The person with the most sheep, cows, or lambs was a leader. The common denominator is whoever was the strongest and had the most possessions was the leader. This mindset gave birth to early empire builders that tried to expand their empires to be as big as possible because bigness was considered greatness.

Then came the Industrial Revolution and the brain took the front place in determining leadership and success. The industrial society needed to plan, organize, hire, fire, budget and sell. Success in the industrial society was based on having both muscles and brains. That's what the colonialists, the Germans, the British, and the French of the 19th century had and used: administrative systems and military strength.