Society, community, and family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability and to prevent, or at least to slow, change. And yet we also know that theories, values, and all the artifacts of human minds do age and rigidify, becoming obsolete, becoming afflictions.

Yet “revolutions” every generation, as was recommended by Thomas Jefferson, are not the solution. We know that “revolution” is not achievement and the new dawn. It results from senile decay, from the bankruptcy of ideas and institutions, from a failure of self-renewal. The only way in which an institution—whether a government, a university, a business, a labor union, an army—can maintain continuity is by building systematic, organized innovation into its very structure. Institutions, systems, policies, eventually outlive themselves, as do products, processes, and services. They do it when they accomplish their objectives, and they do it when they fail to accomplish their objectives. Innovation and entrepreneurship are thus needed in society as much as in the economy, in public service institutions as much as in business. The modern organization must be a destabilizer; it must be organized for innovation.

ACTION POINT: When is the last time you created or helped create a new product or service? Were you just copying a competitor, or did you actually hatch a fresh idea? Try again.

Managing in a Time of Great Change
The Ecological Vision
Innovation and Entrepreneurship