Introduction

In a famous eighteenth century children’s story, a man called Rip Van Winkle went to bed one night and fell into a deep sleep that lasted for many years. The timeless appeal of the story is largely based on Rip’s reaction to the changes he found when he awoke and the perceived overall effect of mankind’s ingenuity on changing and ’improving’ the way people live over time. When the story first appeared in print it was credited with forcing many people to think for the first time about changing lifestyles.

Although there have been few periods in human history when inventions and improved ways of working were not being created, it was clear well over a hundred years ago, that each new century produced disproportionately more developments than the preceding one and that this trend was likely to continue. It was also clear that every so often it became almost meaningless to keep looking for improvements in an area that had been made obsolete by a new invention. Therefore, once the gun had been invented it made more sense trying to produce a better gun than an improved sword.

The changes that traumatized the fictional Rip Van Winkle would, of course, be quite modest when compared to what we now all experience over just a few short years and we, of course, are only too aware that the rate of change is accelerating all the time. In fact the rate of change is now so marked that we sometimes fail to see that we are still trying to make the equivalent of an improved sword, when we should be looking in an entirely different direction.

Using the Rip Van Winkle theme, we can illustrate the accelerating rate of change in commerce by stating that a senior executive unfortunate enough to slip into a coma in 1945 would, on returning to full health 15 years later in 1960, have experienced relatively few business problems that were outside his understanding and experience. It is quite likely, therefore, that if he returned to his old job, he could have done so without finding too many surprises in terms of technological and procedural changes.

A similar unfortunate going into a coma in 1985 and attempting to return to work in 2000 would find a very different situation. He or she would have a much more difficult task adapting to the changes in technology and more importantly, the effect these changes have had on business practice.

However, having experienced the same business environment in ’snapshots’ 15 years apart, the year 2000 returner would probably see one problem, currently considered by many to be ’almost beyond solution’, much more clearly than those of us who worked through this period. This is so because the key problem facing management at the start of this century – the need to be competitive in all the various functions of business– appeared to be far less important in 1985. Consequently, the current emphasis on competitiveness would be very marked to anyone who missed the years in between.