ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All the material in this book—balanced equally between nine long and thirty-three short chapters—has already been published. The first of the long chapters—the opening Interview—first appeared in New Perspective Quarterly. The concluding Afterword—the longest chapter—was first published as a London Economist “Management Briefing.” Four other long chapters (chapters 13, 28, 31, 40) first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Of the remaining long chapters, Chapter 1 first appeared in the London Economist, Chapter 21 in Industry Week, and Chapter 29 in Non Profit Management & Leadership. Of the short chapters, Chapter 2 first appeared in New Management, Chapter 10 in The New York Times, and thirty-one chapters (chapters, 3–9, 11–12, 14–20, 22–27, 30, 32–39) in The Wall Street Journal.

In preparing the chapters for publication in this volume I have changed some titles and corrected typographical errors. Otherwise I have left them as they first appeared. But I have added at the end of each chapter the year of its first publication. This should enable readers to know what year is meant when the chapter talks of “this year” or “last year.” It should above all enable readers to decide for themselves whether the author’s conclusions and predictions have stood the test of time.

This is the third such volume to which Truman M. Talley of Truman Talley Books / Dutton has been both midwife and godfather. He first proposed ten years ago to collect the best of my essays and articles in a volume, for which he then picked the appropriate chapters and edited them—the book appeared in 1982 under the title The Changing World of the Executive. He then suggested that I design my essays and articles so as to fit into a volume for the executive reader and especially to focus them on what the executive has to understand to make the right decisions and to make them effectively. The result was a second volume published in 1986 under the title The Frontiers of Management. Since then Mac Talley has worked with me to design my articles and essays in contemplation of this present volume. Both this book and I owe an enormous debt to his continuing encouragement over the years, to his judgment, and to the enormous amount of work he put into selecting the chapters for this volume. Thanks are also owing to Patrice Silverstein, Assistant Managing Editor, and John Paine, Production Editor, who transformed a messy manuscript into a handsome book and did so in record time.