Volume 36, Number 3, pages 13-21, 9 pages
Primary Topic: Corporate Strategy
Secondary Topic: Leadership
SummaryOn October 28, 1994, the MIT Sloan School and Price Waterhouse cohosted a roundtable discussion among CEOs, PW partners, and Sloan faculty. Walter Kiechel, then managing editor of Fortune, moderated the discussion, which focused on the organization in the year 2020 -- its size, structure, leadership, and mission. The conversation, of which we publish only a small portion, was split into three sessions. The first focused on forces of change. In the second, Sloan professor Thomas Malone presented two scenarios for how organizations might develop, and the participants reacted to them. Peter Senge, director of MIT's Center for Organizational Learning, then proposed characteristics that tomorrow's organizations will need to foster, and the group responded to those. As in any lively, wide-ranging conversation, several themes emerged and reemerged in different forms, as the session progressed. Which is harder to manage, technology or people? Which matters more? Will the trend toward radical outsourcing continue, or are we learning that, by outsourcing, we lose control? Are organizations increasingly unpleasant places to work? Will the gap between the haves and the have nots continue to grow and, if so, at what price? Walter Kiechel III, former managing editor, Fortune, moderator; Edgar Bronfman, Jr., president and CEO, The Seagram Company Ltd.; Richard A. Goldstein, president and CEO, Unilever United States Inc; Mike Harris, chief executive, Cable & Wireless Federal Developments; Thomas Malone, professor, MIT Sloan School; Jim Manzi, chairman of the board, president, and CEO, Lotus Development Corporation; John William Melbourn, deputy group chief executive, National Westminster Bank PLC; William J. O'Brien, former president and CEO, The Hanover Insurance Companies; James Schiro, chairman and senior partner-elect, Price Waterhouse. |