Page 50 - (DK) The Business Book

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IN CONTEXT
CHAINS OF HABIT FOCUS
Middle management
ARE TOO LIGHT TO KEY DATES
Pre-1850 The business
landscape is dominated by
small, family-run firms.
BE FELT UNTIL THEY 1850s and 60s A rapid

expansion of the railroad
ARE TOO HEAVY systems and new industrial
technology in Europe and
America create greater
possibilities for
TO BE BROKEN entrepreneurial businesses.

From 1880s As family
KEEP EVOLVING BUSINESS PRACTICE businesses grow ever larger,
administration becomes
important and they begin to
employ professional managers.
1982 UK economist Norman
Macrae predicts a future trend
of “intrapreneurs”: managers
with entrepreneurial thinking.

eople are important in
organizational life. Whether
P it is the initiative of a single
entrepreneur or the combined
energy of thousands of employees,
it is people who get things done.
However, that energy and initiative
would count for little without
managers to foster it. The creation,
implementation, and management
of organizational processes is what
molds individual energies into a
coherent whole—and as a company
evolves, it is the experience of
management that is essential in
redefining those processes.
While management experience
can liberate a business, it can also
enslave it. Experience quickly gives