The prudent course is to make an investment in learning, testing and understanding, determine how the new concepts compare to how you now operate and thoughtfully determine how they apply to what you want to achieve in the future.

People are not "things" to be manipulated, labeled, boxed, bought, and sold. Above all else, they are not "human resources." They are entire human beings, containing the whole of the evolving universe, limitless until we start limiting them. We must examine the concept of leading and following with new eyes. We must examine the concept of superior and subordinate with increasing skepticism. We must examine the concept of management and labor with new beliefs. And we must examine the nature of organizations that demand such distinctions with an entirely different consciousness.

Leadership: Here is the heart and soul of the matter. If you look to lead, invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers. Use the remainder to induce those you 'work for' to understand and practice...lead yourself, lead your supervisors, lead your peers, and free your people to do the same. All else is trivia.

It won't do away with hierarchy totally, but the principal leader will be the person who most exemplifies the kind of organization and behavior required who is best able to create the conditions such organizations require.

If you think you can't, why think

Well, years and years ago, I started to ask myself three very simple questions, which dominated my life for many years. One of them was, "Why are organizations everywhere, whether commercial, social, or religious, increasingly unable to manage their affairs?" The second question was, "Why are individuals throughout the world increasingly in conflict with and alienated from the organizations of which they're a part?" And the third was, "Why are society and the biosphere increasingly in disarray?"

As I like to say, the entire collective memory of the species - that means all known and recorded information - is going to be just a few keystrokes away in a matter of years.