ECONOMY

Authority on management sees a ‘no-rules brawl’ out there

Business Week magazine has named him «the best friend and worst nightmare» of enterprises; drawing on decades of experience and research, Tom Peters, considered by many the world’s top management guru, offers a unique point of view on what is right and wrong in schools of business organization and management, and provides ideas on how to spruce up their operation. Many business and political leaders seized the opportunity to listen to him as guest speaker at the management forum organized by the Papastratos Foundation in Athens last week, where he presented the 23 «manifestos» that make up the «Brawl with No Rules Series.» «We are reinventing the world from scratch. We get to make it up as we go along,» he said. «We are like the cavemen.» Tom Peters is known for several best sellers, but the one that catapulted him to fame is titled «In Search of Excellence,» published in 1982, where he sets out the quest for the modern entrepreneurial model. Since then, Peters has been an inspiration for labor and employers’ organizations. «What are the three most important changes you foresee taking place in management studies in the next 50 years?» he was asked in a recent interview. «Online, online, online. Bricks and mortar are dead. Period. I honestly believe that online training is the nature of all studies after high school. I believe it is the basis of college education – in the non-business schools, as well as in business training. I foresee that people will select subjects in any place in the world they choose instead of focusing their attention on a single program that has been set up by a particular management school. «I have set out the view, half-joking, half-serious, that we shall not even have college degrees in 20 years from now. On the contrary, I believe that in offices, behind people’s desks, we shall see a series of certificates from lessons or seminars, mainly online, which meet their work requirements. For instance, I undertake a specific job and I search on the Web for some lesson to fill the knowledge vacuum with regard to that specific job. A hundred such lessons will be my official studies,» Peters said.

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