IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

The post reproduced below was the first draft version of the current capitalism/post-capitalism diagrams. These have since been substantially updated and the current versions can be found in this post at CommonsTransition.org

Directors say they dedicate more time now to their board duties than ever before and that, since 2011, they’ve cut in half the gap between the actual and ideal amount of time they spend on board work. In the newest McKinsey Global Survey on corporate boards,1the results confirm that strategy is, on average, the main focus of many boards. Yet directors still want more time for strategy—more than any other area of their board work—when they consider its relative value to their companies.

The best way to organize corporations—it’s a perennial debate. But the discussion is becoming more urgent as digital technology begins to penetrate the labor force.

Every manager is familiar with the employee who just won’t change. Sometimes it’s easy to see why—the employee fears a shift in power, the need to learn new skills, the stress of having to join a new team. In other cases, such resistance is far more puzzling. An employee has the skills and smarts to make a change with ease, has shown a deep commitment to the company, genuinely supports the change—and yet, inexplicably, does nothing.