Here we are, at the tail end of the twentieth century. The last two decades of the century have been one of the most traumatic and exciting times in the history of mankind. Just imagine, while the agricultural age lasted 30,000 years, the industrial age following it has lasted less than 300 years. As if that weren't awful enough, the information age following the industrial era has lasted just over 30 years, and we are already into the innovation age. Will this last 3 years? No one knows, and anyone who says he or she knows must be clairvoyant or crazy.

Time has taken a completely new meaning and dimension. We grew up learning that haste makes waste. Today, unfortunately, no haste is worse than mere haste because it makes greater waste.

Listen to the futurist, James Burke, who said, "It took centuries for information about the smelting of ore to cross a single continent and bring about the Iron Age. During the time of sailing ships, it took years for that which was known to become that which was shared. When man stepped on the moon, it was known and seen in every corner of the globe 1.4 seconds later - hopelessly slow by today's standards."

Some of us may have a problem with futurists. But the problem with what James Burke observed is more complex - it is true, and you, I, and everyone else knows that it is frighteningly true. No wonder Hiroshi Okuda, President of Toyota, describes in three words the success of Toyota: Speed, Speed, Speed.

Time has thus started shrinking - even though many of us don't believe it. Why do we not believe it? Because we continue to measure it in terms of twenty-four hours in a day, one hundred and sixty eight hours in the week, and so on. So the problem arises from the fact that our measuring systems haven't changed with the times. Time itself has been miniaturized, yet our measuring systems have remained the same. Imagine a horse drawn vehicle with a speedometer capable of measuring speeds up to fifty or sixty miles an hour. What use would this measuring instrument be in the cockpit of a Marlboro sponsored Ferrari or a Boeing aircraft of today?

This isn't the only problem. The advent of clocks and computers has created an artificial environment of time punctuated by mechanical contrivances and electronic impulses leading to a time plane that is quantitative, fast paced, efficient, and predictable. Or so we would like to believe. The computer and information era are creating the emergence of a new language and an altered state of consciousness, just as the automatic clock did in the thirteenth century, when it provided a gateway to the Age of Mechanism and a clockwork universe.

The impact of these changes is profound, to put it lightly. While our biological lives are still tied to the fixed and unvarying rhythms of nature, our social lives are more and more driven by the nanosecond time frame of the computer.

The nanosecond culture is here to stay, like it or not. This places peculiar pressures on people. Stand back for a moment, and look at the organization chart of your company. Broadly speaking, there is a CEO or GM or some such position at the top of the pyramid. He or she may well be managing several divisions or profit centers. These divisions could be carved on the basis of geography, product, whatever. Some organizations then have an additional layer of regional managers, all reporting to the regional CEO. These people have little operational responsibility but lots of advice to offer. Each division has a head - GM, profit center chief, or the like.

Each division then has at least four or five layers between the rank and file and the top. Let's say a problem crops up at the point of action - where physical work gets done. Unless the person on the spot has the skills, the knowledge, the authority, and the desire to solve the problem, it won't get solved quickly. It simply isn't enough for the person in question to have three of the four things. All four are required. When even one of them is missing, the problem gets kicked upwards.

This is true not only for problems, but for non-problem related decisions as well. Imagine a situation where a very senior person receives a recommendation from his direct report asking that an employee further down the food chain be promoted. The senior officer has the authority to take the decision, yet he sends the file upwards to his boss, with a note that says 'For God's Comments'. What has this senior person done? He has simply abdicated his responsibility.

These things happen each day in almost every organization. What happens when this a customer related problem? The customer is waiting for his problem to be solved. The man on the ground floor has kicked the problem upwards. As far as he is concerned, he has taken prompt action. Now, supposing five other people take similar prompt action. The customer simply walks away. Even if he is bound to you by contract, he will not forget to pay you back this complement.

When things happen so fast, where is the time to send information up, up, and up? In a fast changing world, the shelf-life of information reduces rapidly. If you don't act upon a piece of information quickly, you will quite possibly end up taking the wrong [or meaningless] action when you actually do something about it.

The Gulf War of 1990 provides a classic example of this fact. The Allies had better information than the entrenched defender. They also used it quickly. It taught us that bits and bytes have become more powerful then bullets. But only if the bits and bytes are used quickly. A few minutes of delay is enough to make it not just useless, but downright dangerous.

Superimposing computers over time, we have two types of people these days - those who tell the computer what to do, and those who are told by the computer what to do! The lessons for organization are profound then. Organizations have to learn to capture information, then place it in the hands of people who can do something with it. In other words, organizations need more people who tell computers what to do, instead of being told what to do.

The four pillars of action that leads to success - knowledge, skills, authority, and desire - suddenly take on a new meaning. This means a reexamination of the existing channels of organizational communication. It also means a closer scrutiny of the quality of people we hire.

Are our managers capable of giving authority away and pushing decision making to the ground floor? Are our executives capable of taking decisions, once they have the authority? Do they know what they are doing?

These are strange times, indeed. Our minds are wired to believe that having information and then holding on to it is power. In the twilight of the twentieth century, we have to learn that while having information is certainly an indicator of power, the real power stems from our ability to share it with a whole host of people, quickly and accurately, and then enable them to act upon it.

If this be the case, what role will managers have in the twenty-first century? What is the point in having tons of this species, who either distort the information they have, or delay its dissemination? How does this compare with Okuda's clarion call for speed, speed, speed?