The coming of the entrepreneurial society

Here is a some key points from a chapter in The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker.

Institutions, systems, policies eventually outlive themselves. They do it when they accomplish their objectives and they do it when they fail to accomplish their objectives. The mechanisms may still tick. But the assumptions on which they were designed have become invalid.

Theories, values and all the artifacts of human minds and human hands do age and rigidify, becoming obsolete, becoming afflictions.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are needed in society, in the economy, in public service institutions, and in businesses.

They are not planned but focused on this opportunity or that need. They are tentative and will disapper if they do not produce the expected and needed results. They are pragmatic rather than dogmatic, modest rather than grandoise.

They promise to keep any society, economy, industry, public service or business flexible and self-renewing.

Planning is incompatible with an entrepreneurial society and economy. Innovation has to be decentralised, ad hoc, autonomous, specific and microeconomic. It has to start small, tentative, flexible.

The opportunity for innovation has to be found way down and close to events.

Conclusion: Innovation is needed to keep a society relevant. Planning is incompatible with an entrepreneurial society.