Cobertura del servicio NEBA

already have – and they

want it now.

friends. The price for not being linked, however, is extremely high. Give Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic a call and they will tell you.

Leaders and laggards

Clearly, not all regions are growing at the same rate. According to the World Bank’s economic experts, people in fast-growing economies simply work harder, study harder and save more. Economic success and progress is about simple things: working, studying and saving – no magic powder or wand will do the trick.

During the 1990s, the US economy regained its position as No. 1. We can see this, for instance, in terms of the share of world stock market value represented by Japanese and US companies.62

Five years ago the Asians, and particularly Japan, seemed unstoppable, but in the run up to the new millennium many of these economies came to a grinding halt. What happened? Should we be surprised? The short answer is no. In the last phase of the industrial era, we played a game focused on efficiency, exploitation and incremental improve- ments, mass-production, one more product, exactly like the last one, then one more – only slightly better. Those who succeeded were wizards at perfecting the known.63_They

excelled at doing things right.

In the funky village, the game revolves around effective- ness, creation and revolutionary changes, new customer offerings, being completely different, surprising people, providing amazing stuff. Success comes from exploring the unknown and getting it roughly right.

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Year Japan The United States

1990 41.5% 31.0%

1998 10.4% 53.2%

Players with different profiles will dominate throughout the lifecycle of any era. In the funky village, there is one region characterized by highly individualistic values. It has institutions that allow for a fluid, temporary and mobile labor market. A region that accepts uncertainty and is a cre- ator of new technology – the United States. So we should not be surprised that American firms now dominate at the beginning of this new era – particularly when collectivism, lifetime employment, uncertainty reduction and the assim- ilation, rather than the creation, of new technology mark one of the main contenders – Japan.64

It will not necessarily remain the case. America’s long boom is not written in tablets of stone. Its dominance may not end right away, but it will certainly be challenged. Increased globalization and value-fusion will have their say. Many people are no longer trapped by geography. Certain Japanese, Danish or Portuguese people are more individual- istic creators and uncertainty embracers than the typical American is. The world is now their stage. They are free to exercise their right to choose. And choices they will make. So, we should expect faster and unexpected comebacks as these individuals pick up signals and ideas from one region and transplant them to another. In a placeless society, indi- viduals and organizations with many homes should not be confused with nation states that cannot be cut loose and shipped off somewhere else. Once again, who appears more important than where.

Results from the third international math and science study (TIMSS), in which the knowledge of 13-year-olds from around the world is measured, also make you wonder about how long the US can stay ahead.65

In a brain-based economy, can American dominance pre- vail, when on average its youngsters are playing in the minor league? A more critical question, however, is whether or not the average is at all interesting. If the funky

people, given a specific task, really happen to be 100 times smarter than the rest, isn’t the average score just as inter- esting as geographical borders, public service TV, brawn-based companies and old Albanian cartoons?

Then there is the question of Europe. If the US and Japan (and much of the rest of Asia for that matter) provide the two extremes – is Europe stuck in the middle or can it com- bine the best of both worlds? Of one thing we can be sure, if Europe is to make the best of all possible worlds it has to utilize the very diversity that has ignited several wars within it during the twentieth century.

Particularly in the United States, diversity is a hot topic. Companies have diversity initiatives backed by expensive advertising campaigns as they fall over themselves to be per- ceived as politically correct. The difference in the US is that diversity is largely a matter of color. In Europe, it is a matter of culture.66_{The new melting pot is Europe.}

Europeans typically live in countries where 15 to 25 per- cent of people have foreign backgrounds. The mix is everything. There are no longer any closed, homogeneous, sheltered societies. Living alongside people with different values and value systems is now a fact of life. Of course, all is not sweetness and light. Some societies are more nation- alistic than others. No one ever said that living together would be without tension. The result is that Europe has a

128 FU N KY B US I N E SS FUNKY VILLAGE

1. Singapore 643 1. Singapore 607

2. South Korea 607 2. Czech Republic 574

3. Japan 605 3. Japan 571

4. Hong Kong 588 4. South Korea 565

5. Belgium 565 5. Bulgaria 565

28. United States 500 17. United States 534

potential diversity advantage – an advantage in that diver- sity is the mother of creativity, invention and progress. But are the Europeans sitting on top of a powder keg or a melt- ing pot? Europe has a long history of hostility and rivalry. Its people are used to living in disunity. Is this an asset or a liability? According to the German academic Jurgen Habermas, Europe’s heritage definitely works to its ad- vantage when trying to develop the means of handling disunity – a supra-national democracy; the European Union. Practice makes perfect.

Still, recent developments in the Balkans make even the most optimistic person think twice about the dangers of diversity. But remember, what is is. Europe is – and has been for centuries – heterogeneous in race, religion, and every conceivable dimension. Diversity per se is not neces- sarily good or bad – it just is. Diversity becomes what we make of it. Europe does not necessarily need more or less diversity. Europe needs to make up its mind what to do with it. Europe needs a dream, an idea, a new manifesto – words and action. Europeans need to make up their minds as to how to maximize the potential of its heterogeneous popu- lation by using advances in technology, institutions and values. Or else, the other players in the funky village will shape Europe’s destiny.

THERE ARE NOT only changes in time, space and mass. Entering the age of abundance, the world is metamorphos- ing, taking on new and unclear shapes. Things are drifting, torn apart and recombined in unconventional ways – panta

rei– to create a blurred, fragmented and hyphenated world. Our society is left in a state of confusion. Empowered individuals, talent holders, individuals who have the power of choice, inhabit this state of confusion. They are people who are free to know, go, do and be whoever they want to be.67_{These individuals, who exercise their right to choose,}

are creating this age of “anarchy”. They tear down walls and undermine traditional bases of power. They take control over their education, careers and lives. They initiate system- wide changes that transform the world into a hyper-pluralistic place.

Yesterday, strong centers of power dominated society and our lives. In the 1848 Manifesto of the Communist Party, the authors wrote that the aim was to create a society: “In which industrial production is no longer directed by indi- vidual factory owners, competing against one another, but by the whole of society according to a fixed plan and accord- ing to the needs of all.” This was the extreme of social engineering with all its assumptions of predictability, stabil- ity and control. Driven by an overall vision of the good life, it was just a matter of getting the central plan, structures and systems right. Conservative politicians, capitalists and busi- ness managers in the West may have laughed at these utopian aspirations, but were their visions really any better?

We built our own huge, monolithical and centrally planned structures. Some of them we called corporations. A little more than 30 years ago Harvard economist and advisor to John F. Kennedy, John Kenneth Galbraith, admitted that: “We have an economic system which, whatever its formal ideological billing, is in substantial part a planned economy. Initiative in deciding what is to be produced comes not from the sovereign consumer ... Rather it comes from the great

producing organization which reaches forward to control the market that it is presumed to serve.”68_{Once again, it was just}

a matter of getting the structures, systems and strategies – the great master plan – right. In capitalism and Communism alike, there were elements of central planning – in political, social and economic terms. Some made the decisions and the others obeyed, or were at least told to obey.

If the Old World was a well-structured place filled with castrated individuals, the reality of our times is an unstruc- tured world populated by capable individuals (and some who still seem to prefer eunuch-like uncertainty reduc- tion). Termites have been let loose within our structures and are running amok.

Today, as the poet William Butler Yeats once wrote, the center cannot hold. Equipped with new technologies and values, entrepreneurial individuals challenge the conventional institutions and pur-

veyors of power. Note that it is not technol- ogy, institutions or values that create the

New World. The changes, or elements of confusion that we are experiencing, are caused by individuals who no longer accept being told what to know and do, where to go and who to be. But, what may be interpreted as chaos on the societal level is anything but chaotic to these individuals. It is only natural. We do not have to look further than ourselves. Most people do not expect male assistant professors at a prestigious business school to wear black leather pants, shave their heads, do gigs, listen to The Prodigy CDs, take half a year of paternity leave and so on. But we do, because we feel like it. Paradoxically, harmonious (?) individuals striving to fulfill their own personal dreams create what some may deem to be a disharmonious society. Disharmonious or not, you can’t argue with the fact that it is different. What is is.

FU N KY B US I N E SS FUNKY VILLAGE 131

The reality of our times is an