In his latest book, The Future of Management, Gary Hamel calls for the reinvention of corporate management. And where does Hamel recommend managers look for the management principles that will help them do that?

"You start," he writes, by analyzing the DNA of things that already exhibit the cutting-edge qualities you want to build into your organization -- things, in other words, that are adaptable, innovative, and highly engaging." What things set the benchmark for adaptability? Hamel names these: life, markets, democracies, religious faith and the world's most vibrant cities. "All of these are far more resilient that big companies," Hamel says.

Cities increase the odds of serendipity. And there are some simple rules that embrace principles that history has shown to be the real foundations of urban vitality:

>> Diversity begats creativity. Because cities are more diverse they possess more raw material for the machinery of human imagination. "Diversity can no longer be a buzzword," Hamel writes. "It must become an active search for the idiosyncratic and the peculiar, the weird and kooky, the colorful and the bizarre."

>> You can organize for serendipity. Three strategies for increasing the odds of value-creating happenstance that "seem particularly relevant to the 21st century organization are multi-use districts, short blocks to increase the odds that people run into each other more often, and mingling buildings that vary in age and condition so that they vary in the economic yield they must produce (in other words, cheap space is necessary for experimentation).

>> No pigeonholes. "In part, great cities are able to reinvent themselves because they make it easy for individuals to reinvent themselves." City, Hamel writes, are oblivious to peculiarity, and in progressive cities, aptitude counts for more than provenance. "The small community often tolerates eccentricity. The city, on the contrary, rewards it."

I interviewed Hamel some years ago for Smart City, and he praised the usefulness of cities as a learning device then. In fact, it's always been one of my favorite interviews. I'll repost at Smart City Radio.

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