Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folklore and superstition, and of co-operation for force. Peter Drucker If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organize, co-ordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don t be surprised if you can t relate what you see to those four words. Henry Mintzberg Management will remain a basic and dominant institution perhaps as long as Western civilization itself survives. Peter Drucker 'The art of management is to promote people without making them managers.' Bill Gates So long as there has been civilization, management has been practised. Yet management is a matter of lively conjecture. Today s managers are, according to different commentators, either fearful of the uncertainty now surrounding them or upbeat, set on making themselves indispensable in the managerial marketplace. In reality, there is no stereotypical situation or attitude. Instead, there is a bewildering array of options, tools, techniques, new and old ideas. Either/or questions have become either/and. The freewheeling pragmatism offered by some offers all the answers and yet none at all. There is a thin line between order and chaos and this line is likely to become ever more blurred and indistinct in the years to come. As our experience proves, the world of business and management never stands still. Today s dominant force is tomorrow s sideshow. Fashions and best practice change. The third edition of the Handbook is, we hope, a creature of our times, reflecting what matters to managers in organizations in the first decade of the new century. It is the state of the art of management and, as such, is a statement of what preoccupies and concerns managers in organizations. In addition to capturing the state of management thinking, the Handbook aims to help managers do their jobs more effectively. There is a far greater emphasis in this edition on the practicalities of managing. There is an entirely new section on skills. (Indeed, 90 per cent of the contents are brand new.) Management is a unique practical and intellectual challenge and this is reflected in the range of issues it now embraces. We hope that this edition of the Financial Times Handbook of Management helps you to think about how you manage in new ways.