Let’s take a look back at 2008 and learn the lessons it has been teaching us in such a painful way. Given what they have produced, the decades of conventional, macho management ought to be over. But will those who prepare new managers learn the lessons in time; or accept that they have got it wrong on a massive scale?

Peter Vajda suggests meeting workplace challenges successfully can be likened to the way white-water rafters approach their sport. Beginners obsess about the rocks to avoid and the currents to circumvent. Experts focus on the ‘flow line’ where the currents guide them safely through the roughest areas with a minimum of mental and emotional stress.

Many people feel so uneasy if they’re not busy that they fill their time with ‘make work’ and things they would be far better off NOT doing. Even more want to fill every silence with chatter and sound. Yet silence and empty space are wonderful and necessary gifts. There’s no need to fill them with anything.

The saying, “People are our greatest asset” has to be one of the commonest lies in management. When times are tough and your organization is in trouble, would your immediate reaction be to throw away a significant part of ‘your greatest asset’? Surely not.

Nina Simosko reminds us all that learning never ceases and leaders know better than most that every day brings a new opportunity to enhance their knowledge. Lessons can come from anywhere. We’ve all learned things in our lives that came from unexpected sources.

Being yourself is more important than anything else; certainly more than the fear that traps people into conforming. Conformity has very little to recommend it. Trust yourself and trust others. Our world has so little trust today that even a little more is precious.

If there’s a Church of True Friendship, says Peter Vajda, very few of us show up at the services. We say friendship is important to us, but increasingly choose lifestyles that make us too busy and distracted to cultivate or preserve it.

Restraint, generosity, and mercy: only leaders who possess all three have the raw material to become great. The sooner everyone comes to realize that, the sooner we will have organizations we can be proud of.

It’s high time that we questioned many of the management myths and truisms that we bandy about so glibly. How much of our present mess is due to constant repetition of ideas about management that have not been explored or challenged as they should?

Short-term gains may be had only at the expense of long-term value. Though there may be times when such a decision makes sense, writes Nina Simosko, long-term viability is a far greater accomplishment than a short-term flash, however bright, followed by an inevitable fizzle into future darkness.