Page 222 - The Drucker Lectures

Managing Oneself [ 203

don’t really know that “this is not for me.” And so we are at an
unprecedented place, and most educated people in the next 30
years will have to learn to place themselves.
For the first time in the human history, we will have to
take responsibility for managing ourselves. And as I said, this
is probably a much bigger change than any technology, this
change in the human condition. Nobody teaches it—no school,
no college—and it will probably be another hundred years be-
fore anybody does teach it. In the meantime, the achievers will
want to make a contribution, want to lead a fulfilled life, want
to feel that there is some purpose to their being on this earth.
And they will have to learn something that a few years ago
only a very few superachievers knew. They will have to learn
to manage themselves, to build on their strengths, to build on
their values.
For the first time, the world is full of options. When I lis-
ten to my grandchildren and the options they have, it’s pretty
frightening. It’s almost too much. At home, when I was born,
there were none. Now, less than a century later, people have
to decide: “Which option is for me, and why? What fits me?
Where do I belong?”
One important implication for the social sector is that there is
no better way to find out where you belong than to be a volunteer
at a nonprofit. My friends in business always come to me with
enormous development programs for their people. And I take
a very dim view of them. That’s because the real development
that I’ve seen of people in organizations, especially in big ones,
comes from them being volunteers in a nonprofit. There, you
have responsibility, you see results, and you very soon find out
what your values are.
We have long been talking of the social responsibilities of
business. I hope we will soon begin to talk about the nonprofit
as the great social opportunity for business. It is the opportunity