Once upon a time, human beings did not distinguish themselves from their world. Our awareness was one of unbroken wholeness. We and nature were one.

Then, we learned to distinguish ourselves, to see ourselves as separate. We discovered a differentiated awareness, an independent will, and personal needs and aspirations. We evolved a sense of self that distinguished ourselves from one another, and from the rest of God's creations.

Without the separation of "self" and "environment," intelligence as we now know it would not have evolved, the scientific method of analysis and understanding of a "physical universe" separate from ourselves would not have been possible, and the technological progress from which we all now benefit immeasurably would never have occurred.

Yet, separation quickly became fragmentation and isolation. With the agricultural revolution and then the industrial revolution came increasing specialization. Fragmentation of the social order increasingly became fragmentation in thought. We eventually came to see ourselves not only as standing apart from nature, but as having a right of rule over nature.

Now, we stand at a sort of crossroads. Our culture tells us that we have found the correct path, that we just need to keep pushing ahead. It is our destiny to rule. Yet, there are signs all around that maybe the path is coming to an end.

We have learned how to influence our environment, to the extent that our very survival as a species is now at risk as a consequence of our own power. We have evolved our ego to the extent that we now think that our personal happiness is somehow separate from the happiness of those around us. We have separated ourselves from nature, to the extent that we have lost our sense of awe at the mystery of life, and our sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves.

In the west, our primary social institutions are in a state of breakdown because of fragmentation. We have fragmented physical health from mental and spiritual health, to the extent that people now stay alive longer at a lower state of health than ever before-and at greater and greater cost to society. We have fragmented education into the banal transmission of disconnected facts and dry academic exercises, to the extent that school has become increasingly detached from personal growth and genuine learning and is increasingly ineffective. We have fragmented government into a cacophony of "special interest groups" who fight to maintain the status quo, to the extent that we are paralyzed by "gridlock."

Virtually everything about our modern system of management is based on fragmentation, and the inevitable competition that results. Marketing departments are at war with manufacturing. Front line managers have a hostility for corporate management that borders on hatred. People within the organization often compete more with one another than with external "competitors."

Thus, it is with special interest that we all watch as the Chinese society enters the modern world economy. Make no mistake. The forces of industrialization are powerful forces of fragmentation. It is no accident that fragmentation in the west has evolved at an accelerating pace with industrial progress. The seeds planted in the agricultural revolution grow at a faster pace in the climate of smokestacks, factories, and traditional industrial management practices.

So, we have natural questions as we watch their unfolding. Will they follow the deeply grooved path of industrial societies toward increasing material affluence and toward increasing arrogance of the natural order? Will they develop their "economies" at the expense of your communities? Will they become another "taker" society-stealing from the natural world in a way that is unsustainable and jeopardizes future generations? Or will they find a different path into the future?

The answers will lie, at least in part, in the predominant system of management that develops in China. For, it is the system of management that will determine the character of their institutions of business, government and education. And it is the character of these institutions that will shape the type of modern society that eventually emerges.

In the modern era, the spiritual life of the community is inseparable from the spiritual life, or lack thereof, of its large institutions. Our harmony or disharmony with nature is inseparable from the harmony or disharmony of those same institutions with nature.

I honor those Chinese leaders and managers who have the heart to seek a new path. I believe that principles and tools described in my book, The Fifth Discipline, provide an initial outline of such a path. It is a path based on reflecting on our deepest aspirations, of honoring personal visions and building shared visions. It is a path based on our innate capacity for generative conversation, for being more intelligent together than we can ever be separately. It is a path based on our capacity to conceptualize and build shared understanding of the larger systems which determine the effectiveness of individual actions. It is a path based on the primacy of the whole rather than the primacy of the part. It is a path fundamentally different from the path along which industrial development in the west has progressed.

Ironically, it is now a path that many corporations and schools in the west are attempting to discern. There is a ferment in management worldwide. It is being driven by global competitiveness, and the growing awareness that the keys to success in the 21st century may be quite different from the keys to success in the 19th and 20th centuries. We are leaving the era where cheap natural resources were the key to a nation's economic status, and its system of management was designed to exploit those resources. The rise of Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan as world economic powers has signaled a new era where tapping the creativity and imagination of your people is now the central management challenge.

But, it is also being driven by an even deeper realization that there must be an antidote to fragmentation-that the politics, games playing, and internal competition that characterize modern organizations sap people's energy and commitment, and can never be a foundation for a great enterprise.