If creativity, motivation and flexibility are key to your organization's success, then it's time to decentralize. That's the point Thomas Malone makes in his latest book,Ê"The Future of Work."ÊHe has been studying organizations for the 21st Century for many years as founder and director of the MIT Center for Coordination Science.

Tom is co-director of MIT's landmark initiative, "Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century." He is the Patrick J. McGovern professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

One organization critical to every city's success is the local school board, and Curtis Johnson, president of the Citistates Group, says that's an organization desperately in need of decentralization. His report toÊCEOs for Cities,ÊSystem Change for Schools, calls for a shift in the role of school boards from providers of education to buyers of education.

Curt's studies are informed by the leading roles he has played as a community college president, the head of a large citizens organization, a policy adviser and chief of staff to a governor, and the chairman of the Metropolitan Council, one of America's earliest regional organizations.