There were two heady moments during 2007 when it seemed that the bull market in management nonsense, which has been on the rampage for as long as I can remember, might be flagging. In the middle of May a reader forwarded me the following internal e-mail. “Who Moved My Cheese?™ Change Management Workshop has been cancelled due to insufficient numbers.”

Could this be, I wondered, a sign that sense was taking over? I waited patiently, and in December was finally rewarded. In the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review was a story called “Breakthrough thinking from inside the box”.