Organizational Innovation
Built to Last
James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras
HarperCollins

The authors ask, “What are the distinguishing characteristics of the world’s most enduring companies?” There were at least two ways to obtain an answer: Select a group of companies generally viewed as “the best of the best” and determine what all of them share in common, or, formulate a set of criteria and determine which companies qualify. Collins and Porras took the latter approach. What increases the value of this book substantially is that the authors compare and contrast each of what they call “visionary companies” with one of its most formidable competitors (e.g. Ford and General Motors). Visionary companies are “premier institutions -- the crown jewels -- in their industries, widely admired by their peers and having a track record of making significant impact on the world around. The key point is that a visionary company is an organization -- an institution....[Moreover] visionary companies display a remarkable resiliency, an ability to bounce back from adversity. As a result, visionary companies attain extraordinary long-term performance.” A dozen “common myths” were shattered during the course of the authors’ research on the 18 visionary companies. For example, “It takes a great idea to start a company” and “The most successful companies focus on primarily beating the competition.”

One of the book’s most interesting contributions is what the authors call the “Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG)”; that is, one “which engages people -- it reaches out and grabs them in the gut. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People ‘get it’ right away. It takes little or no explanation.” As Collins and Porras discovered, “The BHAGs looked more audacious to outsiders than to insiders. The visionary companies didn’t see their audacity as taunting the gods. It simply never occurred to them that they couldn’t do what they set out to do.” Collins and Porras pose and then answer “Frequently Asked Questions” in an Epilogue. Then in Appendix 1, they discuss various research issues; in Appendix 2, as indicated previously, they examine the “founding roots” of visionary companies as well as those of the companies with which they are compared and contrasted; in Appendix 3. they provide several tables which track categories across the entire history of the aforementioned companies. A wealth of notes is provided in Appendix 4. The greatest value of this book is not derived from what Collins and Porras know; rather, from what their rigorous examination of visionary companies reveals. For those who are determined to build the next generation of visionary companies, Collins and Porras explain HOW.


Thought Stimulators
The Experience Economy
B. Joseph Pine et al
Harvard Business School Press

According to the authors, “Since all commerce is moral choice, every business is a stage for glorifying something. Who or what does your business glorify? Your answer may not help you accept what is next, but it will certainly help guide what you do today.” At its best, live theatre can delight, amuse, excite, inform and even inspire those who experience it. Why cannot it also be true of business relationships? Of course it can. It is certainly true of those organizations which prosper. Southwest Airlines is but one example. Its CEO once observed:

I keep telling [those interested in Southwest Airlines] that the intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles. You can get the same airplanes. You can get the same ticket counters. You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn’t something you can do overnight and it isn’t something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways. That is why I say that our employees are our competitive protection.

Kelleher’s comments are relevant to virtually all organizations which now struggle to succeed in the New Economy. To understand this economy, to understand what it requires of your own organization, it is imperative to view each human interaction as a unique opportunity to nourish and thereby to sustain a relationship. If you share my high regard for this book, I urge you to read Michael Wolf’s The Entertainment Economy and Bernd Schmitt’s Experiential Marketing.


Organizational Innovation
Leading the Revolution
Gary Hamel
Harvard Business School Press

In his Preface, Hamel tells us “This is a book about innovation -- not in the usual sense of new products and new technologies, but in the sense of radical new business models. It begins by laying out the revolutionary imperative: we’ve reached the end of incrementalism, and only those companies that are capable of creating industry revolutions will prosper in the new economy. It then provides a detailed blueprint of what you can do to get the revolution started in your own company. Finally, it describes in detail an agenda for making innovation as ubiquitous a capability as quality or customer service. Indeed, my central argument is that radical innovation the competitive advantage for the new millennium.” The material is carefully organized as follows: Part I Facing Up to the Revolution; Part II Finding the Revolution; Part III Igniting the Revolution; and Part IV Sustaining the Revolution.

Hamel confides: “I began this book with a simple observation -- that for the first time in history, our heritage is no longer our destiny. Our dreams are no longer fantasies but possibilities. There isn’t a human being who has ever lived who wouldn’t want to be alive right now, at this moment so pregnant with promise. Among all your forebears, among the countless generations who had no hope of progress, among all those whose spirits were betrayed by progress, you are the one who now stands on the threshold of -- the age of revolution. You are blessed beyond belief. Don’t falter. Don’t hesitate. You were given the opportunity for a reason. Find it. Lead the revolution.” If you and/or your organization are in the doldrums, this is “must reading.”


Organizational Development
Organizing Genius
Patricia Ward Biederman and Warren Bennis
Perseus

Biedeman and Bennis examine a number of what the authors call “Great Groups.” Perhaps the most important point is introduced in the first chapter: “None of us is as smart as all of us.” That is to say, the “Great Man” theory is invalidated by the achievements of truly creative teams such as those at the Disney studios which produced so many animation classics; at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) which developed the first personal computer; at Apple Computer which then took it to market; in the so-called “War Room” which helped to elect Bill Clinton President in 1992; at the so-called “Skunk Works” where so many of Lockheed’s greatest designs were formulated; at Black Mountain College which “wasn’t simply a place where creative collaboration took place. It was about creative collaboration”; and at Los Alamos (NM) and the University of Chicago where the Manhattan Project eventually produced a new weapon called “the Gadget.”

All Great Groups are comprised of those who possess immense talent which can only become fully developed within an organization. No single person (even Walt Disney) could have created Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs all by himself. Moreover, there must be strong group leadership to achieve and then sustain such an organization’s combined efforts, without which there can be no effective collaboration. All seven of the Great Groups had such leaders. They resemble the greatest of symphony conductors who keeps talented musicians on the same page, playing the same music, without in any way compromising or diminishing any one musician’s unique and abundant contributions.

Heaven knows, it is never easy to lead such a group. Precious few prove equal to the task, emphasis on precious. They have a genius for leading other geniuses. Bennis and Biederman conclude Organizing Genius by providing 15 “Take-Home Lessons.” Each is directly relevant to any organization which aspires to accomplish what Steve Jobs once described as being “insanely great.” A group can become “great” only if and when it possesses both genius in each member and the leadership necessary to achieve creative collaboration by those members.