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Summary: Copernicus Goes Into Business
Review: (Adapted from an article I wrote in December, 1999, issue of Ventures magazine.)What if business isn't what you think it is? And you're in it. Oops. Two recent books deliver that message right between the eyes: Tom Petzinger's The New Pioneers and Cliff Havener's Meaning: The Secret of Being Alive. Tom and Cliff know each other only by e-mail. They started out in different places for different reasons. Yet they came to the same quite startling conclusions. That alone suggests it's worth stopping to read what they have to say. Cliff spent thirteen years in marketing and new product development at three major corporations - General Foods, M & M Mars, and Pillsbury. He was in business. Something wasn't right; he kept seeing "leaping, screaming, pole-vaulting nonsense" long before Dilbert was born. He noticed a repeating pattern: "Every time I solved a problem of any substance, I found myself in disfavor with management." He started asking, "How come my best stuff gets me into the most trouble?" Tom wasn't in business; he observed and reported it. One "bracing late-winter morning" he walked into "a tiny storefront called Philadelphia Pharmacy" and "awoke to the existence of an altogether new economy in America." Philadelphia Pharmacy was successful far beyond its right to be - and seemed to have broken every business rule. What insights have they turned up? -- Almost everything we believe about what makes business work is just plain wrong; -- We don't need a different morality - but a different reality; -- "Making money" is effect, not cause; -- Companies are small frogs in a vibrant universe, not mighty broadcasting towers; -- "New science" and "systems theory" aren't just trendy metaphors for leadership and learning organizations. Rather, they redefine what we need to learn. As Tom puts it, "One is tempted to say that business isn't like nature, business is nature." The entire model of commerce changes - every operating principle, every process, every "how to" - just as surely as when Copernicus and Galileo said, "Guess what, guys? The Earth's not running the show." Oops. Why should we care? To bring it to the good old bottom line, because our chances of success, of making money, are a whole lot greater. It's tough jamming square pegs in round holes all the time - damn hard work. Why should you care? One of the newspapers, very possibly Tom's Wall Street Journal, carried a little filler paragraph a few weeks ago. Over half of US executives and managers said their lives feel empty and meaningless. Cliff comments, "Think about it. How much sense and meaning could anyone find in a system that has the wrong idea about why it exists?" Chickens come home to roost; they don't stay at the office. The two books complement each other. The New Pioneers offers story after case study of people and companies that did things differently and got unexpected, outstanding results. Meaning explains why they got such startling results, with clear, basic pictures of what "systems" really are and vivid descriptions of how companies destroy both themselves and people in them when they close their doors to essential reality.
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Summary: internet economy crud. Some non-internet stuff
Review: In Chapter 10 of Leading Change, James O'Toole discusses Robert Owen (1771-1858) whom he characterizes as "the Thomas Edison of social invention. He was the first to devise or advocate numerous practices in industrial relations, education, and social policy that are still considered progressive today, more than 130 years after his death." In The New Pioneers, Petzinger focuses on the contemporary world in which a "revolution" is now underway in business, "for the most part invisible in the headlines and the boardrooms, but dizzying in its effect on the front lines." Much of what he discusses is directly relevant to Owen's initiatives. He agrees with Abraham Maslow that "the most valuable one hundred people to a deteriorating society" would be entrepreneurs because "the arrow of evolution flies toward the pioneering." Over the years, I have learned a great deal from reading Petzinger's column in the Wall Street Journal, "The Front Lines." He is constantly alert to subtle but potentially significant developments within and beyond the ever-changing workplace. The material he shares in this brilliant book is drawn from "the front lines" of companies based in more than 40 cities in 30 states as well as several companies in foreign countries. I highly recommend this book to anyone who seeks answers to questions such as these: 1. Which "new frontiers" offer the greatest opportunities for institutional growth and human development? 2. Which economies of scale are most relevant to such growth? 3. To optimize development of "human capital" in small-to-midsize organizations, which strategies (eg incentives and rewards) work best? 4. Which of these strategies will also be effective in larger organizations? 5. Amidst turbulent change caused by new technologies, which traditional values will enable any organization to nourish its "human systems"? To succeed in what he calls "The Age of Adaptation" (the subject of his Introduction), Petzinger asserts that organizations (regardless of size or nature) must cope effectively with certain "new realities" which serve as the subtitles of the book's ten chapters. For example: "Trade and technology are fundamentally human", "Why the new rules favor the small and connected", "The customer is the common denominator", and "Knowledge and self-organization flourish at the edge of chaos." It is important to reiterate that Petzinger's observations and assertions are based on a wealth of real-world experience. He is firmly convinced that "We, our tools, and the businesses by which we accomplish nearly everything are all products of the natural world." Although granting that "Wrong turns and backsliding will occur from time to time", Petzinger is convinced that each new age will produce another generation of "pioneers" who will continue to transform a global marketplace which is rapidly becoming the same workplace for nearly everyone.
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Summary: internet economy crud. Some non-internet stuff
Review: Mediocre at best. Mostly "New economy" crud. Good stuff about real entrepreneurs who are not at all in high-tech or internet spaces, but that stuff is just not news.
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Summary: Outstanding
Review: Petzinger does an excellent job of describing what real success -- financial, production, morale and moral -- will look like in the marketplace of the future, by citing companies that have created such successes today. I rarely read beyond the first 25 pages of business books, because they tend to be long on sloppy theory and bad prose, and short on intelligent application. By contrast, Petzinger's theses are concise and informative, his writing is clean, and his examples both demonstrate what works and warn of what can go wrong when the best intentions meet real-life complications. I've given copies of this book to my boss, to our company's strategic planning department, and to every person who reports to me. It's that good.
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Summary: Morality Play for Businesses -- Great Small Company Examples
Review: Reading The New Pioneers is a pleasant occupation. On theother hand, reviewing this book for people who have not yet read it isa challenging task. This is primarily because the book is written to be read and understood at many different levels. The simplest and most obvious level is as a series of charming stories in the best humanistic tradition that demonstrate that there is good business in being a good human. At a deeper level, Mr. Petzinger is also telling us that the economy is changing in a fundamental way because of the experiences of small and middle sized business leaders, such as those cited in the book. Beyond that, he is suggesting something fundamental about human civilization and its potential to create astonishingly positive results. At whatever level you consider the book, you will be well rewarded for reading it. I must admit that it is tempting to ignore the book's shortcomings, but that would shortchange the principles that Mr. Petzinger is exploring... As heart-warming as this book is, it is a scrapbook rather than a vision for individual entrepreneurs. Its value for entrepreneurs is, nonetheless, quite substantial. The benefit comes from stimulating ideas among readers by showing new business examples that have not been widely published and discussed before. I hope all entrepreneurs will read this book for that important benefit. A fine effort from a talented journalist! END
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Summary: Home Run
Review: Tom has done a fabulous job with his latest book. It clearly shows how top people get there and make their organizations top performers. The book is chock full of examples that are relevant. The style of writing is, of course, meant for us by being easy-to-read and descriptive. Buy it! Also recommend a well-receoved book that addresses how managers can be top performers by focusing on bettering themselves, their co-workers, and their organizations. It's called ""The Leader's Guide: 15 Essential Skills."
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Summary: Universal Lessons
Review: Tom Petzinger's "New Pioneers" elegantly describes many of the new businesses species that are rapidly emerging as our complex adaptive global economic system begins its autocatalytic explosion from the kind of spare, simple ecosystem that surrounds a mid-ocean volcanic vent to the kind of riotously variegated ecosystem that abundant sunshine can create in a tropical rain forest or coral reef. Along the way, he provides crucial insights into the best scientific thinking about the evolutionary process driving this unprecedented transformation. By reading this book with an open, inquiring attitude, managers and entrepreneurs struggling with accelerating business change can learn a great deal about the business methods and, yes, business values that will let their them and their firms adapt naturally to their evolving environment. Tom's stories vividly explain specific decisions and actions in specific businesses, but smart readers can generalize the principles underlying those decisions to help them act appropriately in responding to their own business challenges and and creating their own business opportunities. With his solid reporting on important cases, Tom offers an antidote to business fads, up to and including the latest fad for complex adaptive systems. While much of what consultants are publishing about this new field consists of their own old concepts dress superficially in new jargon, Tom's work gets to the heart of the real added value that the new sciences offer to business decision-makers.
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