Rating: 
Summary: Evolution vs. Radical Mutation
Review: The nautre of organizational behavior (really individual behavior within the constraints imposed by organizational culture) is to seek incrementalist changes at the margins. Rarely do the well-entrenched want to leave those trenches to risk what they have in the fluidity of the uncretain. This is natural, since safety is something innately sought by most organisms most of the time. Short-term safety can be a good predictor of impending decline and death, as the old adage says: "Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Give 40 Years of Success."
The authors propose that aiming for incremental, marginalist change is a "stall," a way of refusing to face or accept the need for real change. (Sometimes, the need for change can be misread or mismeasured, with New Coke being an example they give.) The authors offer a number of vingettes designed to illustrate "stallbuster" tactics that will impel the desired-for change. These vingettes are bite-sized case studies of how real-world organizations approached (or failed to approach) problems, and the results of their actions. These are compared, in terms of implicit values, with the formal values each company had adopted. The actioning of these values provides insight into where disconnects between policy and performance occur, with McDonalds' response to the infamous hot-coffee lawsuit and Odwalla's in dealing with food-poisoning problems being one example. Each company's colture at least partly pre-determines the range of responses that their leaders can imagine, with a corresponding range of predictable results.
In the tradition of Dr. Kurt Lewin ("Field Theory in the Social Sciences") the authors propose that breaking through stall-tactics requires more than a circumstantial, piecemeal approach: unfreezing organizational behavior ("stallbusters") and shifting focus to enable lock-in (for however short- or long-term fluid circumstances dictate)of more adaptive actions. This is a key to breaking out of the prepare-to-win-the-last war mentality, as well as the incrementalist mindset that curses mature firms in the cash-cow stage of growth, before radical change to survive drastic environmental shifts carries a Phyrric price for survival.
Measurement is an area of continuing focus: What we measure becomes how we measure success. Rejecting or supplanting traditional measurement concepts may be necessary so as to allow truly pertinent data to be collected. (One anecdote deals with a company priding itself on a 1% error rate for each process - without anyone recognizing that errors are cumulative, resulting in 80% of its' customers experiencing some form of product failure.) Time is one of the things that Mitchell, Coles and Metz believe has to be measured - especially in the more-nebulous disciplines, like financial analysis, where productivity has been more difficult to quantify. If outputs are hard to measure, them time spent on various tasks can show how much of a workday was productive, even if unquantifiable.
This work is not a by-the-numbers, how-to workbook with checklists. It should not be read that way. It is rather more Aesop-like, in that it uses stories to illuminate a few key points, which are them discussed in terms of broader application. Read as intended, this book can help to exercise the imagination of leaders who want to leave corporate Darwinism behind for radical mutation in a world loosed from its' fixed reference points by technological breakthroughs, geopolitical flux, demographic shifts, and culture-shock: In other words, the search for a 2,000 percent solution.
-Lloyd A. Conway
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Summary: Beyond best practice: "perfection as only you can imagine"
Review: The title of The 2000 Percent Solution, the new book from business strategists Don Mitchell, Carol Coles, and Robert Metz, plays off the famous Sherlock Holmes mystery title. But the mystery here is how the authors have uncovered a whole new way of looking at improving business performance.They define the "stall' - a condition that affects us all - which keeps us from achieving accelerated growth. They introduce "stallbusters" - a plethora of ideas for overcoming the dreaded stalls. They pepper their analysis with hundreds of colorful examples and anecdotes, such as the story of Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. A typical stall Is: avoidance of the unattractive. Fleming did the opposite by focusing on the green mold such as found on old bread. In the second part of the book, they introduce the eight step process for improving performance twenty-fold - 2000%. Their advocate "uncovering and capturing maximum opportunity by asking new questions". They go beyond best practices to discussing how to pursue the theoretical ideal best practice, which they call "perfection as only you can imagine it". Don't miss their stimulating "thought-starters", any one of which could justify your time investment in reading this book. If you have a problem stretching your mind on a Sunday afternoon or a long plane ride, here's your 2000 percent solution. Roger Fridholm; President, Business, Technology, and Staffing Services Group; MSX International.
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Summary: The 2000 percent Solution - why settle for less?
Review: This is a compelling treatise on achieving exponential results using a variety of "stall-busters". Why settle for a 15% improvement when a 25% improvement is not only possible but perhaps easier to achieve? In some cases a twenty-fold improvement is possible, hence the title. "In fact, stalls, those habitual actions based on ways of thinking that impede progress, keep individuals, organizations, businesses, and even civilizations from realizing their full potential." The book is organized into two parts: Part one examines some of the most common stalls that plague individuals and organizations with ways of identifying if that stall is being used and ways to bust them. Part two presents 8 steps, to "learn the universal process of uncovering and capturing maximum opportunity by asking new questions". These steps necessarily require new ways of looking at things and perhaps a great deal of careful thought and effort, but the results can be dramatic. One of the key themes is to use a variety of means to discover future new best practices as they apply to your field and implement them before your competition does. Then continue with the processes of discovery and implementation because new challenges to your market position will invariably appear - not necessarily just from the companies in direct competition with you now, but perhaps from obsolescence of your product or service (as was the plight of buggy whip manufactures a century ago who did not transition to providing accessories for automobiles). Another key theme is to identify the key measurements needed for the performance desired. These measurements may need to be refined and changed over time. There are typically a number of measurements which must be tracked.
It is important to maintain the continual edge of innovation and not rest on your laurels, thus the authors, in their 7-step Afterward conclude with: 7. Reread this book annually. Good advice!
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Summary: How to Turn Unprofitable Behaviors into Profitability
Review: This psychologically astute how-to business book is more than a compendium of clever, useful, well-grounded methods to reverse unprofitable people situations (stalls). It is also a beautifully-written book that is a delight to read. It is a cross between "A Kick in the Seat of the Pants" and anything by Peter Drucker. Peppered with Rorschach-like drawings to jump-start a manager's creative problem-solving juices and expand her/his decision-making perspective, the book presents diverse, innovative, on-point, in-depth examples of proven methods to reverse stalls (stallbusters). What do "Tinkers to Evers to Chance," Tiger Woods, stand-up desks, and Grey Poupon have in common? Find out. But you don't have to be a manager to benefit from this book. The extra added bonus is that its principles and methods are universally applicable to our interactions with others in all aspects of our lives. But if you are a bottom-line conscious business person, The 2,000 Percent Solution is an absolute must-read.
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