Just read Peters and Waterman’s In search of Excellence (1982). Just starting to read Small is Beautiful (1973) by E F Schumacher. Reading two Very Important Books close together can lead to extra insights or different points of view that can be thought (and behaviour) provoking.
#1 What if Schumacher had lived for 25 years after his book was published and Peters had not? (I don’t mean any ill will to TP who is a very clever guy with some very good messages).
#2 Schumacher’s messages call the game into question while ISOE explains how to play the game to the best effect and the greatest humanity. Small is Beautiful is quoted positively in ISOE and both seek to promote humanity.
We can now look on both with hindsight that tells us how successful US companies have been in promoting their view and how ’successful’ we have all been in using up the Earth’s finite resources.
Perhaps we should regard the faltering US car industry as a sign of hope that people have had enough of this ‘progress’ and that it’s time for a new approach – or a re-kindling or Schumacher’s call to recognise that there may be limits to what we should have.
This book was recommended to me to help my understanding of quality improvement. It is an unusual book for managers in that it is written as a novel. It has a clearly stated theme but, like a good novel, it leads you into unexpected places with a good deal of guile and persuasion. Whether you accept the author’s Theory of Constraints, which I don’t altogether, it clearly demonstrates the necessity for management to get down to the shop floor to understand the business from end to end. The book is also a model for how a consultant’s knowledge can be exploited by an engaged and motivated client. The latter topic is explained in terms of Socrates’ methods for enabling people to arrive at a better view of the world through debate. As a bonus, the author describes how a better understanding of the world leads to a more relaxed, less contentious existence with a better work-life balance. Highly recommended – Go Read!
An interesting book! JW ran GE with great success and has written down the things that he thought crucial.
A lot of it lines up with Porter’s ideas on separating yourself from competition by picking your own spot. Welch avoided taking on the Japanese at their own game by exiting businesses where they seemed to be winning. Sun Tzu’s strategy masterpiece Art of War has similar advice, on fighting downhill and avoiding annihilation whenever possible, and predates Jack by a couple of millennia.
He advises continuous improvement (see Kaizen) to keep ahead and lays a huge emphasis on getting the people right. Getting hold of the right people, and getting rid of the wrong people, comes up again and again. Training and development are portrayed as key motivational tools that people appreciate. A motivated and skilled workforce differentiated his businesses from his competitors.
I don’t agree with his distinction between the business world producing wealth and the public sector as overhead. His companies wouldn’t do so well without public services schooling his workers, taking care of their health and preserving the peace in which his companies can operate. The public services are part of the value chain and deserve more respect than he admits.
With the candor that he advocates from the start, he reveals that his career outweighed his family life. Partly he puts this down to the era and his background. He discusses work-life balance and declares it to be a personal choice. With the benefit of experiencing some of the consequences of that era we can now make different choices and try to recognise when we have the balance wrong and when we are encouraging others to make iniquitous choices.
He doesn’t claim that his is a unique formula for success and is very clear about the merit of doing rather than analysing.
This book was mentioned during MBA class a few months back. This is a book that tries to explain a lot of stuff. Stuff about the way that people are, stuff about what happens when people get together in groups, stuff about how ideas propogate. Gladwell has some good messages and he puts them across well.
It’s relevant to people in business, people out of business, as far as I can see it should be read by everyone.
Go read!
