Corporate Instinct: Building a Knowing Enterprise for the 21st Century [Hardcover]

Thomas M. Koulopoulos (Author), Richard Spinello (Author), Wayne Toms (Author), Richard A. Spinello (Author), Wayne D. Toms (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1997 | ISBN-10: 0471292796 | ISBN-13: 978-0471292791 | Edition: 1

Written by one of the nation's best-known technology consultants, this book presents a set of management and technology tools to help manage an organization's shared knowledge and cultivate its intellectual assets. Drawing on interviews with 350 companies from across the economic spectrum, Corporate Instinct offers a detailed road map for developing your own corporate instinct and a comprehensive context for understanding how and why this sixth sense offers enduring competitive advantage. Filled with insights on revamping a corporation's culture, structure and core competencies for the 21st century, this book offers a blueprint for a business which focuses on innovation, not administration.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Corporate Instinct: "Koulopoulos has utilized his wide experience as an entrepreneur and top management advisor to add a completely new perspective on the phenomenon of corporate success. The idea of corporate instinct is a strong antidote to the 'tried and true' management concepts that simply don't work any longer." - Geoffrey James, Author, Success Secrets from Silicon Valley, Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite

"Corporate Instinct provides a profound contribution to better understanding the evolution of businesses as they attempt to meet the competitive challenges in today's marketplace. This is a must-read for all executives who want to better understand the inextricable linkage between organizational success and the effectiveness of the people within the organization, and to allow them to successfully lead their organizations into the future." - Edward G. Lewis, Former Assistant Secretary for Information Resources Management in the Bush Administration

"The book moves fast; and, at the conclusion, the reader feels that a tour de force briefing has just occurred, that Koulopoulos has something valuable to say which must be shared with others." - Tom Brown, Publisher of the MANAGEMENT GENERAL online (www.mgeneral.com) newsletter.

From the Back Cover

Teach Your Company to Live By Its Wits How are some companies able to continually identify and succeed in new markets, while others are passed by? Corporate Instinct/ Why are some companies prepared to benefit from good ideas from within, while others seem to lack a basic understanding of themselves, their employees, and their abilities? Corporate Instinct. Why are some companies primed to react to the changing demands of the marketplace while others are rendered helplessly numb? Corporate Instinct. What do you need to know to help your own firm develop corporate instinct? How do you avoid being one of those firms that is continually caught unaware, out-thought, and out-performed? Read Thomas Koulopoulos' Corporate Instinct.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 284 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471292796
• ISBN-13: 978-0471292791
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,827,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

If you're looking for details go to my web page at http://www.tkspeaks.com

If you want the essentials here they are:

About me:
I've spent 30 years living at the intersection of busines and IT, from tech junky to Inc. 500 CEO to senior leader for a $2Billion company. These experiences have developed my core competency in writing and speaking on the social, organizational and human impact of technology. However, I'm not a technology bigot. I believe strongly in the importance of leadership, core behaviors, organizational and cultural values in leveraging technology. The real opportunities and challenges for organizations, and in life, are tied directly to understanding human behavior and culture.

I'm not a Luddite, but....
... I have a 1920's L C Smith Corona, a 1940's Graflex, and an original Nuremberg Chronicle (CIRCA 1493) on display in my library - all to remind me that our generation has no monopoly on great ideas.


About my writing:
- It's about people. I focus on the human condition first and foremost.
- It's about the context of change. No problem or solution is entirely new. There is always a historical precedent that we can use to guide our thinking.
- It's based on experience and practical observations. Dogma is fun but you can't feed yourself with it.
- It's about simplicity. I believe that even the most complex ideas can be made simple. The simpler they are the more likely they are to empower people to apply them.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent primer on enterprise Knowledge Management, June 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Corporate Instinct: Building a Knowing Enterprise for the 21st Century (Hardcover)

I've always had much respect for Tom Koulopoulos and the Delphi Group. But I expected going into this book that there would be a sales pitch embedded into the book of some sort. Not so.

The book is a very readable, very practical guide to enabling your organization to develop instict. What does "instinct" mean in the context of a business you ask? It means that when the market shifts, your company is structured in such a way that it can shift immediately to accomodate and exploit it. Rather than observing market changes and reacting to them retrospectively, you are there from the beginning.

To accomplish this, companies must balance their characteristics according to a grid of:

* INTERNAL AWARENESS

* EXTERNAL AWARENESS

* INTERNAL RESPONSIVENESS

* EXTERNAL RESPONSIVENESS

The book is all about the specifics of this grid and how you can acheive balance. At the end of the book is a very helpful Corporate Instinct Assessment test for use on your company.

For those who desire to put feet on KM theory, I recommend, as a start, reading "Corporate Instinct" and "The Character of a Corporation" (Goffee and Jones) together. The latter fills in many of the Cultural elements not treated in the former.