Customer Reviews

Faster Company: Building the World's Nuttiest, Turn-on-a-Dime, Home-Grown, Billion-Dollar Business

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Warning: this book will ruin you if you are feeling any discontentment with your current business or employer! After reading this, I proclaimed that any organization I'm apart of must adhere to the "Faster Company" business model. Pat clearly communicates concepts for what I've always said would build a standout company. You must read this if your approach to business is less MBA and more holistic. After all, it is possible to make a ton of money, have fun, and buck the rigged traditional business models which many don't care to be a part of. Highly, highly recommended- Thanks Pat!

A much better subtitle would be: How the US Army Taught a College Drop Out Crucial Lessons. Raised in a boys' home, Kelly flunked out of college just in time for Uncle Sam's Asian adventure. First, he learned about successful sales pitches as a seasoned sargeant convinced him to sign up for an additional year, avoid the infantry and go to supply school. Unfortunatly, Kelly arrived in Vietnam just in time for the Tet offensive. He had to learn how to organize his peers and fire a machine gun. Today, his 800 sales troops receive extensive training before they sally forth to hawk 16,000 products to physicians offices. Second, Private Kelly learned that young men often rise to the occasion and "accomplish amazing things." At age 21, he was in charge of every jeep, truck and tank deployed to one sector of VietNam. The Army had "assumed that I was capable of making decisions with the army's best interest at heart." Today, he gives authority to (and demands accountability from) warehouse workers, truck drivers and salesmen to do what's best for the customer, right then and there. Third, Kelly saw the importance of teamwork to combat hierarchy and to control paperwork. Like Peter Drucker, Kelly thinks the best organizations are based on passing along information, not on going through channels. At each of 106 branch offices, all workers get to help shape yearly goals--and all share in any bonus. The company maintains open books and open doors while it spurns unnecessary paper such as policy manuals and memos. As a Vietnam vet who's avoided the clutches of soul-grinding corporations, I suggest Kelly is a capitalist with a conscience. He defines business as "people working together to deliver value to a customer." In a time of stockholder feeding frenzy, I find this notion admirable. He suggests managers manipulate things while leaders help others reach goals. The US Army, public school systems, non profit groups and government agencies, should take heed. Institutions, like business, could benefit from trusting the individual, clarifying purposes and sharing rewards. Kelly's success proves that principles can lead to profits, that a clerk can become a corporate honcho and that even an Army supply center can be a classroom.

Kelly's an obvious maverick CEO who offers readers four building blocks of the faster company: Gutsy Goals, A Competitive Edge, Employees Empowered as CEOs, and Values.

Check out his "11 Commandments for Building a Faster Company." The 10th Commandment will save you lots of time: "Root Out Bureaucracy. Don't tolerate unnecessary paperwork. Abolish memos. And be creative. Figure out how to get everyone on the same page and have a good time while you are doing it."

Brilliant book. No baloney. Loaded with questions every businessperson should be asking about his/her business. I never heard of Kelly before; now, I've recommended the book to 2 people and suggested that a third consider going to work for Kelly. It's a fast book to read -- stimulating the reader to think about critical ways to improve any business.

I am sure that the author did not intend his book to be used as a "how to" for other companies. The book is very interesting and a quick read. Although the book provides insight on how PSSI is run, it should not be used as a model for your company. Things work there because of the beliefs and convictions the leaders have. The success will not carry over into another firm because it worked in PSSI. It has to come from within. Unfortunately, the undertone I got from the book is that it would. That would be like saying reading a book written by Warren Buffett and following his principles would yield the sames results for the reader. There is an intangible that cannot be conveyed in words. This book should be read for enlightenment not as gospel.

Faster Company is stimulating and enjoyable. Kelly's ideas are down home and work well because he is a people person. The difference between this and other vision-goal books is that there is an open system of accountability. People know what's expected of them and how they're doing at any given time. The organizational culture is not your every day business, and it took a lot of belief in himself and others for Kelly to grow such a culture. The corporation has a clear cut picture of its destiny and knows what it takes to get there. Kelly, being the good leader that he is, believes in and follows his people. This is not a nutty company, this is a make sense company that leaves a legacy!