10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Serve a single customer...Act in a zero time..., September 25, 2000
This review is from: The Power of Corporate Kinetics: Create the Self-Adapting, Self-Renewing, Instant-Action Enterprise (Hardcover)
"This book is about the death of predictability and how you can turn it to your advantage. Until now, virtually every work of management theory, as well as every business, has been based on a single premise: The future is predictable. Until now, we have forecast market trends, scheduled production, designed services, and trained employees on the assumption that we could count on a stable future expect for the occasional unexpected earthquake...We believe that the insights contained in this book will allow businesses to weather the storm of unpredictability. More than that, we believe this book will help businesses size the opportunities inherent in an unpredictable future as they constantly create new sources of competitive advantage. Our proposals aren't simply theory. They have emerged in part from our study of dozens of leading companies that have recognized the change in the business environment and have developed new ways to cope with it...We offer a model of what we call the 'kinetic enterprise,' a guide to the design of a business that can cope with the new reality. It is based on a simple yet profound insight: If we can no longer depend on our ability to predict the future, we must create a dynamic business design that can capitalize on the unpredictable, to turn it to our advantage...It is very different, in structure and behavior, from the traditional corporation...The kinetic enterprise isn't constrained by existing work processes. It is an instant-action machine, constantly changing its work and evolving its operations to address the unpredictable. What is more, it ignores traditional hierarchies and boundaries. Workers initiate and manage its activities, collaborating with one another at every level and within every area. The old command-and-control management model is defunct. Instead, a new culture motivates workers to collaborate spontaneously, make decisions, take risk, innovate, and learn" (pp.15-20).
Within this general framework, Michael Fradette and Steve Michaud divide their book into two parts:
I. The Destination - In this part, they set forth the principles and attributes of the kinetic enterprise as follows:
* They write, "The kinetic enterprise is organized around workers who initiate and execute individual, discrete, and unpredictable projects that we call events." These are basically market and customer events. According to them, these events require workers who are committed to success of the overall enterprise, rather than just their own position, department, or team.
* They define a market event as the work of the enterprise immediately and profitably performed to seize an unexpected market opportunity. According to them, market events aren't strategy, market forecasting, and just responses to shifting customer needs, and hence market events have the following six basic elements: (1)spotting an unexpected market opportunity, (2)assessing its impact on the enterprise, (3)deciding if the market opportunity is right for the business, (4)marshaling the resources of the enterprise to capitalize on the opportunity, (5)developing the best approach to the task, and (6)capturing insights and rolling out the idea to the enterprise.
* They define a customer event as the work of enterprise immediately and profitably performed to satisfy a unique, single customer demand. According to them, customer events aren't an exercise in extravagant service, dedicated to achieving customer intimacy or even a long-term relationship, micro-marketing, and mass customization, and hence customer events have the following six basic elements: (1)ascertaining a customer's specific needs, (2)assessing its impact on the enterprise, (3)deciding if if satisfying the demand is right for the enterprise, (4)marshaling the resources of the enterprise to meet the customer's demand, (5)developing and implementing the best approach to the task, and (6)satisfying the customer.
* They argue that workers of a kinetic enterprise think like owners, share common goals and enterprise-wide rewards, disdain constraining job descriptions, design event teams, and learn as they go.
* They argue that in a kinetic enterprise, old notions of predefined jobs and roles, the hierarchical distinctions, no longer exist. Everyone in the enterprise, from CEO to assembly line workers, must be ready to play one or all of the roles such as frontline worker, strategist, stakeholder, decision-maker, manager, coach, student, champion, innovator, project member, networker, and leader at any given time.
II. The Journey - In this part, in order to answer to 'How should companies go about their journey toward a kinetic future?', they suggest the following five concurrent paths:
1. Create the new leadership - They argue that in traditional, task-based organizations, leaders are, by definition, separate and removed from their workers. Leaders are responsible for predicting market trends from year to year, developing strategies to take advantage of them, and making sure the strategies are implemented. In the kinetic enterprise, leaders still predict and implement winning plays to succeed in visible markets. But they also prepare themselves and their organization to respond to the invisible, unpredictable market shifts that have become so commonplace in the modern business world. And thus, Fradette and Michaud show five key tasks of these kinetic leaders.
2. Building the right workforce - They argue that in traditional companies, job interviews are concerned with the candidate's specific skills and experience. Kinetic organizations search for candidates who have innate talents rather than just track records, and their attitudes and personalities must match the corporate culture.
3. Design for instant action - They argue that traditional organizations build infrastructures primarily to promote productivity and efficiency, with the result that all to often they lock themselves into old ways of doing business. Kinetic enterprises, on the other hand, gear their infrastructures to a pair of outrageous goals. Work design, communications and computer systems, and even physical plants are designed to serve single customer and to act in zero time.
4. Ignite customer events - They argue that kinetic enterprise ignite customer events so customers can design their own relationships, create personalized products and services, invent wholly new products and services, and design total solutions.
5. Ignite market events - They argue that innovation with customer events isn't enough to win in today's unpredictable environment. To stay on top, workers must invent new products, services, and businesses that neither customers nor competitors have imagined.
Finally, they write, "The primary focus of this book is more immediate and pragmatic. We have designed it to be both a spur and a guide: a spur to recognize the permanence of the changes that have torn up our business environment, and a guide to help cope with those changes. We hope that you will heed our warnings and that you will find ways to apply kinetics in your own backyard. As so many enterprises have discovered, the path of kinetics can be difficult and demanding, but the rewards are sure and plentiful."
Strongly recommended.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Oversimplified old wine in new bottles, November 2, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Power of Corporate Kinetics: Create the Self-Adapting, Self-Renewing, Instant-Action Enterprise (Hardcover)
This book has some significant problems. I completely agree with the prior reviewer who believes that being "kinetic" (as suggested by the authors) is being reactionary. Reacting radically to "radical" events is an oversimplification. This is not necessarily the best course to take.
The concepts discussed by the authors are nothing new. Many writers have suggested that we need more flexible organisation structures to cope with the environmental turbulence in the current period. See Hedberg et al (1976) "Camping on seesaws". These concepts coincide with contingency theory and the like. There is no real evidence however that organisations behaving in the way that the authors suggest will succeed.
I also believe that the authors confuse having a plan with being able to execute it. The two concepts seem alike but are in fact different. Those pushing re-engineering have fallen into this trap - they perform radical re-design and then attempt to radically implement it - this course is surely destined to fail more often than not.
In short, anyone who literally swallows their medicine is asking for trouble. Those wanting long term solutions should examine Systems theory (Senge and others). They suggest (with good evidence) that "sudden" changes in the environment have in fact built up over time. It's good advice - to cope with the business problems we face in the current times we need to approach them within this framework.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Provides some solid footing in an unpredictable world., March 28, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Power of Corporate Kinetics: Create the Self-Adapting, Self-Renewing, Instant-Action Enterprise (Hardcover)
The authors profile and give guidelines to the design of a business that can capitalize on the unpredictable; a kinetic enterprise moves, instantly, responding to new demands and seizing new opportunities. The enterprise is organized around workers who initiate and execute unpredictable projects ("events") driven by market opportunities and customer demands. This work focuses on leadership, an empowered work force, infrastructure, and market and customer events. The book offers numerous examples that illustrate its central theme.
If you are searching for some certainty in this today's chaos, this book provides some solid footing in an unpredictable world. Recommeded. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.
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