Survival Is Not Enough: Zooming, Evolution, and the Future of Your Company [Hardcover]

Seth Godin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2002

It's come to this. All the confusion and chaos and change and turmoil in our working lives have finally tipped the balance. We now need a new way of doing business.

Every generation sees a fundamental change in the way we organize to do work. From Frederick Taylor's classic Principles of Scientific Management (1914) to Henry Ford's assembly line, from The Organization Man (1956) to In Search of Excellence (1982), our businesses reflect the times in which we live. Survival Is Not Enough is the next big step.

Most of us view change as a threat, and survival as the goal. Yet we work too hard to consider just getting by as our primary goal. In Survival Is Not Enough, bestselling author Seth Godin provides a groundbreaking new way to organize companies to thrive during times of change. It contains a simple yet revolutionary idea: We can evolve our companies the same way nature evolves a species.

Darwin was right. Evolution is a fundamental force of nature, and Godin demonstrates how this force can be unleashed in any organization. The first step is to eliminate the anti-change reflex that's genetically coded into all of us. Once a company learns to "zoom" (embrace change without pain), it is much more likely to evolve. And a company that evolves can become ever more profitable.

Whether the market is up or down, whether technology is hot or not, in all industries, from retail to tech to restaurants, the organic approach to organizations described in this book will always outperform the competition. As long as our world is unstable, evolving businesses will win.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Survival Is Not Enough, former Yahoo executive and author of Permission Marketing Seth Godin turns his attention to the predominant issue facing all business today: change. Godin takes the perspective of an evolutionary biologist, borrowing ideas from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, and Matt Ridley to formulate his own prescription for business survival, a concept he calls "zooming," which he defines as "stretching your limits without threatening your foundation." The result is a wide-ranging and eclectic menu of useful ideas that just about anyone looking to enhance their career, job satisfaction, and their company's prospects would do well to consider. --Harry C. Edwards

From Publishers Weekly

In his follow-up to the popular e-book Unleashing the Ideavirus, marketing guru Seth Godin uses Darwin's theory of evolution as an extended metaphor for how companies have to constantly change in order to adapt to unstable economic environments. Survival Is Not Enough: Zooming Evolution, and the Future of Your Company maintains that in these uncertain times, business owners have to constantly tinker with their marketing, products, and personnel, even if they've already discovered some successful strategies. While he lays the metaphors on a little thick, Godin's otherwise clear, crackling prose and real-life examples make the book an engaging read.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st edition (January 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743225716
• ISBN-13: 978-0743225717
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,382,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, Repetitive, Some Good Ideas but Flawed, February 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Survival Is Not Enough: Zooming, Evolution, and the Future of Your Company (Hardcover)

I was intrigued by the author's idea of comparing the evolution of ideas and businesses, to the science of evolution.

I'm pretty sure that Seth Godin has never read any of the excellent essays or books by Stephen Jay Gould whose words have helped educate me about evolution. Godin seems to have learned about evolution not from scientists, but from Star Trek (which assumes that 'evolution' has a fixed agenda, and that 'evolution' is the term used for a single-generation transformation of a species from humanoid to transcendant being).

Even when Godin has the right ideas about evolution, his analogy of "genes" and "DNA" to "memes" and "mDNA" often fails through carelessness: he often confuses his own terms and concepts.

The real thesis of "Survival is Not Enough" is that companies need to "zoom" by trying new ideas, by experimenting, by accepting that when their business environment changes, they must transform themselves or fail.

Godin is certainly not wrong: every business needs to adapt and experiment. No company can survive the transformation of its environment unless the company transforms itself. Every company should try new things, different things, even bizarre "gonzo" ideas, in order to learn what works and what does not. Yes, "zooming" is a good idea, but Godin doesn't seem to accept that there are limits: company staff, budgets, and attention.

Godin's notion of launching many experiments, including launching multiple projects that bet against each other, is intriguing but clearly unaffordable to most companies. Yes, companies must experiment, and try new ideas and new projects, and we must accept that failing is better than not trying -- but Godin provides no guidance on how to choose which experiments to try, which risks to accept, and which to reject.

There are some good ideas in Godin's book, but I think most of them could have been captured in a dozen pages.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Godin Book - Another winner!, January 14, 2002

By 

Dan E. Ross "Dan Ross" (Frisco, Tx USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Survival Is Not Enough: Zooming, Evolution, and the Future of Your Company (Hardcover)

I gave this book 4 stars because, while it was refreshing to read and I definitely learned quite a bit, it wasn't a paradigm-shifting book, which is what I am increasingly moving towards for my 5 star books.

I warn folks that don't like buzzwords that this book has TONS of them. Frankly, there were more than I care for and I normally don't mind them!

Mr. Godin consistently picks a topic of business conversation/interest and then provides readers with his insights. In Permission Marketing he spoke about the rampant increase in e-mail marketing campaigns and what made them effective vs. ineffective and the impact it would have on consumer/business relations. In Unleashing the Ideavirus Mr. Godin spoke about the power of word of mouth advertising and how companies could utilize the Internet as an enabling device to cost effectively communicate with customers and generate excitement in a product/service.

Survival is Not Enough, by Seth Godin, is another bestseller in the works. For some reason Mr. Godin seems to get the "big picture" better than most. More importantly, the manner in which he conveys the information / subject manner is normally easier to understand than other books on comparable subject matter. With his new book Mr. Godin tackles the subject of rapid change and its impact on business. Using the metaphor of Darwin's Law of Evolution Mr. Godin compares a corporation's evolution to any animal.

The entire book can be summed up in a very simple manner. Evolve (change) or die. The fittest company will win at the end of the day such as the fiercest Lion will end up passing on his genes to other lions.

Rather than spell out each chapter I would say that Mr. Godin hits on several key things within the book that really make it worth reading

1) Why it is better to make small changes than big changes to survive (EVOLVE vs. massive restructuring).

2) How can a company accelerate changes so it doesn't become static and die?

3) Why you need to make sure you have the right people on board.

4) How do people deal with fear and change? What are some of the artificial barriers we as humans put up to avoid change? I found some of the insights to be interesting.

5) Are all companies capable of change? Obviously a lot don't (they become extinct via bankruptcy) but did they miss along the way which hurt the company (examples are provided.)

Mr. Godin's last chapter gives a long list of important questions that deal with change. Through asking them and honestly answering them you may find some insightful things about your companies' culture and the implications for your career development, as well as their future success. In general I found the book to be very insightful but much tougher than his previous books to read. This is heady stuff, relative to his prior books, especially when you have to compare the entire book to Darwin and Evolution!

24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Learn about Darwinism from someone who understands it, February 2, 2002

By 

Amol Sarva "Philosopher" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Survival Is Not Enough: Zooming, Evolution, and the Future of Your Company (Hardcover)

This book is about a good idea: understanding Darwinism as a way of understanding the dynamics of business. There's a lot we could learn from evolutionary biology to improve the way we do business. Here's one example: we should let "survival of the fittest" apply inside the company. Most firms don't do this actively, so they end up with a lot of dead wood. Ultimately, the company itself ends up less fit than its competitors and does not survive. Far better to push your employees to perform and retain only the best if you want your company to be around for long.

Fine. So if ideas like this are interesting to you, you shouldn't be reading this book. You should get Richard Dawkins _The Selfish Gene_, Matt Ridley's _Genome_, Daniel Dennett's _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, or even Mark Ridley's compilation _Evolution_. These and many other books make the central ideas of evolutionary theory available and engaging to a lay audience. No specialist background required. Don't think Seth Godin is doing you much of a favor by 'summarizing tons of technical work' for you--hardly! He appears to have read a few of these same 'populare interest' science books and given it all his own spin.

This book really isn't worth the money. It would be better off as a 2-3 page magazine article; the other 250 pages are just fluff. It's so amateurish and undisciplined that it might as well be the author's precious journal of private thoughts and ideas.

Reviews like this are rarely very helpful, I realize. You heard about this book and wanted to check it out. Well, I did. It was awful. Check into the books I mention above. They are brilliant works written by very smart, well-respected people. You won't be disappointed.