The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the Protean Corporation and What It Means for You [Hardcover]

Michael Malone (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 19, 2009

A bold vision about the ways companies will adapt and be reborn in a revolutionary world where business models implode and the search is on for what will work. . . .

The fate of newspapers and the music industry is a harbinger of what awaits every company: an aging business model in its death throes as people finally wake up to the grim fact that their products and the way they deliver them are completely out of sync not only with what customers want but how they want it. But Michael Malone–the author who, when the Internet was still the domain of technical experts, enabled his readers to see clearly the opportunities of the then-emerging digital age–is back and once again making sense of a future just around the corner.

Business considerations such as the wireless World Wide Web, billions of new consumers, and an entrepreneurial ethos are all converging. How a corporation is organized and how people will be managed and employed will change more quickly than anyone realizes. With technology poised to connect a billion new consumers from the most remote parts of the globe, corporations will enter a volatile economic era marked by unprecedented threats and opportunities. Survival will require companies to be “protean”–nimble shape-shifters able to change direction and identity in response to a rapidly evolving international marketplace. They must, in other words, act like perpetual entrepreneurial start-ups.

In our Web 2.0 world “the future arrived yesterday,” since the tools for success already exist and are the means for companies becoming protean. Malone provides remarkable insights into how this emerging corporate form will work and why it’s the key to competitiveness. Find out:

• Why the traditional CEO as master of the universe will be extinct. The CEO will be a chameleon, adapting management style and attitude to each company’s constituency.
• How to identify a core group of employees who will provide stability through their knowledge of the company's history, values, and culture.
• How to effectively recruit, manage, and retain the best talent in an increasingly nontraditional, entrepreneurial, and peripatetic workforce.
• Who stakeholders are, why they matter, and how they will extend beyond any comparable business organization to this point.
• Why the rigid boundaries between for-profit and nonprofit ventures are likely to dissolve through alternate forms of value creation, resulting in hybrid enterprises.

By embracing impermanence and becoming true shape-shifters, protean businesses will not only endure, they’ll come to dominate large segments of the global economy. Provocative and pragmatic, The Future Arrived Yesterday is a dynamic blueprint for a tumultuous economic age.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Malone (coauthor of The Virtual Corporation) surveys the growing virtualization of the workplace and the dismantling of traditional organizational structures to argue that we need ways of thinking about organizations that reflect the changing reality of the people who are part of them. The solution, he asserts, is the protean corporation, distinguished by its ability to constantly restructure itself to changing circumstances and new opportunities. Praising such corporations as Google, Wikipedia and the U.S. Army, Malone contends that these early-stage shape-shifters behave like perpetual entrepreneurial startups, continuously changing their form, direction and identity. He also examines the historical, technological and entrepreneurial evolution of the corporation and envisions the structure, behavior and impact of numerous protean organizations on the American economy and culture. Insightful and visionary, this book will appeal to forward-thinking executives who aim to develop their companies in the tumultuous and ever-changing global marketplace. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Malone, a journalist specializing in technology and business, presents his ideas on how companies will adapt to an emerging world that brings together the wireless Web, intelligent cell phones, billions of new consumers from developing countries, and a dedicated entrepreneurial culture. To be “protean,” corporations (not-for-profits and government agencies) will consistently function as new business start-ups, 80 percent staffed with entrepreneurs operating far from corporate headquarters—independent, empowered to use their own judgment, taking risks in developing new markets, and less attached to their employer. The 20 percent minority will be people who seek stability, are risk-averse, and will be vital to maintaining the corporate culture and preserving the institutional memory; they will be key to long-term survival. Google and Wikipedia are early-stage protean organizations, as is the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although all may not agree with Malone, entrepreneurs will revel in the historic opportunities he sees for them; and if his ideas contribute to corporate discussions and planning, his objectives will be met. Excellent book. --Mary Whaley

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1 edition (May 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307406903
• ISBN-13: 978-0307406903
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #669,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read: on Management in 2.0 era May 21, 2009

By Amul Mago

Format:Hardcover

The author is very articulate in scripting the character of a 2.0 organization; which he calls a "protean organization" as part of a "protean society" where time will seem to accelerate (a dynamic world), distances further shrunk (globally connected), a sense of isolation will increase (importance of individuality). At the same time; the excitement will be more.

In such a society, the writer describes a protean organization to be essentially lean (with core group of people at the center - to manage and rive the company history, philosophy & mission). This lean group would take care of infrastructure, & strategic planning.

The core group will be surround by a dynamic workforce (salaried/ contractual employees with benefits & flexible working arrangements)to allow the company to respond nimbly to change.

Furthermore; the author takes our mind into the 2.0 era where a protean being would exist. Probably the highest capable form of human existence which would essentially be a combination of individuals strongly rooted within themselves; complete understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, skills, goals and aspirations looking for assignments NOT title/s as a way of growth in their careers.

[...]

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than most business books June 30, 2009

By M. Drudzinski VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read more fiction than business books, so I look for the business texts I do read to tell a story. This is why I am such a fan of Michael Lewis, Jim Collins and Malcolm Gladwell.

Many business books seem like an essay extended far enough to comprise a 250 page book, so I usually get bored after about 50 pages. Not so with Malone's book.

The book starts off ok, but for anyone working in new media, the idea of a protean organization doesn't seem too cutting-edge. We live it.

But when Malone goes into his history of corporate structure/culture (going all the way back to the oldest company still in existence -- Beretta), the book really takes off. Malone's recounting of corporate organizational practices, and how these evolved as cultural, historical and technological changes influenced them, is utterly fascinating.

I'd say this book is a required read for anyone trying to make sense of our ever-changing working world -- with less hierarchical org charts, companies booming and busting at alarming rates, globalization making the second and third worlds more relevant to business than ever before, contractors working side-by-side with full time employees (spread across the globe), flextime, wisdom of crowds decision making, smart devices allowing us to stay in sync with our peers 24/7/365, community-driven business innovation, etc.

Another win for this book is Malone's prescient ability to anticipate readers' questions and address those. Every time I thought, "Yeah, but what about...", Malone had an answer for that very question a page or two later. Just brilliant.

Malone isn't afraid to criticize the shortcomings in the protean model either, and this even-handed approach to his analysis underscores that this is a journalist who wrote this, not a cheerleader for the protean model. Nothing he says is truly earth-shattering, but its implications for the future of how companies work could be.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Future Arrived Yesterday September 19, 2009

By David M. Taylor

Format:Hardcover

"In his new book entitled "The Future Arrived Yesterday", Michael S. Malone defines a new phenomenon in the corporate world which he calls the Protean Corporation. The Protean Corporation is a new form of organization that is structured to handle the stresses and strains we see emerging in our marketplace today. Stresses ranging from the retiring baby boomers being replaced by Gen Xer's, Gen Y's and millennials to the rising Asian workforce, continuous Internet connectivity, the pace of technological change, dramatic increases in new consumers the emerging nations and the rise in entrepreneurialism. These stresses and strains are unleashing an unprecedented rate of change into the marketplace, a rate of change that has never before been experienced and one that the organizations of today cannot possible handle successfully.

According to Malone the Protean Corporation "must find a way to continuously and rapidly change almost everyone of their attributes - products, services, finances, physical plant, markets, customers, and both tactical and strategic goals - yet at the same time retain a core of values, customs, legends, and philosophy that will be little affected by the continuous and explosive changes taking place just beyond its edges."

How does the Protean Corporation do this? By structuring itself into three distinct groups;

1. Core - the core staff are permanent staff responsible to retain the core values, customs, legends, and philosophies so that they will be little affected by the continuous and explosive changes. It is up to them to uphold the corporation's culture.

2. Inner Ring - permanent employees responsible for the operations of the business. These staff need to understand the workings of the business inside and out and must be extraordinary leaders as they will be leading day to day activities of the "Cloud" which makes up 90% of the Protean Corporation.

3. Cloud - In terms of numbers, the Cloud makes up 90% of the Protean Corporation. These are temporary staff whose employment may last anywhere from hours to days to years depending on their role and the requirements of the Protean Corporation at the time. They will be the staff that actually executes most of the day to day work under the guidance and direction of the Inner Ring. The Core employees will oversee the Inner Ring and the Cloud and ensure that the corporation's core culture is maintained.

What does this have to do with your Strength Zone?

Its pretty simple reallyâ¦.unless you understand your strengths and are working in your Strength Zone, you are not going to understand where you fit into the Protean Corporation and you will end up getting steam rolled by it. You need to understand how you can best apply your strengths in this new organization and whether you are best fit to live in the Core, the Inner Ring or the Cloud.

No matter how the Protean Corporation structures itself to handle the increasing rate of change in today's world, unless its employees are working in their areas of strength (their Strength Zone), the Protean Corporation will not be successful.