It takes some guts to subtitle a business book “The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World.” Even for a genre whose grand overstatements are only rivaled by the diet-books aisle, that is an ambitious tagline. The Lords of Strategy lives up to that subtitle and then some. It is a grand, sweeping saga that tells the story of how the ill-defined function known as “corporate strategy” emerged in the 60s, systematically took over boardrooms and MBA classrooms, and altered the business landscape forever. Even though we are only 4 months into 2010, it is pretty likely this is going to be the best business book of the year for me. If you are considering, currently in, or recently graduated from, an MBA program, you really must read this book. If this book had been written 10 years ago, it would have saved me a good deal of trouble making my own career decisions.
The Gervais Principle III: The Curse of Development
In the first two parts of this series, we talked about the archetypes that inhabit organizations (Sociopaths, Losers, Clueless), what they do (the Gervais Principle) and how (the four languages). In this part, we’ll use a somewhat unorthodox take on the idea of arrested development to explain why the three groups behave as they do, and use that to predict the outcomes of individual interpersonal interactions.
| Series Home | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | ebook |
For those who came in late: read Part I and Part II first, to avoid serious misunderstandings.
Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein
In the last few months, I read two books about the history of finance: Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein and The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson (there is a very watchable DVD version, as well). My first thought, when I decided to read up on finance and money, was to dive into the deep end with one of the subprime mortgage crisis books. But I found that there were so many, each claiming to know the reason for the meltdown, that I decided to table that effort. I decided to start, instead, with a couple of broader-perspective historical books. These choices, I have to admit, were a matter of laziness and convenience rather than careful and deliberate selection. Still they did the trick. Though they were somewhat random starting points, both books are pretty good, and they got me thinking about money in productive and stimulating ways. Let’s tackle the first one, Against the Gods.
Linchpin by Seth Godin, and 8 Other Short Book Reviews
There are two kinds of books that I find valuable, but don’t review. Books about which I have too little to say and books about which I have too much to say. One reason I don’t review them is that with with the first kind of book, I often extract value and dump the book halfway. With the second kind, I read each book so closely and carefully, and over such a long period of time, that by the time I am done, it is too entangled with my own thinking to write about objectively. Still, I thought it would be interesting to attempt a round-up of recent reading in these two categories. These won’t be getting full-length reviews.
The Expedient, Desirable Product
This is a guest post by Dorian Taylor, with whom I’ve been having a thought-provoking Twitter conversation about design. Here is an interesting pecha-kucha talk by Dorian that kinda explains where he’s coming from.
When I first encountered the phrase minimum viable product, I thought to myself here is a term that is ripe for misinterpretation by droves of hyperpragmatic undergrad-aged startup founders with a cheque from Paul Graham and more energy than sense
. Admittedly it’s an appealing concept even if you don’t fall into that category, but it’s in my nature to take things apart and play with them.
My understanding of the goal of the minimum viable product is to arrive at something you can sell in as short a period as possible. Its purpose is to get answers to empirical questions that can only come from customers and users, while at the same time getting paid. Awesome idea. Just a couple of questions: [Read more…]
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
What did you want to grow up to be, when you were a kid? Where did you actually end up? For a few weeks now, I have been idly wondering about the atavistic psychology behind career choices. Whenever I develop an odd intellectual itch like this, something odder usually comes along to scratch it. In this case, it was a strange rhyme that emerged in Britain sometime between 1475 and 1695, which has turned into one of the most robust memes in the English language:
tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor
richman, poorman, beggarman, thief
Everybody from John LeCarre to the Yardbirds seems to have been influenced by this rhyme. For the past week, it has been stuck in my head; an annoying tune that was my only clue to an undefined mystery about the nature of work that I hadn’t yet framed. So I went a-detecting with this clue in hand, and ended up discovering what might be the most fundamental way to view the world of work.
Guest Post on VentureBeat on the iPad
I have a guest post up on VentureBeat.com, Why Apple’s design approach may not work with the iPad. I haven’t written about innovation in a while, so for those of you who like my old posts on that subject, you’ll probably enjoy this.
In Arthur Hailey’s 1971 novel, Wheels, the hero has an epiphany while looking at the Apollo Lunar Module: “Ugly is Beautiful.” Watching the iPad launch coverage, I realized that Apple limits its innovation potential by never building anything ugly. “Ugly is beautiful” isn’t just an epigram. It has substance as an innovation design principle. There are theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that revolutionary products are, by necessity, ugly-beautiful (as an effect, not a cause: a technology is not revolutionary simply because it is ugly).
Do head on over and comment. This was written with my work hat on, as part of the general tech scene conversation-joining blogging I am doing as part of trailmeme.com promotion. Sometimes you get to mix work and play…
The Genealogy of the Gervais Principle
| Series Home | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | ebook |
One reason I have delayed posting the next part in the Gervais Principle series is that as expectations have grown, I have gotten more wary about shooting from the hip. Especially because the remaining ideas in the hopper (there’s enough for two more posts before I call the main series complete) will likely be even more controversial than the first two. So one of the things I have been doing is testing the foundations laid in the first two posts more rigorously. So here goes, a (very pictorial) survey of the ancestry of the MacLeod hierarchy and the Gervais Principle. This is not Part III. It is another side trip. Not many new ideas here, but genealogy should prove interesting for at least some of you. A sense of history is a necessary (though unfortunately not sufficient) requirement for effective sociopathy. For those who came in late, this post will make no sense to you. Read The Gervais Principle and The Gervais Principle II before you tackle this one.
Conceptual Metaphors (Mashable), Gervais Principle (Fugitive Philosophy)
Heads up on two posts that should interest ribbonfarm readers. The first is a guest post by me on Mashable, and the other is a post by Tobias C. Van Veen on the Gervais Principle. I keep meaning to do a big roundup of all the blogosphere reactions (there’s several pretty good ones) to GP, but haven’t had time. But this one was worth pointing out, since it adds some new ideas.
Drive by Dan Pink
At the heart of Dan Pink’s new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
The major contribution of Drive is in elevating what ought to be a basic axiom of business from the level of Twain-ian (and Drucker-ian) opinion, to the level of scientific, not-optional, fact. The “Aha!” element of the book isn’t this bald fact (which isn’t surprising in isolation), but in pointing out the gap between “what science knows and what business does.” The marginal status of the body of research in psychology is no excuse: major business thinkers from Drucker onwards have been saying the same thing for decades. Yet, nearly all businesses run on carrot-and-stick motivational architectures.
