The Power of Corporate Kinetics: Create the Self-Adapting, Self-Renewing, Instant-Action Enterprise

by Michael Fradette, Steve Michaud, X Deloitte & touche

Book Overview

The Power of Corporate Kinetics: Create the Self-Adapting, Self-Renewing, Instant-Action Enterprise, by Deloitte Consulting partners Michael Fradette and Steve Michaud, provocatively suggests that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684832216
• ISBN13: 9780684832210
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Serve a single customer...Act in a zero time...

"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 t

Provides some solid footing in an unpredictable world.

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.

Death of Predictability - that rings true to all!

Great comfort to know that Michaud and Fradette are feeling the acceleration that all of us feel. The world is getting faster and I agree that we have crossed a logical horizon... that horizon at which we can no longer plan. We now must prepare and react to the unpredictable. Good case studies, good practical insights.

Change Now or You Won't Be Around To Say "I was wrong!"

The Power of Corporate Kinetics makes a solid case that the rules of the game are changing and companies that don't attempt to become "self-adapting, self-renewing, and prepared for instant-action" will not be here to regret their mistakes. It all boils down to survivability. In an era of highly intelligent and extremely demanding customers; companies will not be able to remain competitive by simply squeezing profitability out of mass production of undifferentiated products. Production efficiency and product quality are increasing almost as fast as customer satisfaction is decreaseing (what the heck is going on?).This book was extremely readable and insightful. Fradette and Michaud's anecdotal writing style allowed their assertions to really hit home. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to using many of its lessons in my everyday business life.

Tolls the death knell for the industrial business model.

As any number of recent business books have pointed out, markets and customers have become increasingly unpredictable. What Fradette and Michaud offer, however, is a new business design that takes unpredictability as a working assumption. This new design--which responds to customer and market "events" rather than attempting to predict, plan and implement--turns everyone in the enterprise, from the CEO to the receptionist, into a front-line worker. The authors also posit two outrageous goals for aspiring kinetic companies: zero-time response and serving markets of one profitably. If the vision seems at times a bit like science fiction, scores of real-world examples remind the reader that many such efforts have, in fact, succeeded (albeit on a smaller scale than the wholesale, enterprise-wide transformation the authors propose). The book is well-paced and written in an engaging style. I found myself devouring it in a single sitting.