TMI US: Owl Book Review Grove

OWL BOOK REVIEW AVIARY

The Power of Corporate Kinetics
by Michael Fradette and Steve Michaud
Simon & Sc huster, , 1998.
ISBN: 0684832216

Deloitte & Touche Consulting partners Michael Fradette and Steve Michaud make a case for dynamic movement in the rapidly changing, wired world of the future. Corporate kinetics, in their words, is "dynamic business that instantly responds to new demands and seizes new opportunities."

They begin their book by claiming that "virtually every work of management theory...has been based on a single premise: the future is predictable." Fradette and Michaud attempt to point out how this flaw in thinking can be turned to your advantage.

We find this an interesting premise. As we read management theory, we don't see it based on that single premise, though we definitely agree that you might as well turn unpredictability into an advantage.

The authors identify five roads that must be simultaneously traveled to reach the "kinetic future:"

Creating new leadership
Building the right workforce
Designing for instant action
Igniting customer events and
Igniting market events.

These are ideas that other authors have been talking about for years, so how do Fradette and Michaud present a new twist on them with their concept of "kinetic movement?" Basically, they say that if you are travelling along the five roads mentioned above, you still won't be able to predict the future, but you will be ready for whatever happens. In their model, work teams work together and are wired to real-time information, fast market action, and instantaneous collaboration.

One of the best things about this book are the real life examples the authors provide from their consulting practice. In many ways, however, this book is mostly a continuation of ideas such as those presented in Porrass' Built to Last, in which highly successful organizations are identified and their best practices are listed.

Any time such highly successful consultants as Fradette and Michaud are willing to share their observations from their own clients, it's a gift. We'd recommend that if you read this book, that you read it with that caveat in mind. Their model, corporate kinetics, is not that different from what many other consultants have written. Their examples are instructive, and you can slot them into whatever corporate models are most meaningful to you.

Janelle Barlow, President
TMI USA

Previous "Owl Book Review Grove" pages:

    #1 Reichheld, The Loyalty Effect

    #2 Bennis, An Invented Life

    #3 Morrison, The Second Curve

    #4 Foster, How to Get Ideas

    #5 Bear, Send This Jerk the Bedbug Letter

    #6 Hemphill, Taming the Paper Tiger

    #7 Rifkin, Time Wars

    #8 Pearce, Leading Out Loud

    #9 Kao, Jamming

#10 Tannen, The Argument Culture

#11 Nancy, More Letters From a Nut

#12 Anders, Health Against Wealth

#13 Yates, The Critical Path

#14 Langdon, The New Language of Work

#15 Needleman, Time and the Soul

#16 Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence

#17 Conger, Winning 'Em Over

#18 Shapiro & Jankowski, The Power of Nice

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