Firestarters

by Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove

Published 11 September 2001

In the past, managers put out fires. In the future, managers will light the fires of enterprise.

On the innovation frontier, ideas, talent and capital move in perpetual free-flow. They move where the money can be made - or will be made at some time in the future. But in traditional companies, ideas, talent and capital can ossify rather than multiply. Despite the rise and fall of the dot.com sideshow, the days of the traditional corporate model - size, central control and no stake for the talented - look numbered when it comes to creating and delivering value from new ventures. Business needs to get better at starting the fires of enterprise. Firestarters examines the best of the start-up and corporate worlds to describe an organization where entrepreneurial zeal lives and where resources flow quickly and profitably to the best new ideas.

Firestarter organizations create entrepreneurialism through motivation and context. They work like this:

New models: They explore new organizational models. They are not stuck in the past of military or mechanistic models.

The empty organization: They realize that they need to be lean and efficient. They outsource. They focus on what they excel at.

Launch and learn: They are adept at moving quickly with ideas, making them happen, now.

Networked: They are networked, internally and externally. They continually seek out new network partners.

Local area networks: And they network intimately with those in their geographic area. They turn neighborhoods into networks.

Work with meaning: They provide values and meaning for all those who work with them.

Entrepreneurial: In a word Firestarter Inc. glows with entrepreneurial purpose.


This is a practical guide to re-engineering, examining its roots and looking at how to recreate organizations designed around the needs of customers, owners, employers, suppliers and regulators.


This Handbook captures a world of management expertise and delivers it to your desktop in a single, definitive resource. It brings together the most ambitious, comprehensive and authoritative selection of ideas and practices from the best management thinkers around the world.Contributors include: Marcus Alexander, Paul Argenti, Warren Bennis, David W Birchall, William C Byham, Richard D'Aveni, G Bruce Friesen, Thomas Gad, Vijay Govingarajan, Anil K Gupta, H David Hennessey, Shere Hite, Andrew Kakabadse, John Kay, W Chan Kim, Jesper Kunde, Richard Lamming, Dr Peter Lorange, Renee Mauborgne, D Quinn Mills, Narayan Naik, Kjell A Nordstrom, Jonas Ridderstrale, Richard Scase, Paul Strebel, Donald N Sull, Fons Trompenaars, Bruce Tulgan, Sandra Vandermerwe, Watts Wacker, Randall P White, George Yiip, Luigi Zingales. There is also extensive covereage and analysis of the work of many major gurus such as Tom Peters, Gary Hammel and Charles Handy.


The state of the art

 

The world of business never stands still. Today’s dominant force is tomorrow’s sideshow. Fashions change and best practice evolves. For managers one certainty endures; the more you know the higher you go.

 

From crafting strategies to delivering results, questions of management will always be too varied, perplexing and challenging to yield a single answer.  They are best explored with the help of many perspectives. 

 

The third edition of the Financial Times Handbook of Management encapsulates this world of management thinking, reflecting what matters to managers in organizations in the first decade of the new century.   A compelling and comprehensive companion to management’s big ideas, brilliant minds and better ways, the Handbook is packed with intelligent writing to bring management alive for the thinking executive.

 

The Financial Times Handbook of Management captures the state of this indispensable, inspiring, invigorating and essential art:

 

The thinkers:

 

Including Igor Ansoff, Chris Argyris, Warren Bennis, James Champy

W Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker; Henri Fayol, Sumantra Ghoshal, Marshall Goldsmith, Lynda Gratton, Gary Hamel, Charles Handy, Phil Hodgson and Randall White, John Kay, Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Philip Kotler,  Ted Levitt, John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, Henry Mintzberg, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, John Mullins, Kjell Nordström and Jonas RidderstrSle, Kenichi Ohmae, Richard Pascale, Tom Peters, Michael Porter, CK Prahalad,  Edgar Schein, Hermann Simon, Jonathan Story, Don Sull,  Fons Trompenaars, Bruce Tulgan, Elizabeth Weldon, Jerry Windand many more.

 

The foundations:

 

Strategy and competition

Globalization

Managing Human Resources
Operations and Service
Marketing
Finance
Organization

Ideas, information and knowledge

Entrepreneurship
Ethics

 

The Skills:

 

Managing globally 

Leading

Managing change

Communicating

Managing yourself and your career

Making it happen

Developing and learning

 

 

 

 

Putting Strategy to Work

by Eddie Obeng and Durcan.

Published 14 March 1996
Addresses change and the fact that the only way we seem to be able to control it is through a program of projects. It identifies the main areas of knowledge required to ensure your success, covering all of the techniques for successful program management.


Forget Raising Hell; Raise Capital Instead Something has changed the business world. Big business has lost its allure for the new generation. Where once youthful employees pursued corporate goals, generation entrepreneur dream their own dreams. Corporate man is dead. Long live generation entrepreneur This is the age of the entrepreneur. What began in Silicon Valley as a dream for a select few has become a worldwide phenomenon. For growing numbers of young business people, creating a business has become a calling, a vocation, a mission. They are what they do, and they do what they are. Above all, they do their own thing."In the business world, grey hair and conservative suits used to be compulsory. Now fresh faced entrepreneurs in combat trousers stare out from countless business magazines...Gen e is the new reality...this is a zeitgeist. E stands for entrepreneurial energy and much more." - Executive Express " Generation X was a demographic convenience, a neat label. Generation Entrepreneur is reality; a movement of minds and bodies to the new rhythm of commerce. The new generation think differently about business. They are making connections that no one has thought of before.The change is evident even to the naked eye.
In business, grey hair and conservative suits used to be compulsory. Button-down constraint was the order of the corporate day. Now fresh-faced entrepreneurs in combat pants stare out from countless business magazines. They do not conform. They have no need to belong. And, they are wildly successful. The men and women who are the new wealth-creators and shapers of business are Generation Entrepreneur. This new breed of entrepreneurs think differently about life in general - and business in particular. They are the new generation of e-literate, entrepreneurial managers and knowledge workers and they are unlike anything that came before. Most people have heard of gen e's big hitters: thirty-somethings like Michael Dell, founder of Dell Corporation, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com; and twenty-somethings like the co-founder of Netscape, Marc Andreessen. This is just the tip of the iceberg - and it's an iceberg that is sinking old-style corporations. Generation Entrepreneur takes the opportunity to define the moment and envisage the future. It examines generation e from every angle: Who are generation entrepreneur?What are their values? Is loyalty really dead?
How do generation entrepreneurs balance their work and life? What are the implications for corporations? Where are the hotbeds of activity? What drives these people and what are their key characteristics? Corporate man died out in the downsizing age. The Yuppies look Neanderthal by comparison. Generation Entrepreneur is running the show now - and making up the new rules of business as it goes along. Meet the new wealth creators. Read the handbook for the new business generation.