This is not a book about IT, but some of the examples and cases do emphasise how IT is being used as the catalyst to radically change the way successful companies are managed and lead.

Key Points of Interest:

• The creative generation
• Operational efficiency ≠ Strategic efficiency
• Communities of purpose (self-organising teams)

My Opinion:

There are a lot of concepts discussed within this book, but on this post I will only discuss the ones relevant to my research.

For the first point, in my other readings the younger generation has always been viewed as the creative generation. With the tools and technology that’s now available, anyone can produce movies, make music. However, Gary Hamel’s sentiment on the creativity extends far beyond the arty stuff. He made a good point while everyone has a creative side, successful companies like Whirlpool and Toyota use it to their advantage to solve organisational problems. Relating this to my research, I think there is a value to investigate the Web 2.0 tools as a mean to unleash this creative side of the younger generation.

The second point that I find really interesting is that operational efficiency does not equate to strategic efficiency. I find this interesting, as I can relate back to my past readings, where a lot of the authors pointed out that the more lean (and/or integrated) an organisation is, the more difficult it is to adapt to changing environment. Operational effeciency alone is not enough in the information age. Things change rapidly and it puts significant pressure for organisation to quickly adapt. What is suggested within the book is that the two efficiency is not mutually exclusive, organisation can indeed achieve both operational and strategic efficiency.

The above is a subject that’s long been a personal interest of mine, so I will dedicate a bit of time later on and write a post (or two) on this subject.

The third concept that is interesting to me is the concept of self-organising teams. The author made a mention of how unrewarding work has become, a majority of workers are not as engaged to their work as they possibly can. This means wasted capability and lower productivity. Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Hamel’s Hierarchy of Contribution ranks passion as the ultimate driving force for employee engagement in the workplace. Passionate employees go over obstacles (to solve organisational problems), but only recently collaboration and social networking tools helps employees with common interest find each other and work together for a cause.