Page 223 - (DK) The Business Book

WORKING WITH A VISION 221

See also: Managing risk 40–41 ■ Reinventing and adapting 52–57 ■ Creativity Thriving on chaos
and invention 72–73 ■ Avoiding complacency 194–201
Thriving on Chaos, written
by US business expert Tom
Peters, was published on
Economic, social, and New technology adds “Black Monday” (October 19,
political events 1987), when stock markets
create chaos. uncertainty. around the world crashed.
His timing could not have
been better. In the book Peters
laid out a future of change,
stating that everything known
“for sure” about management
Rigid control no longer works—businesses need to be flexible. would be challenged—and
that 100-year-old traditions
of mass production and mass
markets would be threatened.
His forecast was correct. What
had been a fairly predictable
If employees are given more information and involvement,
business environment
they become more creative, helping the company to be disappeared; organizations
flexible and change.
and managers had to embrace
change, or face collapse.
Peters correctly predicted
that the business winners
of the future would deal
Chaos brings uneasiness, but it also allows proactively with chaos,
for creativity and growth. seeing it as a source of market
advantage. Successful
companies would be those
who could create and add
swiftly to change. Such companies retail bank in the UK. The new quality and value continually
to their products and services
collaborate more readily with company had to create one new
in response to the ever-
external partners, rather than merely identity, one new way of doing things,
shifting desires of their
transacting with them, to encourage and streamline its IT systems and
customers. He described
adaptability and shared learning. differing organizational cultures. It
this as “a revolution.”
also needed ways of communicating
Creativity from chaos positively to customers.
A potential source of chaos is But the biggest challenge of
internal change and reorganization all was common to many situations
of a company. Involving and of business chaos—motivating
engaging the employees is the employees who were harassed by
answer to managing this. In the customers and worried about their
most complex financial services own jobs. Through constant There is no sense in pining
integration ever to occur in Europe, communication (including daily for the past—the stability we
Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) team briefings on internal changes), took for granted for so long
was acquired by Lloyds TSB workshops on team problem solving will never return.
following the financial crisis of 2008. and vision building, and measures Tom Peters
External chaos (unprecedented for gathering ideas from staff and
economic turbulence) was mirrored customers, the combined companies
by internal chaos—6,000 branches showed that chaos can not only be
and 30 million customers had to be managed, but may be a rich source
brought together to form the biggest of growth for a business in flux. ■