A knowledge economy's greatest pitfall is becoming a mandarin meritocracy. The key to the productivity of knowledge workers is to make them concentrate on real assignments. One should be intolerant of intellectual arrogance. A balance needs to be worked out between specialization and exposure.
Every organization has a theory of business. Sometimes reality changes but the theory of business does not change with it. The assumption that the computer industry is hardware driven paralyzed IBM.
Assumptions about environment, mission, and core competencies must fit reality. Rapid growth is a sure sign there is a crisis in the business theory. Unexpected success and unexpected failure equally show an inadequate theory of business.
Mass retailers had based their strategy on market homogeneity. Whosoever exploits structural trends is almost certain to succeed. The worship of premium pricing always creates a market for the competition.
There is a trend toward alliances as a vehicle of business growth. The modern organization has social responsibility. An organization is effective only if it concentrates on one task. Knowledge workers cannot be supervised effectively.
In team building there are three kinds of teams. The first is the baseball team with fixed positions. The second is the football team where players play as a team at the behest of a coach. The third is the tennis doubles team where players have primary rather than fixed positions.
History books record the squalor of early industry. Nevertheless, the workers were better off working in the factories than they were on the farm or in domestic service. Blue collar workers were manual laborers.
The emerging society is one based on knowledge. The central workforce will consist of highly specialized people. The knowledge society is an employee society. The Japanese term for continuous improvement is kaizen. An old Bell Telephone invention is benchmarking. For the most part downsizing has not resulted in the hoped for improvements.
The book is a collection of essays and interviews. The middle sags but the material near the beginning and the end of the volume is first rate.