Rate this book

The Connected Company (2012)

by Dave Gray(Favorite Author)

4.31 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

144931905X (ISBN13: 9781449319052)

languge

English

genre

Young Adult Fiction

publisher

O'Reilly Media

review 1: Some books are great to read from start to finish, with tons of stuff to enjoy, learn or be amazed by, but perhaps not always in the same package. However, this is one those books that has it all, and it was a real delight to read from start to finish. So where do I begin?First of all, the subject matter for The Connected Company is right at the heart of everything that organisations have to deal with these days; namely, how to adapt the culture of the enterprise to make the best use of a highly connected, fast and fluid business environment.The book is divided into five parts that discuss, among other things: why do we need a connected company; what does it mean be a connected company; how does it work, and how best to lead such an organisation; plus the immediate steps y... moreou can take on the path to becoming a connected company.Secondly, one of the authors, Dave Gray, is no stranger to lateral thinking and innovative approaches to business challenges. His previous book on Game Storming (also reviewed by yours faithfully) was a treasure trove of game-related techniques to stimulate innovation, and alluded to some of the themes contained in this new book.The authors’ language and writing style are both accessible and engaging, which makes it easier to grasp some difficult and non-intuitive concepts, as well as making it tougher to put down.Finally, some key nuggets from this work include:1.A comprehensive look at how changing customer behaviours and employee expectations are bringing about relentless change to the enterprise.2.A description of the key features of a connected company and how it works like a constantly learning, podular organism by empowering its workforce to make the right decisions, based on clear principles and vision at the point where it is most needed. 3.It explains how a learning organisation’s culture embraces experimentation and how entrepreneurship is just ‘...a method that anyone can follow’.4.The difference between a leader and a manager, in context of a connected company, plus several real-world examples of how to take that first step into the journey to becoming a connected organisation, for example with ‘pilot pods’.Overall, this was a splendid read, and well deserving of its maximum score (10 out of 10), not least because it’ll resonate with all leaders, managers and employees in most organisations that face the constant battle for change.It is perhaps appropriate to end by highlighting a quote, by Steve Jobs (on page 250), which essentially holds that ‘...you can only connect the dots by looking backwards’ or, to put it another way, innovation is often only understood in retrospect. Jude Umeh FBCS CITP
review 2: The first part let me down a bit. It felt incomplete and rushed, lacking detail.However, the remaining parts are worth it. The message resonated with me, having been in a large corporation my whole career. Learning the six-sigma methodology, which focuses on building a process that can be reliably reproduced the same output, it always bothered me that by reducing variation you're not only cutting out the processes that under perform, but your chopping of the processes that excel. This book also reinforces the concepts on team communication and the benefits of openness that I've come to understand through my experiences at work in building development teams.It constantly surprises me how people in large corporations so easily become insular and forget there is a world outside the company where your customers are. So one of the last quotes rang so true, "The only big companies that succeed will be those that obsolete their own products before somebody else does." (This is a bill gates quote, the book uses a similar one from someone else). Our group has been challenged multiple times why we're developing solutions/products that would negate existing revenue streams. less

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