Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance - Softcover

Ridderstrale, Jonas; Nordström, Kjell; Nordstrom, Kjell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0273645919 ISBN 13: 9780273645917

Publisher: Financial Times Management, 2000

Synopsis

Business as usual is boring, and cannot attract either talented workers or loyal customers, say Stockholm School of Economics iconoclasts Nordstrom (international business) and Ridderstrate (leadership). They throw suggestions out on how to make both work and business creative, inspired, surprising, and maybe even worth the effort. Indexes seem to be part of the old world they have jettisoned. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

Review:

Oh dear. A book called Funky Business by two Swedish academics. At first glance, it has all the allure of Benny and Bjorn's (from Abba) sadly never-released concept album about life as a middle manger in a multinational conglomerate. There is something earnestly hip about the way Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle of the Stockholm School of Economics present themselves. "They do gigs not seminars. These gigs sell out. They have shaved heads and wear black," says the blurb.

But that's what makes Funky Business worth reading. It's not so much the novelty of the authors' argument, which boils down to the notion that in an oversupplied world, ideas are what separate successful companies and individuals from failures. Rather, it's the vitality of their argument and the rhythm of their language that make their ideas so compelling. "Traditional roles, jobs, skills, ways of doing things, insights, strategies, aspirations, fears, and expectations no longer count. In this environment, we cannot have business as usual. We need business as unusual. We need different business. We need innovative business. We need unpredictable business. We need surprising business. We need funky business."

The book, which is almost a virtuoso display of rhetoric and intellectual power, bursts at the seams with the force of its argument and the weight of its colorful evidence. Sources quoted range from the pope to the British band the Prodigy. Funky, Inc., they say, "isn't like any other company. It is not a dull, old conglomerate. It is not a rigid bureaucracy. It is an organization that actually thrives on the changing circumstances and unpredictability of our times."

This is great entertainment. But the slick veneer does not invalidate the way the book pulls together many existing strands of thought about how business is developing and evokes a coherent and intriguing vision of a future whose main feature will be incoherence.

This really is one for the whole family. Or at least those old enough to have a job. --Alex Benady

From the Back Cover:

The corporate world has to be a more interesting place to be. A place where people can be creative risk-taking entrepreneurs; a place where talent wants to live. A place where ideas happen and exciting products happen faster. And then change.

This is the world of Funky Business.

Funky Times The new world is different. Forget the old world order. Forget what you knew yesterday.

Forces of Funk Technology, institutions and values are being subverted and overturned. They are the triad, the inter-linked drivers of change, transforming each other and creating a global village of turbulence, tribes and fusion. We are deregulating life for ourselves and our children. The reality of our times is that we are all condemned to freedom - the freedom to choose.

Funky Village The drivers are shaping a new world. First, they are changing the way society operates. Social behavior, expectations and systems are undergoing seismic shifts. Society is restructuring itself along tribal lines as surplus and excess becomes a way of life and business.

Funky Inc. The second area in which change is most dramatic is among the great institutions of our age: corporations. The corporate complacency of yesterday has given way to insecurity and fear. So, how will the emergent organizations be different from those that have gone before?

Funky U And where does this leave the humble human being? Amid the maelstrom of change, people are seeking out understanding, meaning, development, skills and insight. So how should you lead others and how can you lead your own life?

Feeling Funky What do you need to do today and tomorrow to survive and thrive in the new world? Alberto Alessi is already doing it. So, too, are Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and Jorma Ollila. They are all exploiting the last taboo.

Karl Marx was right. The workers do control the means of production; 1.3 kilograms of brain holds the key to all our futures.

Successful companies are different from the competition, and difference comes from the way people think rather than what companies make. In the new world, it's talent that makes capital dance. Business as usual is uninspired and that's no longer good enough; talent doesn't want to work there; customers don't want to buy there.

In these times we need FUNKY BUSINESS.

About this edition

• Publisher: Financial Times Management
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0273645919
• ISBN 13: 9780273645917
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256