Comments

"Enlightened hospitality" as a way of treating customers - deserves a TP slide!

Posted by Mike L at January 26, 2006 3:43 PM

Here in the Seattle area Microsoft has a "get small and fast" campaign going.

Business publications fret that Wal-Mart has almost peaked in HUGE size advantage low-cost savings to customers.

Posted by Sean at January 27, 2006 10:43 AM

This will be an interesting book to read: one of the ideas, I have to say, I don't find particularly inspiring is "deciding deliberately not to expand".

Attacking big company mergers is one thing - professing that companies should not try and grow larger, I think, is another. Growth is a natural, organic part of the cycle of life: to attack it's idea is to to attack the organic process of life (and business) itself.

Posted by Daniel M. Harrison at January 27, 2006 2:39 PM

"deciding deliberately not to expand" - there seem to be optimal sizes, even in nature. If something gets too large, it fails .... As Yogi Berra put it, "No one goes there any more, it's too crowded."

Posted by Mike L at January 27, 2006 8:19 PM

"If something gets too large, it fails "

I couldn't agree more, Mike - the organic process of life produces something small and nimble at the outset, gives it room it to develop to medium-size (when it is most powerful) and then gives it further room to outgrow itself and ultimately collapse.

Why is this process of collapse so torn down though? Why do we feel the need to suspend everything in the mininmalist to further suspend and prolong its lifespan - after all, the death of corporations is as healthy for industry as the birth of them. The kind of thinking that studies individual organisations rather than the momevement of a market as a whole is rather outdated surely (rather old-age 'corporate man')?

If CEO's looked at themselves as facilitators of organisations - ANY organisation - in the natural stage of their lives rather than doctors trying desperately trying to preserve them into artificial ages perhaps industry would move faster and the increased turnover of capital and innovation that sprung out of that would benefit us all a lot faster too.

I can't see the focus on 'keeping it small': it ignores too many of the natural organic processes of life that are there as in-built catalysts for change.

Posted by Daniel M. Harrison at January 28, 2006 8:10 AM

Great points Daniel. Would we be necessarily better off if Ma Bell was still around today? Like forests that naturally become cinders after fire, the resulting richness of the soil provides an environment for healthy, if not better, growth.

One of my gut feelings, however, is that we will (perhaps not in our lifetime) see a cyclical return to local production and consumption systems. When the world population reaches over 12 Billion, it wouldn't surprise me if communities took on attitudes of self preservation, keeping local economies isolated to support each micro-societal eco-system. In such a situation, there would be more, smaller businesses feeding each local economy - anti globalization in a way, non-competitive with other similar industries serving other local areas.

During this time, we won't be traveling as much as we do today. Everything we need will be local to us, in small, consumable doses.

Posted by Tom O'Leary at January 28, 2006 11:27 AM

The thing that I find fascinating is the role of the stock market in all this. If you are public you better grow fast or it's takeover time. Is the future for great companies to operate outside of the stock exchange? - what implications does that have for the economy and investment?

Posted by PaulH at January 29, 2006 5:08 AM

These are all very interesting and insightful comments. I have just a couple of points to add.
First, I never meant to suggest that you have to be small to be great. There are obviously a number of great, large public companies around. Whole Foods Market, Southwest Air, and Jet Blue spring to mind. What's remarkable about the small giants is that they dared to think that you don't HAVE to be big to be great. And they dared to ask what it really is that makes a company great.
Secondly, this is not a book that argues against growth. Almost all of the companies in my book are growing/expanding. It's just that revenue and profit growth are not what they're aiming for. Some of the companies are insanely profitable. But they view their profitability as a byproduct of the othet things they do, not as the goal.

Posted by Bo Burlingham at February 5, 2006 11:16 PM