Richard Foster is a senior partner and director at McKinsey &
Company and the author of the bestselling Innovation: The
Attacker's Advantage, named one of the best business books of
the year by The Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Kaplan worked at McKinsey & Company for many years,
specializing in innovation and technology management. Foster lives
in New York City, and Kaplan in Boston.
Advance acclaim for Creative Destruction:
"A thoroughly researched, masterfully written, and somewhat
frightening explanation of how competitive advantage is built and
inevitably erodes. Anyone who is interested in staying ahead of the
competition should read this book. It's good."
—Clayton Christensen, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School,
and author of The Innovator's Dilemma.
"[Offers] invaluable insight into business building and dealing
with the challenge of dynamic growth. Foster and Kaplan get right
to the heart of one of today's central themes. An instructive and
insightful guide for managers to navigate the twenty-first
century."
—Jorma Ollila, Chairman and CEO, Nokia Corporation
"It was clear the game had changed, but until this book it was
never clear by how much. Creative Destruction will reverberate in
corporate boardrooms for some time to come, changing the basic
premises of corporate success. There is no doubt that, in order to
survive in the future, inspiration can be found in Foster's and
Kaplan's book"
—Antony Burgmans, Chairman, Unilever, N.V., the Netherlands
"Creative Destruction is a phenomenal book. It reveals what it
takes for an enterprise to thrive in the age of discontinuities yet
meet the pressures of continuous performance. Wise, sweeping,
balanced, grounded in facts and yet highly imaginative, it is
unquestionably the best business book I have ever read Countless
numbers of CEOs will wish they could have read it sooner—and so
will their shareholders."
—John Seely Brown, President, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
"Creative Destruction has clarified for me the challenges of
sustaining business success. It is the freshest view of the
challenges before us that I have seen. It also shows where we have
to change to be successful. Compelling."
—Vernon Jordan, Lazard Frres.
"Creative Destruction is a sharp stick in the eye for corporate
conventional wisdom and orthodoxy. Foster and Kaplan have captured
the essence of market-driven counterinitiative thinking. A wake-up
call for CEOs and investment strategists!"
—Joe L. Roby, Chairman, Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation
In this new book by two McKinsey consultants, the central question is a very simple one: why do good companies fail? The focus of the book is not so much on corporate continuity as "discontinuity," or companies' constant need to destroy and re-create themselves in order to adapt to changing business conditions. Reflecting a "corporate Darwinism," the authors feel that "destruction is a mechanism that allows the market to maintain freshness by eliminating those elements that are no longer needed." From their research of over 1000 American companies, they show that even successful corporations over time invariably underperform. Examples of companies that chose to "destroy" themselves and reemerge phoenixlike include such well-known names as General Electric, Intel, and Enron. The authors are certainly onto something, but the conclusions aren't all that new. The book comes across as a slick client presentation loaded with graphs, charts, and plenty of business jargon that is often numbing to read. A more satisfying book on this subject is Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. (Harvard Business, 1997). Not recommended. Richard Drezen, Washington Post/NYC Bureau, New York Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Advance acclaim for Creative Destruction:
"A thoroughly researched, masterfully written, and somewhat
frightening explanation of how competitive advantage is built and
inevitably erodes. Anyone who is interested in staying ahead of the
competition should read this book. It's good."
-Clayton Christensen, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School,
and author of The Innovator's Dilemma.
"[Offers] invaluable insight into business building and dealing
with the challenge of dynamic growth. Foster and Kaplan get right
to the heart of one of today's central themes. An instructive and
insightful guide for managers to navigate the twenty-first
century."
-Jorma Ollila, Chairman and CEO, Nokia Corporation
"It was clear the game had changed, but until this book it was
never clear by how much. Creative Destruction will
reverberate in corporate boardrooms for some time to come, changing
the basic premises of corporate success. There is no doubt that, in
order to survive in the future, inspiration can be found in
Foster's and Kaplan's book"
-Antony Burgmans, Chairman, Unilever, N.V., the Netherlands
"Creative Destruction is a phenomenal book. It reveals what
it takes for an enterprise to thrive in the age of discontinuities
yet meet the pressures of continuous performance. Wise, sweeping,
balanced, grounded in facts and yet highly imaginative, it is
unquestionably the best business book I have ever read Countless
numbers of CEOs will wish they could have read it sooner-and so
will their shareholders."
-John Seely Brown, President, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
"Creative Destruction has clarified for me the challenges of
sustaining business success. It is the freshest view of the
challenges before us that I have seen. It also shows where we have
to change to be successful. Compelling."
-Vernon Jordan, Lazard Frres.
"Creative Destruction is a sharp stick in the eye for
corporate conventional wisdom and orthodoxy. Foster and Kaplan have
captured the essence of market-driven counterinitiative thinking. A
wake-up call for CEOs and investment strategists!"
-Joe L. Roby, Chairman, Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
