Thriving in E-Chaos: Corporate Strategy for Uncertain Times Review

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Dr. Underwood speaks of balance and how essential it is to corporate success by comparing to that of a successful yacht racing team with a skipper that leads a crew that is capable of finding balance amongst each other. Yacht crewmembers often make individual adjustments during the progress of a race; however, it is the skipper that fosters the on-board environment. Metaphorically speaking, this is being compared to a successful company whose CEO creates an corporate environment of balance in which subordinates are not seen as performance pieces but rather as team members.
Due to the fact that the environment in which they perform is ever-changing, and now even at a greater pace than ever before, each member is exhorted to administrate an out of the box mentality. This could not hold more true in our current markets; in order to succeed, companies must no longer strive for stability and consistency but rather innovation and positive changing, always looking at the future rather than the past. In this type of innovation, product life cycles will be extremely short. A mentality of "preserving the best, reinventing the test" is implemented in order to stay up to date with the constant changing environment.
Corporate success behaviors have transformed so rapidly since the 1980s due to the war-like strategy of the Japanese on American industries. Japanese companies in the 1980s-90's were capable of selling products below manufacturing cost making it impossible for American industry to compete. The reason this was successful because of the predictability of American businesses. It was clearly evident where they were going next. Dr. Underwood has proposed a new form of economy in which success is attained through high speed and complex adaptiveness, this, of course, driven by a CEO who fosters risk-taking, creativity, excellence, and iconoclastic behavior.
A quote I heard that was similar to the mentality of such a behavior was said by Wayne Gretzky, claimed by many to be one of the greatest hockey players and even athletes in history, "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be." With this approach to a rapidly changing economy, a company is capable of having competitive advantage over most adversaries. It remains, however, of performance, learning, knowing the mistakes that were made and the things that were done correctly, and finally renewal, transforming the old, even if it is from the ground-up, or simply modifying and upgrading what seemed to work. Through all this change is eminent.
I believe that Dr. Underwood does an outstanding job of establishing a comprehensible format to traditional views of economy vs. new approaches to economy. Though the book was written over 10 years ago and it was written about the last decade, the same concepts remain true today; furthermore, they have been exponentially augmented in importance today. This book has the ability of encompassing a broad spectrum of topics concerning today's market and remaining accurate while doing so.

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Amid the tumult of the recent economy, companies large and small have struggled to stay competitive. But some very special companies have conquered the e-chaos, growing their profits where many have failed. What secrets do these companies know about succeeding in both good times and bad? How can you learn and apply their enterprising strategies to improve your own company's bottom line?Thriving in E-Chaos has the answers. Inside, author and business strategist James D. Underwood reveals tried-and-true strategies that will give your company the edge it needs to stay competitive, increase revenues, and flourish long into the future. You will discover enterprising wisdom from the best-run companies in the world, including: General Electric, Texas Instruments, Wal-Mart, Southwest Airlines, Standard Aero of Canada, and many more.

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