Thriving on Chaos

Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution

Tom Peters, the author known for his management books In Search of Excellence and A Passion for Excellence, says it straight out in his preface to Thriving on Chaos: “The winners of tomorrow will deal proactively with chaos, will look at the chaos per se as the source of market advantage, not as a problem to be got around. Chaos and uncertainty are (will be) market opportunities; capitalizing on fleeting market anomalies will be the successful business’s greatest accomplishment.”

Peters has developed “the essence of proactive performance in our chaotic world” in this book first published in 1987. Using 45 prescriptions that build from one chapter to the next, he has created a “must do” list for our rapidly changing environment. He reinforces the urgency by suggesting that the point of this approach is not to be excellent—since “to be” implies a final destination, and ending point—which Peters cautions against. To his way of thinking, “excellent” organizations are those that constantly adapt and evolve to meet the need.

His five management areas to address a world of chaos are:

Create Total Customer Responsiveness

Pursue Fast Paced Innovation

Achieve Flexibility by Empowering People

Learn to Love Change: a New View of Leadership (that loves change and shares an inspiring vision)

Build Systems for a World Turned Upside Down (systems that measure the “right stuff” in your environment)

Each has five to ten prescriptions, built to support the five management “goals” of customer responsiveness, fast paced innovation, flexibility through empowerment, loving change, and building systems. Each has a “superordinate objective” supported by the remaining prescriptions. The objectives for each area are developed below:

Specialize/Create Niches/Differentiate (Customer Responsiveness) – success comes to those who add value by developing services or programs that create new opportunities....