Hot Groups : Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization

316 Pages·1999·13.83 MB·English

by  Jean Lipman-Blumen

Hot Groups
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Hot Groups
Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and
Using Them to Ignite Your Organization
Jean Lipman-Blumen
Harold J. Leavitt
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
1999
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1999 by Jean Lipman-Blumen and Harold J. Leavitt
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lipman-Blumen, Jean
Hot groups : seeding them, feeding them
and using them to ignite your organization /
by Jean Lipman-Blumen and Harold J. Leavitt
p. cm. Includes index.
ISBN 0-19-512686-6
1. Organizational effectiveness. 2. Group decision making.
3. Industrial efficiency. I. Leavitt, Harold J. II. Title.
HD58.9.L42 1999 658.4'036—dc21 98-8524
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For
Gene Webb
Dear Friend, Wise and Generous Colleague
1933-1995
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Contents
Foreword, by Tom Peters ix
Preface xiii
Part I: Hot Groups:
What They Are and Why They're Hot
Chapter 1 The Hot Group State of Mind:
What Is It? Where Is It? Why Does It Matter? 3
Chapter 2 Hot Groups:
Why Now? 17
Chapter 3 How Hot Groups Think:
Left Brain? Right Brain? How About Both? 3 5
Chapter 4 How Hot Groups Work:
Fast, Focused, and Wide Open 49
Part II: Who Leads Hot Groups?
And Who Seeds New Ones?
ChapterS Leaders of Hot Groups I:
Three Kinds of Leadership 79
Chapter 6 Leaders of Hot Groups II:
Some Options for the Leader of a
New Group 99
Chapter 7 Leaders of Hot Groups III:
Leaders Who Seed Many Crops
of Hot Groups 125
Part III: How Do Hot Groups Operate?
Chapter 8 Hot Groups' Structures and Strategies:
How Do We Get There from Here? 147
Chapter 9 Hot Groups and the Organization:
A Marriage of Inconvenience? 165
Chapter 10 Using Hot Groups to Improve the Organization:
Some More Marriage Counseling 177
Chapter 11 Why Some Hot Groups Fizzle While Others
Sizzle: Four Cautionary Tales 191
Chapter 12 Hot Groups and the Individual:
What's in It for Me? And What's Not? 211
Chapter 13 The Organizational Surround I:
Where and When Do Hot Groups Thrive? 225
Chapter 14 The Organizational Surround II:
Hot Groups Also Grow in
Unexpected Places 239
Part IV: An Optimistic View of What's Ahead
Chapter 15 Things Change at Different Speeds 253
Chapter 16 Differential Rates of Change
Augur Glad Tidings 265
Notes 283
Index 291
Foreword
In a traditional industrial company—circa 1975—the ratio of stock mar-
ket value (in dollars) to hard assets might run about one-to-one. Near
the end of 1998, the equivalent ratio at Microsoft was 212-to-one.
Yikes!
Microsoft. Extreme? Yes. Yet indicative of the new age stars.
Microsoft.. .a floating crap game of hot folks.. .working on hot pro-
jects. Period.
And that's precisely what makes Jean Lipman-Blumen and Hal
Leavitt's book so timely.. .important.. .and, yes, hot.
Hot Groups! Yes! Yes! Yes!
I can honestly say my hands frequently shook as I read this book
(and I hope yours do too).
The global dance led by the new technologies is ripping up the
old economy to shreds and replacing it with the new one at, literal-
ly, the speed of light. Old firms are merging and consolidating and
disappearing at a record clip. New firms are racing to the fore-
ground. (At a record clip.) A Netscape is born, changes the world,
and dies (bought out by America On Line), all in the space of two
years. Oh yes, America On Line; last time I looked, its stock market
value was about one-and-a-half times greater than that of General
Motors.
As I said, yikes!
It is an age of speed. An age of impermanence. An age as never
before of rapidly applied brainpower. (The chief of giant ABB [Asea
Brown Boveri] recently described his firm as 300 tons of applied
brainpower.)