Reinvention: Accelerating Results in the Age of Disruption

Proclaiming that “we live in an Age of Disruption,” Cragun and Sweetman, founders of the consulting firm SweetmanCragun, offer familiar solutions to an equally familiar problem: dealing with the seismic shifts endemic in the modern business era. The coauthors warn executives that it is no longer enough to simply be a “Leader-Caretaker” and challenge them to “Confront the Brutal Fact,” by determining how relevant they are and what value they add. As a template for understanding recent changes, the authors discuss the “Global Shockwave 20”: major historical events between WWII and the present, in technology, management theory, economics, global competition, and geopolitics. Using examples both corporate and military, and consulting assorted experts, they work on helping readers understand why organizations become irrelevant and fail, how to avoid the bad decisions that lead to catastrophe, and how to increase the performance of individuals and organizations. Chock-full of flow charts, bullet points, and wall-to-wall buzzwords, this is a well-intentioned but unoriginal primer on change management. [em](July) [/em]