Success Secrets from Silicon Valley: How to Make Your Teams More Effective (No Matter What Business You're In) (Paperback)

James' point-of-view is that these companies are able to win because they value their human capital and create jobs that provide scope for human ambition and expression for human creativity. They manage by lending support, not by imposing control, and they treat employees as peers, not children. Instead of asking "How can we get everyone to march in step?" they ask, "Do we have sufficient diversity to approach this market?"

The book could serve as a mandate for change management. It recounts numerous examples of companies given a run for their money by small start-ups. For instance, take IBM. In 1984, IBM completely dominated the computer industry. It had fanatically loyal customers, great management, and an enviable image. It had an enormous was chest with which to capture any market. And, it had just invented the personal computer. So how did an 18 year old freshman, a kid probably wondering what to do on Saturday night, in just thirteen years, grow a company to 8,000 people and end up selling more personal computers than the inventor? Michael Dell had no revenues, no customers, no capital, no experience, no image and no product to call his own. How he won is the story of how management vision and corporate culture has to change to stay competitive in the 21st century.

It does not matter that the examples come from Silicon Valley; the book could serve as an abridged change management manual for any company desiring to replicate the success culture of these upstarts. Size isn't the issue. Culture is. If, at times, James's points seem self-evident and appear to be the exaltation of common sense, then tell me, where is Digital Equipment Corporation today? Anybody ever hear of Wang? According to James, a company doesn't have to be small to organize into teams and autonomous workgroups. He makes the point that the PC was created within a huge corporation - but as far away from headquarters as possible. Unfortunately, after Don Estridge, the "father" of the IBM PC, was killed in a plane crash, IBM's bureaucrats descended on the PC division "like a plague of blue-suited locusts". They tried to implement strategies that had made sense in the past but were hopelessly outdated in the world where "quick to market" is key.

"Success Secrets" devotes a chapter to each of eight main change points: Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield; Corporations are communities, not machines; Management is service, not control; Employees are peers, not children; Motivate with vision, not fear; Change is growth, not pain; Computers are servants, not masters; Work is play, not toil.

Each chapter is organized in an easy to follow format : Silicon Valley mindset; traditional mindset; a case study; strategies; quiz (to determine "gaps" in an organization) and points to ponder which serve as good change management points to consider when we are with clients.

The book is entertaining in presenting computer history mingled with the "new" corporate thinking - thinking that began in 1939 (yes, that long ago) with Hewlett Packard and came to fruition with Microsoft, Dell, Compaq and Sun.