Thriving on chaos and built to last

I’ve been reading again. In the absence of my usual media vices, (CNN, The Today Program and the DVD box set of The West Wing), it has been really good to have an opportunity to catch up on a number of books that I’ve bought in the last couple of years and just dipped in to. The book I’m reading at the moment is called Built to Last by a guy called Jim Collins. It’s not particularly new, (published in the 90s), but comes billed as “one of the most eye-opening business studies since In Search of Excellence. This is an interesting comparison as Tom Peters, (the ‘uber guru’ of business gurus according to The Economist, and author of In Search of Excellence), is quite critical of Jim Collins. They are both a good read and both books are very challenging.

Built to Last (subtitle Successful habits of visionary companies) is giving rise to yet more scribbling and quote jottings in my inspirations pad. Working in Kenya is both exhilarating and exasperating. The potential for change is huge but the inertia created by badly designed and corrupted social structures is also substantial. Some days you feel you’ve taken a number of steps forward. Other days you wonder how you will recover from taking steps backwards. In addition to writing In Search of Excellence Tom Peters has also written a book called Thriving on Chaos. I'm sure I bought it just for the title. As Tom Peters is such an influential thinker a number of commentaries on his work have appeared. I like a question posed in one of these, culled from the Internet. “How has eternal confusion affected your organisation’s fortunes?” In the Kenyan context it’s the same as asking “Haven’t you nailed that jelly to the wall yet?” Some days it’s up, some days it’s sliding down.

Today has, on the whole, been up. Thanks to Built to Last, (which I note from a review is “even referred to by trendy pastors”), I have found some more nuggets to add to my collection of inspirations and practical steps to take to make sure Hope and Kindness runs the race for a long time and finishes well, (see the Apostle Paul’s thoughts on this in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27).