Mobilizing Minds: Creating Wealth From Talent in the 21st Century Organization

by Lowell L. Bryan

Based on a decade of exclusive research, Lowell Bryan and Claudia Joyce of McKinsey & Company have come up with a simple yet revolutionary Your workforce is the key to growth in the 21st century. By tapping into their underutilized talents, knowledge, and skills you can earn tens of thousands of additional dollars per employee, and manage the interdepartmental complexities and barriers that prevent real achievements and profits. This can only be accomplished through organizational design and redesign. That's the new model for survival in the modern, digital, global economy. With the right design, your organization will have the capabilities to pursue whatever strategy is necessary to compete on any scale, react to any market change, leverage any opportunity, and sail past the competition. In Mobilizing Minds , the authors distill their research into seven strategic ideas that shatter the complexity frontiers, have the potential to unleash enormous profits, and enable long-term success for every company. Bryan and Joyce outline innovative principles that enable corporations

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

300 pages, Hardcover

First published May 29, 2007

Reviews

[Lucy Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Why has leadership become more important than management for a CEO? The answers is that a talented person can lead far more activities over a much larger scale than he or she can manage.”

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful ideas about restructuring organizations

No territory remains uncharted in the competitive global marketplace. Companies of all sizes can compete for market share everywhere in the world. Victory can be fleeting, though. Even the most dominant businesses find challengers clawing at their pant legs. In these dynamic times, truly progressive organizations are becoming more nimble by making the most of their employees’ talents. Authors Lowell L. Bryan and Claudia I. Joyce believe the vertical, hierarchical corporate structure is no longer practical. Employees will not perform just because they are told to do so. Executives increasingly realize that they must engage their employees and challenge them to achieve their potential. While the authors’ textbook writing style may not suit everyone, getAbstract believes readers will find plenty of useful ideas about designing and restructuring organizations, especially large companies. The book is a good reference that shares common intellectual ground with others devoted to the art of management.

[Ricardo Andorinho · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book have some concept mistakes, however I really think it has a strong hidden message about talent. The author compares the integration of talent like any kind of material to calculate the revenue associated with the usage of that cost/investment in a certain productive process.

Applying maths, it is easy to consider that for each unit of talent we are incorporating to any productive process, the marginal cost that results from it tends to zero, like any other massive production. The difference is that nobody can measure what's the cost of an intangible incorporation inside a process that is not benchmarked.

This is the main reason, in my opinion that explains the fact for which knowledge is considered to be the investment that pays the highest dividend.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just read this for my Knowledge Management class. I didn't get a lot out of it. The ideas would up-end any institution. A rough outline of the book:

Backbone line structure (3 layers instead of 7)
ne company governance and culture
Dynamic management (portfolio of risks)
Formal networks
Talent marketplace (HR as broker)
Knowledge marketplace (internal wikis, blogs)
Internal motivating economic incentives
Role-specific performance management
Organizational design as strategy

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty good read if you want to understand how to structure a 21st century organization. It's especially a good read if you're in senior management. The book used a lot of examples, but as an individual contributor, it wasn't too useful for me, although it did help me better understand new corporate structures.

[Ridwan · Rating 2 out of 5]

We are just a small dot indeed.
I have been thinking that we are having smaller dots inside.
Even, dots in within tiny dots.
a DNA within a cell, a mitochondria within a DNA code and so on.

That is really the things in management.

[Klowey22 · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book for those interested in enterprise knowledge strategy