This is one in a series of "Strategy & Business" books from Booz-Allen & Hamilton, published by Jossey-Bass. All are first-rate and well-worth checking out. In this book, Joel Kurtzman edits a series of in-depth interviews of 12 of the most influential thought leaders during the last decade. Obviously, some will quibble with the number and/or with specific selections. However, although several may be unfamiliar to you, after you read the interviews I think you will agree with me that all 12 are eminently worthy. They are: Charles Handy, Minoru Makihara, Keshub Mahindra, C.K. Prahalad, John Kao, Paul M. Romer, Stan Shih, Norbert Walter, John T. Chambers, Warren Bennis, Gary Hamel, and Jean-Rene Fourtou. In the Foreword, Brian N. Dickie (president and COO, Booz-Allen & Hamilton) suggests that "the new agenda" for CEOs and their top[ teams (managing for growth, business process redesign for the next generation, and new organization structures) and then suggests that "the winners will be those CEOs who can integrate the new agenda with their own clear vision while simplifying the execution challenge and inspiring their organizations to perform beyond expectations." It is from this perspective that Kurtzman then provides the 12 interviews. None of them fully addresses all of the issues but together, the CEOs provide insights of substantial value to decision-makers at all levels of organizational configuration. Here are three brief excerpts, obviously taken out of context but nonetheless thought-provoking:

"With people scattered around the world, you really have to let them be on their own. The assignments are often difficult and you need them for specific purposes. Those purposes may change. That means you have to run the organization on the basis of professionalism and trust -- and subsidiarity." Charles Handy, Professor, London Business School, and author of The Age of Unreason and The Age of Paradox

"The management of creativity is more intimate [than the traditional management skill set that is appropriate to a large, complex industrial-era organization]. By that I mean that it deals with an individual's personal, psychological landscape. It deals with the way you create relationships. It deals with creating an atmosphere and environment that support the creative process. As a result, it is a management skill set that is inherently psychological and that encourages desired outcomes rather than demands those outcomes." John Kao, Harvard Business School, and author of Jamming

"What we have to do is work out a balance between tolerating some monopolies and monopoly profits -- since that's how we motivate people to discover new recipes -- with competition to keep prices low and distribute products widely. We encourage this competition by granting property rights that are partial or incomplete. In practice, what this means is that while in the physical economy with diminishing returns there are perfect prices, in the knowledge economy with its increasing returns there are no perfect prices." Paul M. Romer, Stanford Business School

Kurtzman has exceptional skills as both interviewer and editor, framing initial questions and then adjusting smoothly during the rigorous but informal exchange of responses. He guides each "thought leader" without imposing any of his own opinions. The result is that the reader is provided with direct access to how each of the 12 thinks as well as what each has to share about a given issue. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the other volumes in the "Strategy & Business" series from Booz-Allen & Hamilton. I also highly recommend Strategy + Business magazine of which Kurtzman served as editor-in-chief.

This work presents interviews with twelve leading thinkers in business and academia on a very wide range of subjects relating to: issues of business strategy, growth and human resources: the new social contract among companies, employees and shareholders; and the way in which society is changing. This is a highly interesting collection of the ideas and insights of some of the brightest people around. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Highly recommended to all in the planning profession. For novices to futures it is an easy- flowing introduction while for those who have already dabbled at it, it offers clarificaton of thoughts and detailed approaches to practical decision making.

Well these authors should hide right now given that Enron, one of their prize companies, is selling below a dollar. You could say that I have the benefit of hindsight but if the authors had only looked up the hundreds of millions in stock sales by the company executives (yes, it's public info)during the course of their investigation, they might have questioned the motives of the Enron principals. Very poor research and a "puff piece" of a book. But they probably will generate incremental sales -- as a collectors item like the Dow 30000 masterpiece.

The book is about successful e-commerce companies - and despite Enron's accounting and other troubles, they did have one of the most successful web sites in the world, their on-line trading portal generated around 2 BILLION dollars a DAY in nominal trading revenue. That is a successful endeavor! At the time of Enron's trouble, it was the business unit that was attractive to Dynegy and other potential companies...

What do Jack Welch and David Bowie have in common?

For one thing, their innovative approaches to e-business earned them chapters in Radical E. Kurtzman and Rifkin take a no-nonsense approach to telling the stories of how the best brands in business have adapted to the Internet. This isn't a tale of "here today, gone tomorrow" dot-coms (they were all heroes, but just for one day, Bowie might tell us); these case studies are of traditional powerhouses and unconventional successes that have extended their brands online to better serve customers or reach new ones. Lessons for us all!

One of the things that Joel Kurtzman does very well in this pithy little book is demonstrate why the capitalist market system is superior to the old Soviet system of centralized control, why the decisions made by a decentralized economy work so much better than any top down system. However Kurtzman's enthusiasm for the market is eventually revealed as similar to E. M. Forster's for democracy. One recalls that Forster allowed himself just "Two cheers for democracy...there is no occasion to give it three."

Kurtzman writes on page 148 that "Markets may move to the beat of their dumbest members." He adds, "In my view...markets are not rational." To back up his claims he reports that at the height of the Internet bubble in 1999, Yahoo! with sales of $456 million (that's million with an "m") had a market capitalization of $93-billion which he compares to GM, which at the same time with revenues of $177-billion (billion with a "b"), had a market cap about half that of Yahoo! (p. 147) This observation caused Kurtzman to ask, "Yo, Mr. Market, is anybody home?"

Well, it depends on when you knock on the door. In October of 2002 Yahoo's market capitalization was down around $5-billion or so. The real truth is Mr. Market may be irrational for some period of time--indeed for some EXTENDED period of time, especially when you're holding the bag--but eventually a correction occurs, and for a brief shining moment (not the same moment) every stock is priced at what it's worth. (Of course it could also be pointed out that a stopped clock is exactly right twice a day.)

I very much liked Kurtzman's conversation tone and his obvious acumen and the way he explains the underpinnings of the capital markets with an emphasis on understanding rather than mechanical details. (Although an explanation on how the weekend or overnight buy and sell orders received from Internet traders are reconciled at the New York Stock Exchange and at NASDAQ into an opening price would have been nice.) His championing of Michael Milken as one of the great financial geniuses of our times was tolerable, but did Milken really (as Kurtzman insists on page 144) take "an often bloating and ailing American economy" and make it "lean, mean and resilient"? And, although one does not doubt the genius of Warren Buffet, might Kurtzman have pointed out during his several fawning references to the man, that when you have as much economic clout as he has you might well be able to influence the markets to your advantage and to get information that others cannot, and in a nutshell prove beyond a shadow of doubt that money makes money and big money makes even bigger money? He might even have (to be topical and timely) pointed out that Shari'a law, which does not allow interest to be charged on credit, is not in keeping with the realities of the effect time has on capital.

But Kurtzman is an ambassadorially polite man who saved his barbs for the failed communist system and the recent irrational exuberance in dot com land.

Perhaps the highlight of the book, and maybe the most important part, is Kurtzman's explanation of what money is (not obvious) and how it is created and how it can be made to dissipate. For anyone wanting a kind of Reality Economics 101, Kurtzman's book is an eye-opener. He has a gift for explaining things in a succinct and clear manner that other writers on economics might well emulate.