Googling out of control: Can Google's chaos management style ensure continuing success?

Abstract

Purpose

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

Design/methodology/approach

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Findings

Chaos has acquired a new respectability in twenty‐first‐century management circles. It is not, strictly speaking, a new concept. Tom Peter's text Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, first published in 1988, was innovative for its time. Most managers in the 1980s still believed that chaos was something to be avoided at all costs and the sign of a cluttered desk was indicative of a cluttered (ergo unproductive) mind. Today people are more apt to quote Einstein, whose pithy retort to the above comment was to ask, what then did an empty desktop represent? So what is chaos and how has it been transmuted from the ugly stepsister to Cinderella, the belle of the ball? Why is chaos sexy in the twenty‐first century? Maybe, in the words of the classic Stephen Stills' song, it's all about learning to “love the one you're with”. The ordered working world has disappeared along with the electric typewriter and carefully composed letters delivered by first‐class post. Chaos is here to stay and if businesses want to survive in this new fast‐paced world, then chaos is something they will have to learn to love, and to work with. That this is possible, or even desirable, can be demonstrated by a journey no farther than your computer keyboard. Type in the words: “chaos management” as a search term. What did you find? More importantly, how did you find it? If you are like over 50 percent of the world's internet users you entered your search term into Google, a company which epitomizes an up‐to‐the‐minute chaos management style.

Practical implications

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

Originality/value

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Citation

(2007), "Googling out of control: Can Google's chaos management style ensure continuing success?", Strategic Direction, Vol. 23 No. 8, pp. 25-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/02580540710759133