The Bounce Bandwagon

I read a book called "Bounce" ... it could have been titled "Who Moved My Cheese" or "Good to Great" or ... you get the picture. Its premise was that companies will inevitably experience disintegration on some level or another. Truth. The key is how reintegration is handled on the back end. The author asks if a company will be like a Christmas ornament, and when it falls from its peek it will shatter into thousands of pieces. Will it be like an orange and stay together on the outside, but be pretty damaged on the inside? Or, will it be like a hard rubber ball, hitting the ground and bouncing back even higher?

Good concept?

Absolutely.

Ah, but here's the devil in the details, the point no one wants to admit: Company cultures don't shift or improve because someone (or a management team in this case) read a 150pg book. Company cultures are built and sustained because of who people ARE. I think it's realistic to assume that if a class of undergrads read Bounce or any of its peers, some good could come away from it. Perhaps as they would each consider how they will manage, how they will interact with co-workers, what approach they will take to their professions; a book like that could shift a forthcoming workforce dynamic. However, I'm hard pressed to see that someone in their 40s, or someone a few years from retirement, will adjust ingrained behaviors and attitudes because of something they once read on an airplane. Makes me think of Jerry McGuire's memo.

To be certain, I'm not a pessimist. I am, however, a realist. And in realistic terms, all the niceties and momentarily inspiring text in the world won't effect change in a permanent sense.

After all ... Look at the "Purpose Driven Life" movement. I think people on that bandwagon found spirituality for about 20 minutes.