The Stone Age Company: Why the Companies We Work For Are Dying and How They Can Be Saved
The Stone Age Company challenges aspects of received wisdom about organisations and how they should be managed and looks at more productive ways of running companies for the 21st century.
In this book Sally looks at why ‘enlightened’ companies are more effective, efficient and dynamic places and what advantages that gives them. These companies are winning because the way they are doing business makes sense to customers who are looking for better service, more transparency in business relationships and innovation in the products and services that they buy.
But more than all this, they are operating in a way that is honest, ethical and decent. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis people the world over are getting tired of the powerful, capitalist enterprise and are looking for better relationships with those they work for and those they buy from. Witness the effort that some of the big brands make to show consumers that they care.
All over the world there is a massive upsurge in demand for decency and honesty. It won’t go away. The new, enlightened organisations will be the only ones who can satisfy our needs in the future. Consumers today increasingly want more than good products and service, they want to know that the companies they deal with have values that they can buy into.
The Stone Age Company will inspire people who want to make changes and encourages those who are already on the road to change.
Reviews of The Stone Age Company
“The Stone Age Company asks why so many of today’s business practices are outdated, counterproductive or, at best, inefficient. The cost of this book may be the best investment you make this year.”
Jeremy Dale — VP Marketing Motorola
“Too many companies are stuck in the Stone Age. And too many leaders aren’t willing to speak that simple truth. Thank heaven, then, for Sally Bibb. Her book is a badly needed call to make our organizations more effective by making them more humane.”
Daniel H Pink — author of Drive, A Whole New Mind and Free Agent Nation
“The persistence of the myth of organisations as solid, structured edifices with a man at the top in control, holding things together with rules and procedures, has always fascinated me. If the myth was ever true those days are long gone, and in this book Sally Bibb gets to the guts of why it is such nonsense and how we can set about revealing the true nature of organisations as groups of willing individuals held together by a common purpose and trust in each other.”
Euan Semple — former Director of KM solutions, BBC
“So many businesses go to the wall because they refuse to change their belief in archaic ways of managing. Sally plots a new course for decent modern enterprise. She challenges the basis of what many obese and ageing companies stand for, in a clear and refreshing manner. Nice to hear some plain talk in a business book for once.”
Dan Germain — Group Head of Brand, Innocent Drinks
“In future, sustainable performance and growth will depend on people changing the paradigms with which they work. Sally Bibb’s analysis gives us all a challenge on how to effect personal change which will support this initiative. I believe a focus on values and greater emotional courage can make a difference. Education and business should consider how to accept and implement this challlenge.”
Bill Colquhoun — former Vice President of Shell Chemicals
“Some people think businesses are impersonal efficiency machines. They need to be efficient but the only way to succeed is to make the world of work a place for real humans. As Sally points out, good people who are trusted in a values driven environment are the recipe for business success.”
Richard Davies — former Human Resources Direector, SABMiller Europe
