Behind the story
Sutton joined the A-list of business authors in 2007, when the explosive popularity of The No Asshole Rule introduced the concept of the “civilised workplace” to the popular lexicon.
While that book was aimed squarely at HR, in Scaling Up Excellence, Sutton and co-author Rao take their straight-to-the-point blend of evidence-based commentary and management self help to an even broader target. This book is an attempt – in the vein of everything from Jim Collins’ Good to Great to Hamish McRae’s underrated What Works– to sprinkle the magic of high-performing organisations over the rest of us.
The big idea
There’s just not enough excellence to go round, say Sutton and Rao – what they call the “problem of more”, which is a by-product of modern capitalism’s unceasing quest for growth. As they unpick the problem, they alight on some fine insights, risking religious ire as they group organisations into the Catholic (those who wait for deliverance) and the Buddhist (who find the answers within) and showing how this applies to, among others, a San Francisco hotel which reinvented itself around an issue of Rolling Stone and became beloved of rock stars including David Bowie.
They also skewer management fads such as lean and Six Sigma: “When we ask [executives] how such excellence is lived in their organisations, they offer vague plans about efforts that haven’t started (and probably never will).” Instead, they are refreshingly agnostic about where excellence comes from – the important thing is that it’s real and can be captured.
People, unsurprisingly, are central. There are direct lessons for people managers in the need to cut cognitive load, use smaller teams and axe bureaucracy. But the authors’ main finding is far simpler: accept, above all, that you can’t do everything at once.
Does it work?
The pair’s eagerness drips from every page and it would be a hard-hearted reader who left Scaling Up Excellence anything less than thoroughly energised about the potential for positive change. With a roll call of organisations taking in Google and Starbucks as well as schools and a Filipino aid charity, their bases are broad and their thinking sound.
There are quibbles: the book is essentially one case study after another, which makes for an occasional lack of context as well as an exhausting read (the first chapter alone runs through nine different companies before the narrative even gets started in earnest). Many readers will yearn for some scene-setting, or for an external voice to interject – a workplace psychologist, for example, could explain just why inertia takes hold of so many. As such, this is an imperfect book – but when it’s good, it’s very good indeed. Which is sort of appropriate…
(Robert I Sutton & Huggy Rao, Random House, £14.99/£9.49 e-book)