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Book review: Change to Strange

Change to Strange
Create a great organization by building a strange workforce
Daniel M. Cable

The core idea at the heart of this book is very powerful: if you want to create an extraordinary organisation, you won't achieve it with an ordinary workforce. Instead, you will need staff who are "strange", obsessed with delivering things in a way that drives the unique strengths of the organisation. Equally importantly, you will only get the best possible staff when your desired "strange workforce" is under-appreciated by your competitors.

This book makes a strong and reasoned case for this unusual perspective on workforce management, and it is underpinned by a solid basis of HR strategy. In the times when organisations are looking to innovation to generate success, the message of this book is timely and important.

All that being said, this book does feel like it was written in a hurry. Perhaps most frustrating is the US-centric language and examples used throughout. The informal style of writing includes expressions such as "put the hurtin' on your competitors", which I fear will be mysterious to many international readers.

One of the central examples used is also the differing strategies of two baseball teams, not easy to follow if you don't know how the game is actually played. (We play "football" and "soccer" in this part of the world, called "rugby" and "football" elsewhere.) Other examples also feel a little thin to strongly support the central arguments of the book.

Still, the first edition of this book still holds enough value to warrant the price of purchase. I look forward to a thicker, more solid and better edited second edition. This, I think, will be a truly great book.

Score: 6/10

Posted by jamesr on January 21, 2008 06:15 AM
Categories: Book & product reviews