In 1987, I wrote a book titled Thriving on Chaos. Miraculously (for sales, at any rate), it was officially published on the day of the stock market crash of ’87, at the time the most severe in decades.
Once again, we are apparently confronted with a hefty dose of “chaos”—or, at least, the prospect of a substantial period of sub-standard growth. (NB: Managers under the ripe old age of 50, more or less, have never experienced, in the role of managers, significant and sustained economic disarray; the brutal recession of the early ’80s—marked by unemployment in excess of 10 percent, interest rates in excess of 20 percent, and inflation stuck in the mid-teens—was the last of this sort.)
My speakers bureau sent me an urgent request for a description of remarks I might make on the issue of thriving on, or at least surviving amidst, the current chaos—seems as though that’s what their clients are suddenly, and understandably, asking prospective speakers to tackle.
I was limited to a couple of hundred words, which I enjoyed writing (in the best sense of the word “enjoy”) and thought I’d share them with you. There is hardly profundity here, but I’ll pass it on anyway. In fact, there are two short pieces, as follows:
[The next two blog posts are the ‘two short pieces’ Tom is referring to. -Ed.]