Harold Rosenberg's famous shot at his fellow New York intellectuals as "a herd of independent minds" has been usefully applied to almost every kind of grouping people make for themselves. It is as true of teenagers in their conformist non-conformist fashions, college students in their uniform way of becoming independent from the parents whose money they use to fund this process, and it is also true of business people.

Why is this so? Maybe part of it is similar to the behavior of herds of animals that live around predators. Staying in the herd increases your chance of survival. Wandering off through carelessness or being too slow or ill leads to becoming someone's lunch. However, in human activity that is often competitive, it is staying in the herd that can lead the immutable laws of economics to allocate your resources elsewhere and you starve to death.

Oren Harari opens the book describing his observations of a long distance race. The first group was about three people who were fit, full of energy, and alone. In back of them was a slightly larger group that was huffing and puffing trying to catch up to the first group that was setting the pace. Then came the huge pack - the herd - who were plodding, sweating, and straining to simply not trip over each other. Finally, a smaller group brought up the rear who were having a good time walking along, but made no pretence of even being in the race in any meaningful way. This is quite an apt metaphor for competing in business.

This book provides interesting perspectives on ways you can rethink your company's position in the marketplace and get into that front group and leave the big pack behind. Obviously, you will have to do things differently than the way "everyone else does it". It will make you uncomfortable and being that alone may make you fear being noticed and eaten. But it is in the pack that the competitive business faces the most danger.

After framing his argument in the prologue, Harari divides the rest of his book into three parts. The first is resisting the pull of the pack. He describes "commodity hell" and how living in the copycat economy is a form of doom. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on "how to lose". He explains ten compulsions we face that keep us mired in the pack stepping on each other's toes breathing bad air. His founding principles for success are based on continuous and calculated reinvention and being curious, cool, and crazy in order to build a culture of disciplined lunacy. Good stuff.

Part II provides a series of six chapters on how to break from the pack. Dominate of leave (which does not necessarily mean being the biggest in the industry), putting the pieces together for a higher cause (which involves the customer as well as your employees), build a defiant pipeline (of products and services - this involves leading the marketplace rather than waiting and reacting), taking your customer to an impossible place (a very interesting notion of the level of expectations and exceeding them in a certain way), take innovation underground (your innovation has to be in your processes and in back of the house, as well. But EVERYTHING has to be for the effect it has on the customer, not for some vague notions of cost cutting or some program), and consolidate for cool (not accounting benefits).

The third part is a chapter on a 12 step recovery program so you can become the Leader of the Pack and an epilogue.

I really enjoyed the thinking in this book and the way the author illustrated his points. He uses good case illustrations from real world companies. And I was actually thrilled in his insistence of focusing on PROFITS rather than being distracted by other measures. You can increase your revenues and lose money. You can increase market share and lose money. You can do lots of things including manipulating your accounting and lose actual money. However, if you are actually making money, good things happen to your company, to your company culture, and to everything else you do.

This is quite an enjoyable book for those of us who are interested in business and what it takes to win in the marketplace. Why slog it out when you can be out front where the air is good and no one is stepping on your feet?

Recommended.