With Reframing Business Richard Normann, Group Chairman of SMG, international consultant, and author of widely recognised books like Management for Growth (1975 and 1977, Wiley), Service Management (2000, 3rd edition, Wiley) or Designing Interactive Strategy (with Rafael Ramirez, 1994 and 1998, Wiley) covers a comprehensive, difficult, and insightful topic in corporate and strategic business development and tries to deal with the consequences for intellectual processes of the knowledge‐based economy.
As the author clearly states in his preface “Business and other institutions today have to be very skilled at conceptualizing […] Products and services are more about knowledge and linkages than about steel and mass. Companies are abstractions and value‐creating networks more than factories and offices […] Free flow of information needs to be transformed into unique concepts and frameworks which then focalize action” (p. xiii).
Based on many years of experience drawn from major consulting assignments all over the world, this book offers an insightful analysis of new ideas on the requirements for future organizations as they aspire to excellence.
For the author, institutions are instruments for collective, purposeful action. They are based on formal law but also on social contract and a level of trust. As such, “institutions are the manifestations of a dialectic process. They are based on subjective mental processes that respond to a context of constraints, threats and opportunities and that then become intersubjective – shared and social […]”. This book is about the dialectic of this dual role. It is about co‐aligning two lines of thought. On the one hand, it strives to look at the changing logic of today's business context and logic of value creation, expressed in opportunities for dramatic reconfiguration of business systems. On the other, it investigates the mental, symbolizing processes of the collective mind which allow institutions to change themselves and function in this new context” (p. 4). This counterpoint in the mental realm of reconfiguration process taking place in the business realm is called reframing.
Organised in seven main parts (The map and the landscape, Shapers of the landscape, Tools for landscaping, The map‐landscape interaction, Reframing: tools for map making, and Capabilities for purposeful emergence – Leadership for navigation), Richard Normann is able to weave many interesting concepts into an integrated and carefully‐designed frame of 20 chapters.
The book starts, in Chapter 1, with an investigation into the evolution of strategic paradigms, reflecting historical changes in the technological‐financial‐political context in which business and other institutions function.
Chapters 2 and 3 offer an exploration of the reasons for and patterns of present‐day reconfiguration. The “opportunity space” for value creation, opened up by current driving forces is analysed. Richard Normann tries to address all the implications of the development of a causal chain (dematerialization – unbundleability – asset liquidity – rebundleability – density), which are fundamental for understanding strategy and business in the new economy.
The story of the evolution of strategic paradigms is finished in Chapters 4‐6 by looking at the logics of today's successful organizations – “Prime Movers” – that go beyond new organization types which have been described as “virtual” or “imaginary”. To Richard Normann “Prime Movers” are much more than players who are “virtual” and who “outsource” activities. They are – or at some stage become – driven by visions of a redefined, more effective large system […] Their critical competence is in the combination of envisioning this more effective larger system and in organizing other players to co‐produce so as to jointly enact the more efficient larger system […] Prime Movership that redefines a value‐creating system is a way to escape the trap of commoditized products and services in transparent markets” (pp. 78‐79).
Chapters 7‐9 deepen the argument in important areas. Chapter 7 suggests that we need to think of business companies not as producers of products or services, but as designers of tools which enable “dense” and effective co‐production: “Co‐production means waking up and enabling sleeping, under‐utilized resources, bringing competences together more effectively in time/space, linking actors in new constellation” (p. 110).
In Chapters 10 and 11, the author studies how organizations fit into the environment: “Organizations, like organisms, are embedded in external contexts. They not only adapt to the context; they contribute to it, to form an ecosystem of value creation” (p. 160).
But new ideas, words and thoughts are not enough, “they must be manifested in concrete structural arrangements which come about as the result of critical decisions. “Distinctive competence” and “Business idea” are notions that stand for a systemic, multidimensional, and dynamic institutionalization of knowledge development” (p. 161).
Chapters 12‐15 then take the reader into the second important conceptual paradigm, that of the symbolizing processes of the collective mind. Using different strands from theories of learning and creation, Richard Normann attempts to build a “tool” – called a “crane” – which satisfied a number of structure and process criteria to produce mental reframing leading to powerful business reconfiguration. As the author writes, “Since the purpose of the construction is reframing of the business – renewal by reinterpreting assets in a different context – the crane must allow us to take stock of what we have, yet distance ourselves from it and explore new territory […] It must start from where we are – here‐and‐now, take us into unchartered territory, yet allow us to come back with new insights and start concrete construction work on reframed business strategy” (p. 201).
The last part of the book tries to evolve a framework of different levels of knowledge development processes that lead to different types of outcomes in terms of the definition of an organization's identity and role in a value‐creating ecology context. An attempt to identify the capabilities necessary for different levels of change is made. Finally, some implications for leadership finish the book.
In this demanding, but rewarding book, the author shows that providing organisations are prepared to radically rethink the way they do business they can occupy the high ground of the future. As already described above, the book reflects its purpose of co‐aligning two conceptual realms: on the one hand, a “business” frame of reference related to the new context of value creation, the new patterns of reconfiguration of business that results from it, and the business logics of players required to successfully play in this new field. And, on the other hand, how human minds – individual and collective within and across institutions – conduct the mental processes of reframing that better enable them to live within – and, indeed, enact the new realities and trigger more effective action given today's context.
Recognised by his peers as one of the leading management thinkers of his time, Richard Normann takes, once again, a new approach to strategy and provides an original way to think about organisations and create a different future. As Henry Mintzberg writes in his foreword “Reframing Business is enlightening in the best sense of that term. The reader cannot help but marvel at how Richard brings insight to key issues of managing and organization today. Words like “density”, “prime mover” and “products” (as “genetic codes for learning”), take on new meaning […]” (pp. x‐xi).
Richard Normann's unique insights have enable him to become a keen observer of business trends, pointing to weak signals that have proved to be the early manifestations of major trend breaks. He brings these strands together into a personal synthesis of his vast experience and insights. He writes with clarity and provides concrete illustrations about important topics: leadership, strategy, measuring performance, and generating innovation.
Well known for his innovative ideas and for challenging conventional wisdom, Richard Normann proposes with Reframing Business another insightful and illuminating book where complex theoretical issues and questions are integrated to draw a clear picture of new strategic thinking.
