Thriving on Chaos- management classic by Tom Peter's!

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Welcome to Subramani. Please hit the bell icon. Uh this is again continuing the uh series on management books and largely wealth management books but also I have included management books which I enjoyed reading. This book I've read uh uh if not five times at least uh I mean if not 10 times at least five times and I've read parts of this book again and again because I love this book. Book is thriving on chaos. It's a handbook for management uh revolution by Tom Peters.

[00:00:32]Uh I have no clue where I picked up this book. There are two three shops from where I bought. Uh and a lot of these books I bought also from the pavement.

[00:00:41]Uh for those people who know Mumbai uh South Mumbai has uh the GPO uh and the CTO the telegraph office and the CTO footpath there used to be tons of book lovers could stand there augling at those books. There were at least three vendors and there guys you could tell them which book you wanted and that's how I picked up many of these books. I have no clue where I picked up Thriving on Chaos, but it's a great book by Tom Peters [snorts] and it's a book on u on the on how to do business and direct followup of its earlier bestsellers in search of excellent and a passion for excellence. I've read in search of excellence. I didn't like it so much but uh not did but I have not read passion for excellent but I loved thriving on chaos [snorts] and it came from reading in search of excellence that I it led me to thriving on chaos.

[00:01:36]The core thesis is uh Peter's uh argues that the relatively stable business environment of the past is gone forever.

[00:01:45]And he said this in 1987. Believe me, it is now more true in 2027. Uh we're almost there. So, uh rapid technological change, global competition, shifting markets and unpredictability have created permanent chaos. This is so beautiful. We today call it upsetting or whatever you want to call it saying oh these people will come and completely change the market. Uh I mean Zumato and uh [snorts] Swiggy made sure that you could sit at home call up and get the food that you wanted right so Uber and Ola could bring a car to you and make sure that car is used 24 hours or at least 8 hours 10 hours each car gets used and it's more efficient right so none of these things you expected [snorts] and so these are the disturbers who come into every business and uh obviously [clears throat] they I mean Google came in and disturbed uh completely disrupted the ticket booking and uh investing right so all those things got disturbed by Google so very difficult to pinpoint and say Google because of Google this happened but yeah obviously uh internet access to internet and all those things really helped and then at least in places like India the falling of the uh charges right you don't spend thousands of rupees for uh data once upon a time that used to be true so today we don't spend so much money on data So everybody is streaming.

[00:03:08]You see your driver, the guard and uh everybody wearing a headphone and listening to some music or listening to some political views, right? So all those things are happening. So he said traditional management uh you know hierarchy uh senior manager, junior manager and all those things will go long-term planning will go for a hit. Uh cost cutting will be constant. You will not be able to say oh we finished with cost cutting. You will have to do cost cutting regularly and you will have to be in search of excellence at a at a and uh in search of less excellence at a static state is impossible. So that is that is is very clear and he says you have to have the ability to embrace chaos as an opportunity rather than as a punishment and uh he calls for management revolution though many of the companies which he spoke about very fondly then uh did not survive for so long because this book is 1987. So if you pick up the book and find the names of the companies and look at where they are in 2026 or 2027 which is 40 years from uh when the book was written you'll find many companies have missed the bus but he gave a lot of prescriptions in four or five key areas and those things are still standing the test of time.

[00:04:31][snorts] So first is creating total consumer responsiveness. So if you see insurance companies etc. they just don't care. They have so much business that they don't care whether you're a life insurance uh dealing with a life insurance company or a um general medical insurance company. They don't care about what happens to you. They don't and they're still doing well. So here he says that you have to obsess over the customer as the ultimate judge.

[00:04:56]Key actions are specialize, create niche, uh deliver world-class quality as perceived by the end user, not by what you perceive. There are a lot of companies where the MD will tell me our technology team is very good. Just see what a great website they have made.

[00:05:13]Sorry, you have lost me. I am I am the judge. You're not the judge. You're the CEO. So just tell me have a look at our technology platform. Many of them suck.

[00:05:22]Right? So he says achieve extraordinary responsiveness. uh doesn't happen people I mean mutual funds can delay your redemption uh insurance companies can delay your uh your maturity claim if you don't say anything they'll take 7 days for a maturity claim and I have had pushed and got the maturity claim done in 2 days right so these things happen how much you push um then he also says even for companies in America he says don't restrict yourself to the American market go international same thing is true if you're in investing in India um uh better to have a little bit of investment exposure to the outside world also create uniqueness listen obsessively companies not all companies listen obsessively some companies do listen a very small bread manufacturer sends me bread every week and uh he's so responsible so responsive uh if I tell him I want you to deliver the bread at my house and leave it in a bag which will be kept outside the door that is exactly what he will do this is not true for big banks insurance companies, mutual funds and others, right? They are not that responsive. Uh turn manufacturing into a marketing weapon.

[00:06:31]Uh make sales uh and service people heroes and launch a full customer revolution. He says this for customer responsiveness. So there are many suggestions within customer responsiveness. Then he says pursue fast-paced innovation. This is also true. If you are going to innovate, do very fast-paced innovation. See what is the customer feedback. Ask customer feedback from five 10 customers. If it is good, implement it big time. But if it fails, it fails. It doesn't really matter. So have constantly keep looking for such things. Invest in small application oriented uh uh charts, use cross functional teams, run pilots, see how the pilot work, get the customer response, see whether how the regulator is looking at it, right? Do all of that.

[00:07:20]uh set yourself up for fast failures, set quantitative uh goals and uh go by what numbers show. Then he says achieve flexibility by empowering people. So if the people are empowered to do whatever you whatever is must. I remember going to a um to a [clears throat] to a shop to buy to a shoe shop and getting laces free. Right?

[00:07:47]So if you have empowered your people to be able to do that, that's great. So similarly, if you can walk into a hotel and say this food is bad and if the the guy making the bill has the right not to include it in the bill says sir, if you don't like it, you don't pay for it. It has happened to me in very small hotels, right? So will you be so empowered in a big hotel? That's what you have to do.

[00:08:10]Empower people so that they can they can do customer delight. Uh [snorts] and that's very important for the customer to keep coming back to you and getting you referrals, right? Uh learning to love change. Don't just crib about change. Change is going to happen. Learn to um embrace it. Right? So the title of the book is thriving on chaos. He's not saying suffering the chaos. Thriving on chaos. Leadership should show adaptability. What happens when such and such a thing happens and key actions?

[00:08:38]Master the master the paradox. Develop an inspiring vision rooted in change.

[00:08:44]Lead by example. Uh look at the visible management benefits that can come because of the changes that you're making. Listen more, differ more to the front line, take feedback from them and implement the changes. So building a system for a world up turned upside down. That is exactly what you're doing.

[00:09:01]Market will make many changes. uh I I mean uh very difficult to believe but there are young uh boys and girls today who will invest in the fund because the fund manager looks good. Now this is very different from how people invested earlier. Now these people will say oh this guy looks good so we should invest in this fund or her fund and [snorts] uh and that's it. So the the fund manager himself uh is going to be surprised saying is this the reason why I'm getting money to manage. You don't know but the world is upside down. The that boy or girl's grandparents will be shocked to know that this is the reason why they have invested. The parents might be shocked to know but that this is what they do. So understand that the market can do things very different from what you think it should. So the key takeaways are very simple. Uh stability is an illusion. So if you think oh this mutual fund will last so long etc may not last something could go wrong. So the winners will be fast flexible customer oriented and not too big right so middle managers and bureaucracy are often the enemy so you have to keep making sure that you churn uh letting go of a lot of people in the middle management is important and uh that is what will keep the top management agile.

[00:10:13]uh [snorts] Peters gives lots of real world examples maybe from his uh consulting friends and his own consulting experience but uh the book is written in the 1980s. So the core ideas of customer focus, agile innovation etc. uh which were there focused in the 1980s are still true in 2026. U by 2027 if you picked up this book and read it you'll see the core principles remain the same but the examples may have been wrong.

[00:10:42]Some of those companies may not exist.

[00:10:44]So in search of excellence uh but thriving on chaos but the company did not succeed. So you have to also see why they failed. So maybe somebody will now write a book on thriving on chaos and what worked and what did not work. Till then we have to live with this book. But it's a great book. Must buy must readad.

[00:11:02]Thank you.