The
Lexus and the Olive Tree |
Mini-review by Jim Young |
If you've read my previous mini-reviews, you know that I rarely add a book to my recommended reading list until I've completed it. Over the last several years, I've made very few exceptions to that rule. "Turned On," "Circle of Innovation," "Unleashing the Killer App," and "Rules for Revolutionaries" were the only books I added to the list before completing. "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is added to that short list. By page 70, I felt it should make the list and by page 119, it did. This book is subtitled "Understanding Globalization" and if you read it, you will.
Tom Friedman illustrates his points with scores of stories, and he tells them well. He has lots of pithy metaphors and one-liners that he uses to illuminate the points he makes. Among them:
| The Berlin Wall didn't just fall in Berlin. It fell East and West, North and South, and it hit both countries and companies, and hit them all at roughly the same time. p. 40 |
| I would say that in 1999 we understand as much about how today's system of globalization is going to work as we understood about how the Cold War system was going to work in 1946--the year Winston Churchill gave his speech warning that an "Iron Curtain" was coming down, cutting off the Soviet zone of influence from Western Europe. p. 23 |
| In nine years [Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry] Summers went from thinking it was neat to have a phone in his car in Chicago to expecting to have a phone in his dugout canoe in Abidjan [Ivory Coast]. p. 41 |
| The Internet is going to be like a huge vise that takes the globalization system I have described in this section of the book--the Fast World, the Electronic Herd, the Supermarkets, the Golden Straitjacket--and keeps tightening and tightening that system around everyone, in ways that will only make the world smaller and smaller and faster and faster with each passing day. p. 118 |
| ...joining the global economy and plugging into the Electronic Herd is the equivalent of taking your country public. p. 141 |
| If the Cold War had been a sport, it would have been sumo wrestling; if globalization were a sport, it would be the hundred-meter dash--over and over and over. And no matter how many times you win, you have to race again the next day. p. 10 |
| If Taiwan were a stock, I'd buy it. p. 170 |
| If northern Italy were a stock, I'd hold it. p. 175 |
| If France were a stock, I'd sell it. p. 188 |
And "Eight Habits of Highly Effective Countries":
| How Wired Is Your Country? p. 167 |
| How Fast Is Your Country? p. 171 |
| Is Your Country Harvesting Its Knowledge? p. 175 |
| How Much Does Your Country Weigh? p. 178 |
| Does Your Country Dare to Be Open? p. 179 |
| How good Is Your Country at Making Friends? p. 184 |
| Does Your Country's Management Get It? p. 187 |
| How Good Is Your Country's Brand? p. 189 |
I had seen this book in bookstores for some time but had not bought it. After hearing Randy Mayeux review it at breakfast on Dec. 3, 1999, I knew I would own the book by noon. I did.
This is a MUST-READ book! It is one of the most important--and most useful books I have ever read.