Technology

Attenzi: a social business story

There is no shortage of case studies about social business successes. Many however rely on a brilliantly innovative idea, an amazing person or a big budget. If you’re pretty good, with decent ideas and a firm that has a bit of money, then such case studies are often aspirational without being that practical. It’s a bit like getting tips on how to be a better runner from Usain Bolt. However helpful he wishes to be and however good his advice, nearly all the time it will run foul of the basic problem that you’re no Usain Bolt.

That’s why I’m really taken with the fictional account that is Attenzi: a social business story. The author, Philip Sheldrake, uses the freedom of a fictional account to craft a case study that has lessons for us all, not only the Usain Bolts. Yet he also keep it close enough to the real world for all the incidents to feel plausible. Think of it like a fable for business.

In this story Attenzi has been a successful firm, doing well supplying kitchen equipment and services in the 1990s but since losing its way. Realising it needed a new lease of life, its Chief Operating Office wisely observed, “Tell me the problem and I’ll fix it, but I don’t know what the problem is. That doesn’t make for a great CEO!” As a result, in comes  Eli Appel to fill that role and rapidly discovered that things were just sort of ok. Not a disaster, as the company was growing, but no huge enthusiasm amongst its clients either.

In other words, this is a much more typical backdrop against which to learn the lessons of the social business case study than many others I have come across.

The pace of the book is a gentle amble as Appel hunts for quite what it is that is needed to make a difference to Attenzi and make it soar rather than tick over. That means the tale is a little slow moving at times, especially when there are mini-monologues to work some communications theory into the story, but never for too long. It also makes for a more useful story to learn from than the one where you only hear about the eventual idea and not the preliminary steps playing with other ones before the right solution was found.

The story is livened up with many great turns of phrase, such as when Eli meets a firm of social media advisers who were talking to the firm:

On shaking hands with a “Welcome to Attenzi” the main … chap actually replied “Welcome to the paradigm shift!”

All too painfully close to reality. And that’s what makes the booklet such a good read – a fictional tale bringing out useful truths about the real world. Just like the best novels, though in this case the lessons are about business rather than families.

 

Disclosure: I received a review copy of the book in advance and am named in the acknowledgements section.

 

One response to “Attenzi: a social business story”

  1. I hate the expression “paradigm shift”. It sounds like a gearbox you can buy with a small counterfeit American coin. I am a graduate of 44 years standing and had never heard the word “paradigm” until a few years ago. If a paradigm is “an example or pattern, especially one underlying a theory or methodology” (Concise Oxford Dictionary 1995), what is wrong with “change of theory/methodology/practice/approach/etc.”? I speak as a lover of German who sees little benefit in using Zeitgeist instead of “spirit of the time(s)”.

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