Abstract
Originally published in 1988, Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World was intended to contrast with the many “swimming with the sharks” business books so prevalent during the ‘80s. Two decades later, the classic book's relevance to—and warning of—our 2009 chaos is impressive.
The book starts by categorizing management types into three aquatic creatures: sharks, carps, and dolphins. This animal metaphor is derived from research on the learning capacity of dolphins, right-/left-brain theory, and the impact of lobotomies on intellectual and emotional capacity. Left-brained sharks hold an extreme winner/loser view; carps, who are right brainers, don't want to make waves.
The focus of this book is on dolphins: the “elegant sense-makers.” Their ability to be flexible, responsive, and accepting allows them to score the ultimate win in turbulent times. Sharks, accustomed to moving in for the kill, are unable to recognize or learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others. Carps believe that the best survival strategy is popularity (avoiding conflict). They don't try to win so much as to hold on to what they currently have. Both types cling so much to their single strategy that when they fail, they are incapable of shifting to different moves.
Unfortunately, we've seen the results when sharks take full advantage of carps. Naked aggression without proper oversight, intellectual resistance, or moral balance can lead to a widely destructive meltdown of historic proportion.
The dolphin (a mammal, by the way) can act like a shark or a carp when the situation demands it. But unlike the big fish, dolphins are canny enough to adapt, learn, and creatively pursue their objectives. Has the day of the dolphin returned for good now that our bubble has burst? Economists and theorists have coined the term gigenomics to describe the modern need for workers to survive at many jobs by filling in, freelancing, adding, subtracting, adapting, and multiplying opportunities instead of counting on a predetermined cradle-to-grave career path. Sound familiar?
Though the concepts in this book were, and still are, quite sound, the authors employ numerous questionable and forgettable diagrams, as if the quantity of illustrations will bolster, not obscure, the flow of good ideas. More rewarding are the dozens of illustrative and enlightening quotes sprinkled into the margins from a variety of thinkers both witty and weighty, from Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau to Henry David Thoreau. Think of the quotes as food for thought floating by for the taking as you accomplish your own transformation into a fearless and adventurous dolphin swimming today's rough waters.