Tedded - Business Book Review

“If it’s so easy to understand and it makes so much sense, why don’t more companies get tuned it?”

“Tuned In” by Craif Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott is a book on how to create the “resonator”, the product that sells itself. Or (quoted from the book);

“The perfect solution to a specific problem”

“A product or service that people want to buy without being coerced”

“An offering that establishes a real and direct connection to what your market values most”

“An idea that people immediately understand has value to them, even if they have never heard of your company or its products and services”

The book describes the six steps of creating the resonator

Contents

Chapter 1: Why Didn’t We Think of That?

Chapter 2: Tuned Out… and Just Guessing

Chapter 3: Get Tuned In

Chapter 4: Step 1: Find Unresolved Problems

Chapter 5: Step 2: Understand Buyer Personas

Chapter 6: Step 3: Quantify the Impact

Chapter 7: Step 4: Create Breakthrough Experiences

Chapter 8: Step 5: Articulate Powerful Ideas

Chapter 9: Step 6: Establish Authentic Connections

Chapter 10: Cultivate a Tuned In Culture

Chapter 11: Unleash Your Resonator

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Let’s compare “Tuned In” to the ideal business book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 9/10: This book is very structured and it’s very hard to NOT understand. The concepts are not complicated. They are straight to the point with great examples all over the book.

Distinction: 5/10: The concept of this book is another “customer-centric innovation”. There are hundreds of this kind of book on the shelf already. However, the way the authors present the concept with clear and concise examples is refreshing. This concept of the book is identical to others: just better.

Practicality: 8/10: The six steps (plus what should be done before and after the steps) are simple enough to follow no matter what industry you are in. The authors showed examples ranging from the ice-cream shop to the comedian to Apple to the presidential election! The various examples with simple yet solid steps will make you think that you can do it.

Credibility: 8/10: The vivid examples, again, “resonate” well with the concepts and steps. You can’t really deny the proven concept, customer-centric innovation. It’s so simple that make you think “There’s no reason I shouldn’t believe this.”

Insight: 6/10: The real substance of the book is how it connects the concepts to examples. You will not find deep analysis or research in a particular subject. Moreover, this book tries hard not to bore you. Once the excitement in the topic fades, the authors move onto another topic.

Reading Experience: 7/10: Reading “Tuned In” is enjoyable. You’ll read the contents of the books about how to create a “resonator” and you’ll think “Now….. How are you trying to convince me?” Craig Stull, Phil Myers, and David Meerman Scott will then give you simple explanations and excellent examples.

Overall: 7.2/10: As I mentioned far too many times already that the examples of this book are excellent. The six steps to create the “resonator” are very easy to apply. If you are swimming in the ocean of books on innovation and could not find a good book that you can get your team or yourself rolling right away. This example-driven practical book on customer-centric innovation is tuned in for you.

Today, I am reading the same book, Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney

There was a line about Steve Jobs who is fond of the quote of Picasso

“good artists copy, great artists steal.”

And Steve Jobs add: “And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

The chapter is about innovation and Steve Jobs once said “Creativity is about connecting things,”

…

I thought of my favourite book, Winning, by my favourite business figure, Jack Welch. Although the context is slightly different; Welch wrote that it is nonsense to say that best practices are not sustainable because they are easy to copy. He wroted that winning companies do two things.

They imitate and improve.

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The two anecdotes are not particularly identical but one thing we already know is that Jack Welch and Steve Jobs; despite numerous differences, describing them with the word “ego” is beyond understatement.

So the question is how do these two great egotistical innovators declared that they steal or imitate and improve shamelessly and sensibly?

Jim Collins, in Good to Great, described Level 5 leader (the leader that can bring a good company to be a great company if employed with other characteristics) as a leader with will and humility…

We can hardly describe Jobs and Welch as “humble” but another thing that Collins describe is that Level 5 leader is filled with “ego”.

However, they channel “ego” to the company, not to themselves.

In other words, if customers adore an Apple’s product and felt the product is original, Apple wins regardless of what people thought of Jobs.

if G.E. brought a new business model from another company and develop it to another level, G.E. wins regardless of what people thought of Welch.

…

On the other hand, there are people who are afraid to steal or imitate and improve because

1. They channel “ego” to themselves, not the company. They are afraid to be labeled “stealer” at the expense of the future of the company

2. They have no “ego” or self-confidence or whatsoever believing that they cannot improve beyond the original and reside in their mediocrity, forever.

Therefore, we might say that stealing or imitating and improving are NOT the characteristics of weak leaders. Quite the opposite, we could hardly find other leaders who are as strong as the two mentioned.

…

Are you ready to steal?

This is another gem by Seth Godin, his latest blog on “Reacting, Responding & Initiating”

So, basically, what do you spend your day doing?

Reacting to external situations

Responding to external inputs

or

Initiating new events or ideas.

Seth’s closing comment stated that initiating is the best one, obviously.

…

Questions

1. How do you initiate?

2. If you can’t initiate, how should you react and respond?

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How do you initiate?

There are only two possible answers: One is to NOT do uninitiative activites, and two, to do initiative activities

Steven Covey gave us an intriguing matrix in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”

The Quadrant II

(matrix from www.quadrant2.com.au)

In a nutshell, minimise your quadrant 1 (firefighting, meeting deadlines, and reacting to crises) activities.

“As long as you focus on quadrant I, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it dominates you.” stated Covey in the book

Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management, things that are important but not urgent; things like building relationship, capability, writing a personal mission statement, lond-range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation, and so forth.

The results will be vision, perspective, balance, discipline, control, and few crises.

The results from the Quadrant II activities do not directly affect the initiativeness but they are, apparently, significantly influential to initiativeness.

The other way is to do something initiative…

I grabbed a book called “Group Genius” by Keith Sawyer

The concept of the book is that: most innovations come from the collaborative power of many people, directly or indirectly, intentionally, or unintentionally.

The idea from this book that I admire most is the “improvisation”. Improvisation leads to innovation because there is no script (improvisation can be planned, though) on how might it turn out to be and creative power of more than one person can bring out powerful and new innovations. Examples are improv theatre groups, jazz bands, or an orchestra without a conductor.

Apart from “improvisation”, you need “group flow”. Think of a high tempo basketball game where they are improvising and flowing with the rhythm of the game. To achieve “group flow”, you need ten conditions:

1. The Group’s Goal

2. Close Listening

3. Complete Concentration

4. Being in Control

5. Blending Egos

6. Equal Participation

7. Familiarity

8. Communication

9. Moving It Forward

10. The Potential for Failure.

…

The next question is

2. If you can’t initiate, how should you react and respond?

I just read an article from Havard Business Review (October 08) “Shaping Strategy in a World of Constant Disruption” by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison.

The article encourages you to be the “shaper” or the one driving the industry ecosystem. The article focuses on how to become a shaper but the most interesting bit I found from the article is that…

“Not a Shaper? Be a Participant”

The authors offer three roles available to participate in other firms’ (or persons’, to be related to Seth’s blog!) shaping strategy if you are not cut out to be, or not ready to be, or do not want to be the shaper. You can be… (full quote onwards)

Influencer

Commits early and prominently to one shaping strategy

Benefit:An influencer increases asset efficiency, builds capabilities, and gains a strong market position by influencing the shaper.
Risk: The supported platform may not become the industry standard.
Example: Bank of America’s early influence on the Visa shaping platform.

Hedger

Develops its products or services to support multiple shaping platforms

Benefit: A hedger’s eggs are spread across several baskets—in several competing platforms.
Risk: Higher costs can be incurred if effort is duplicated to meet multiple platform standards.
Example: Advertisers that participate in both Google and Microsoft advertising platforms.

Disciple

Commits exclusively to one shaping platform

Benefit: A disciple has a clear strategic focus and direction; it does not invest in competing shaping strategies.
Risk: The supported platform may not be adopted. If the exclusive bet fails, an investment in another shaper must be tried.
Example: Dell’s exclusive commitment to the Wintel platform.

(/Quote)

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Therefore, if you want to initiate, focus on “quadrant II” and spend times with a group “improvising” and fostering “group flow”. If you can not initiate (or don’t give a #$*&), before reacting or responding,… pick your role.

Am I reacting or responding to Seth’s blog too much? I sure did! But I picked my role

I’m reading The Future of Management by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen. Actually, I finished it already, this is my second time doing my personal summary. It is already in my all-time favourite list.

I’d like to talk about the two companies you know, one is in this book (in details), the other is the world-famous in its practice already.

1. Google’s 70/20/10

2. 3M’s 15 percent rule

Google allows its employees to dedicate 70% of their time to core business tasks, 20% to projects related to core business, and 10% to “fringe ideas”. To cut the story short, the 20% and 10% work absolutely fine and generate lots (you know? Google’s “lots”) of profits to both the firm and the teams developing them. You can find a (very) brief explanation here and a bit longer here (2005).

As of 3M, it’s too obvious, the 15% gives the world Post-It note. Type “3m 15 percent” in Google and you’ll find some good explanations but I recommend Built to Last by Jim Collins. If you read the book already, like most people, then good!

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What I want to ask you is “How many percent are you free?”

I’d like to give you a bad example here, it’s my company, duh. Currently, I’m more than 70% percent free (after I told my boss I’m going to resign). In the past, my freedom range somewhere between 50% to -50% (meaning it consumed my personal life!)

This is ridiculous.

It is even more ridiculous when you notice people having different percentage of free time leading to an innovation drain.

A: “Hey! I have the new idea!”

B: “What? Well, later alright?, I’m busy”

A: “You wouldn’t believe it!!”

B: “You wouldn’t believe how much work I have”

.

.

.

B: “What did you say again?”

A: “Whatever, I have a meeting right now, later, beeseeguy”

It is like in a blackhole, no light, innovation is a taboo, free time is a sin.

I tried to start an HR project last year. I tried to draw many hungry young employees who want to change the company by having discussion sessions every Friday’s afternoon. Our issues were mostly about recruiting new staffs, interviewing, coaching, and probation period. We faced a seriously high employee turnover rate (not a surprise, by the way!).

HR thought we were rebels

Managing Director turned down our first project proposal (on tests especially personality test before an interview session in the recruitment process); he said something like “I don’t need it, I can see through the person during an interview”

yeah right

He did encourage us to continue though, but his initial reaction is anything but encouraging.

At first, there were 17-20 of us and after the reject from M.D. we were reducing to around 13 to 10 to 5 and I gave up. I might be wrong but our company has nothing, zero, zip, nil, process promoting free time innovation.

So, in short, in order to allow your employees to spend “systematic” free time innovatively we need lots of factors but the most important ones are

1. Democratic Management (or non-management): Command and control are poisonous to innovation

2. Reward and Recognition: People do it for fun but they must be rewarded for their contribution

3. Systematic Process: Innovation and system?? yes, we need a systematic process to keep innovation a journey, not a fad

4. Passionate Teams: This is, by far, the hardest part to achieve.

An army of robots is beyond powerful following orders

An army of robots for innovation;

>> critical failure

>> all functions terminated

>> shut down

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