Tedded - Business Book Review

“I’ve come to see institutional decline like a staged disease; harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages, easier to detect but harder to cure in the later stages.”

“How The Mighty Fall” by Jim Collins can be called a sequel of “Build to Last” and “Good to Great”, arguably the two most influential business books in recent era. In a nutshell, the “visionary” companies in “Build to Last” and the “Good to Great” companies in “Good to Great” can fall. Jim Collins and his team studied the companies that used to be successful but eventually on the path of failure; some died, some recovered.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” After studying success in depth in his two books mentioned, Jim Collins admitted in this book that the study of failures are more difficult and instead of pointing out specific activities or actions that doom the companies, he wrote the five “stages” in which failing companies went through some faster than others, some recovered at some points. These stages are:

Contents:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success

For many companies, “arrogance” comes with success. Collins termed “arrogance neglect” or the cycle that you built a successful flywheel (aka great business or the organisation per se); you found new opportunities and rushed to them and divert attention from your successful flywheel. The new ventures fail, you came back but your initial flywheel already lost momentum. Moreover, the hubris came when you replace “why” with “what” by instead of trying to understand the reasons behind specific things you do, the company takes it for granted and stops learning.

Examples: Motorola, Circuit City, Ames

Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More

Complacency and lack of innovation are not the primary causes of the decline, “catastrophic decline can be brought about by driven, intense, hard-working, and creative people.” but it’s when you went to far. Companies going through this stage are “obsessed with growth”. They went outside the “Hedgehog Concept” or the core value of the organisation. Proportion of right people in key seats are less because they are confusing “big” with “great”. Other symptoms in this stage are bureaucracy, problematic succession of power, fetching easy cash.

Examples: Rubbermaid, Merck, Bank of America

Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril

The obvious signs of the companies in this stage are that they “amplify the positive and discount the negative” and make big bets in the face of mounting evidence of the contrary, They often deny the downsides and blame external factors.

Examples: Motorola, NASA (Challenger), IBM, Scott Paper

Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation

When the companies begin noticing obvious decline, they were in search for a silver bullet and most of the times, they are trying to find the “savior CEO”, seek game-changing acquisition, bet on new technology or new unproven product. “Companies stuck in Stage 4 try all sorts of new programs, new fads, new strategies, new visions, new cultures, new values, new breakthroughs, new acquisitions, and new saviors.” However, Collins continued “The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.” There will be hypes, panic, haste, confusion, cynicism and without being consistent to their values and “take one shot at a time” (e.g. IBM), the companies will fall into Stage 5.

Examples: HP, Motorola (again), Addressograph

Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

The company that went through Stage 1-4 and fell into Stage 5 often ran out of resource (read: CASH) and lost hope. “The point of the struggle is not just to survive, but to build an enterprise that makes such a distinctive impact on the world it touch, and does so with such superior performance, that it would leave a gaping hole if it ceased to exist.”

Example: Zenith

Well-found hope

From Collins’ study, companies can still bounce from Stage 5 for example Xerox.

…

I’ll compare this book to the ideal business book in my opinion: a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 9/10: First of all, this is a very short book, 2/5 of the size of the book are appendices. The charm of Jim Collins’ book is how he could break down the contents into highly structured chapters (Stage 1-5). But the point needed to be taken because if you have not read “Build to Last” and “Good to Great”, there will be some parts that you will not be familiar with unless you read all the appendices!

Distinction: 7/10: Writing and analysing the failures of companies is not new and all the cases are not new either. However, the advantage of this book is the historical researches of Jim Collins that he has done and accumulated and the way he tried to put them into patterns.

Practicality: 6/10: The good part of the practicality of this book is that in each Stage, Jim Collins wrote on how to bounce back and how to recover from the imminent path to failure. The not so good but not so bad part is that although Jim Collins listed out “markers” or symptoms of companies in each stage, it is still very difficult to identify ourselves as declining and which stage we are in because as he wrote that overlaps occur. The bad part of the practicality of the book is that we don’t need the book because Collins, most of the times, referred to contents in “Build to Last” and “Good to Great”, so get them instead.

Credibility: 4/10: I am not sure if I am correct or not but I believe that Jim Collins tried very hard to write the book and I also believe that he is not as confident in “How The Mighty Fall” as he is in his previous books. As he mentioned “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”, it is not very convincing in some of his remarks.

For example, “Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More” in “How The Mighty Fall” and “BHAGs (Big hairy audacious goals)” in “Build to Last” are separated by a very thin line. Boeing might ‘fall’ with their “bet the pot on the B-17, 707, 747”, IBM might ‘fall’ with their commitment to a $5billion gamble on the 360. etc.

Moreover, Scott Paper, from Good to Great, sold their other businesses and jumped into paper, and that’s “Hedgehog Concept” while Circuit City invested in CarMax and DivX and that’s “Hubris Born of Success”

I might be thick, I read them and try to distinguish by the word “discipline” and some others. Looking in a hindsight is still okay but if I were at that point of time, it can be very confusing.

Insight: 6/10: Despite being a small book, the researches Jim Collins did in the past are still extensive and impressive. I wish he write more but it might be the case that there are too many conflicts and controversy I mentioned earlier.

Reading Experience: 7/10: I ensure you that reading this book will not be pleasant because it might undermine your motivation because you will be guided through series of failures after failures. There are also glimpses of hope from some companies. However, if you like other Jim Collins’ books, you’ll still like the structure of this book.

Overall: 6.7/10: I have to be honest that I am disappointed with this book, I simply expected much more from Jim Collins. Do I recommend the book? I think I still do and if you are a Jim Collins fan, you will probably buy it anyway. I believe the topic is very difficult to write comprehensively but I praise the pattern of 5 Stages which will be very useful when the time comes. Nevertheless, I will stick with “Build to Last” and “Good to Great” while building a company, but if things start to go wrong, I might check “How The Mighty Fall” out.

“Not once, Immelt says, did he question whether he was prepared and able to lead GE.”

“Jeff Immelt and the New GE Way: Innovation, Transformation, and Winning in the 21st Century” by David Magee is the latest GE book on the seven to eight years since Jeff Immelt took over from Jack Welch as the CEO of one of the most admired companies in the world. Days after he was in position, there came 9/11; and his job has never been easy from the beginning. David Magee put the life of Jeff Immelt into this book.

Contents:

[Contents of the book will be very brief because in the 233 pages book (excluding appendices and references); each chapter has, on average, only 14-16 pages.]

Chapter 1: Following a Leader

The first chapter is about Jeff Immelt’s life in college and how he began his career life at GE. David Magee also wrote on Jeff Immelt’s character since he was a child.

Chapter 2: Confidently Seize Opportunity

This chapter is on his career progress in GE from Plastics to Appliance onto becoming a candidate of CEO and finally took it.

Chapter 3: Strength in Crisis

After Jeff Immelt took the role as a CEO, 9/11 came and he faced tremendous task of leading GE through tough time. Moreover, the Enron case did not help GE in the stock market.

Chapter 4: Appearances can be Deceiving

This chapter focuses on how GE took over an, then, unattractive wind power business and made it thrive.

Chapter 5: Understand Context

GE experienced a bad times in the stock market in the early 2000s and David Magee told us how Immelt dealt with it. Immelt’s personal strategy for overcoming tough times includes:
– Commit to learn every day
– Work hard with passion
– Give people a reason to trust
– Have confidence
– Be an optimist

Chapter 6: Cultivate Big Ideas

This chapter is on how Jeff Immelt focuses on innovation. Unlike his predecessor, Jack Welch, Jeff Immelt emphasises more on science and technology for the new businesses.

Chapter 7: Invest in Innovation

Jeff Immelt has created new tools to foster innovation in GE through enhanced laboratories, among other things.

Chapter 8: Use Your Ecomagination

Jeff Immelt has geared GE towards environmentally friendly businesses. Wind and solar energy are obvious examples. There are also new innovation in pipeline such as Organic LEDs and Smart Electric Grid.

Chapter 9: Maintain Core Values

GE’s core values have not changed; Integrity, Performance, and Change. David Magee wrote on how Jeff Immelt has zero tolerance towards integrity violation, how he and GE are still committed to performance as ever, and how change is always encouraged.

Chapter 10: Make Growth a Process

Like his predecessors, Jeff Immelt always focuses on growth and develops growth leaders to develop the company around six key elements; technology, commercial excellence, customer focus, globalisation, innovation, and developing growth leaders.

Chapter 11: Create a Learning Environment

“It’s all about learning.” The key to GE continuous progress is how leaders foster the learning environment in the organisation. The chapter shows how Jeff Immelt develops more learning sessions in GE.

Chapter 12: Find the Future

This chapter is about emerging markets around the world such as China, India, Russia, Brazil. GE’s three keys to effective globalisation are; 1 Use size as an advantage. 2. Create customer optimization, and 3. Leverage capabilities.

Chapter 13: Plant Many Seeds

GE is still expanding their businesses in various fields. Moreover, Jeff Immelt reorganised GE into four divisions; Technology Infrastructure, Energy Infrastructure, GE Capital, and NBC Universal.

Chapter 14: Find Opportunity in Adversity

This chapter is about the ongoing economic crisis and the stock market and how Jeff Immelt is coping with them.

Chapter 15: Leadership for the New Century

(This chapter is just a brief conclusion, albeit a grand name)

…

I’ll compare this book to an ideal business book; a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 7/10: This book is written in plain language. Most of the contents are from articles in the business magazines. It is an easy and fast read without deep analysis. The drawback is the flow of the book which lacks solid structure. Titles of the chapters, sometimes, are not really relevant to contents.

Distinction: 8/10: This is the only book on Jeff Immelt available.

Practicality: 2/10: There is no guideline on how to do anything in this book; it might be the purpose of the author. This book is a great compilation of what Jeff Immelt said. There are some lists of what GE and Jeff Immelt have done (see Chapter 5 above); and that is as far as the content goes.

Credibility: 5/10: The credibility of the sources is excellent because they are in quotations. However, there are some interpretations and journalism by the author that make this book a bit unconvincing. Everything Jeff Immelt did seems to be the right way and is taken for granted. David Magee unavoidably compared Jeff Immelt to Jack Welch and he praised Jeff Immelt for lots of things that he did but Welch did not do such as innovation sessions. There are countless features that the two are similar and the author seems to praise Immelt because he followed it nicely. I am not in the position to judge which CEO is better but the overall tone of the book is 100% pro Jeff Immelt (in everything he did) which is over the top.

Insightful: 3/10: Although this book has the most quotes from Jeff Immelt and other GE executives, it is extremely shallow. Analysis is non-existent in the book. Everything in this book is as deep as what Jeff Immelt and others said without any further and deep investigation. As I mentioned earlier, things, in this book, are taken for granted.

Reading Experience: 5/10: The good point is that this is an easy read and it can be fun if you don’t think about it too much. However, the tone of the book makes everything Jeff Immelt did a stroke of genius and it even seems that David Magee was occasionally having a go at Jack Welch which is ridiculous.

Overall: 5.0/10: The title “the New GE Way” is a massively misleading title because it is basically the same GE we have known. Under Jeff Immelt, GE has the same GE way with the new leadership, updated and refined business models, and enhanced management tools. Unlike other “GE” books (especially by Jack Welch), this book provides you with little insight and no guideline. But if you really admire GE (like me), I think that you will buy the book anyway. All in all, the book will make you know Jeff Immelt much more. Instead of “Jeff Immelt: the New GE Way”, the title should have read “Jeff Immelt: 7 years as a GE CEO mini biography” and I would have been disappointed slightly less than I am. By the way, I will be patiently waiting for a book by Jeff Immelt himself if he writes one. Skip this one if you can.

“While no company can ever embrace all of the world and all of mankind, Coca-Cola comes about as close as any.”

“The Ten Commandment for Business Failure” by Donald R. Keough, a former president of the Coca-Cola company, is a small book that, if you follow the instructions, will guide you to be a very successful loser. If you do not want to be one, this book is a must read and take those lessons as a cautionary tale.

Coca-Cola is one of the most recognisable brands on the planet but it was still vulnerable to failures. In this book, Keough tells you stories of Coca-Cola, among other companies, on how it became successful and how it failed at times. When you read the words “failure” and “Coca-Cola”, I bet the word “New Coke” sprang to your mind. Despite all the stories from any business book or textbook, in this book, you will have a chance to know it from the former president of Coca-Cola himself.

Contents

Commandment One: Quit Taking Risks

“It’s reasonable to think that because when you achieve something, even very little, there is the great temptation to quit taking risks.” Apart from telling you the reason that quit taking risk is a sure way to failure, Keough wrote briefly about Xerox and how they quited taking risk.

Commandment Two: Be Inflexible

Keough started this chapter with a story of Coca-Cola bottlers in 1940s-1950s and how they almost brought the company down because of the inflexible practice. This chapter also has the examples of IBM and Ford. All in all, “when the conditions around you change, remain inflexible. Keep on keeping on. Stand firm, You will fail.’

Commandment Three: Isolate Yourself

This chapter targets at those who get yourself a great big office in some remote corner of the most remote executive floor and the shut the door. And also put out a sign: “Don’t make the boss mad. Bring me no bad news.”

Commandment Four: Assume Infallibility

“If something seems to be heading in the wrong direction, cover up, better yet, wait until you have a full-blown crisis, then blame it on some external force - or blame it on somebody else.” Keough wrote about a brief ignorance of Coca-Cola that damaged the reputation dearly in Belgium. There was also a story of Coca-Cola in Germany that Keough admitted he was wrong because he somewhat assumed infallibility.

Commandment Five: Play the Game Close to the Foul Line

He wrote about the problem with the Wall Street that made CFO the rock stars of business instead of being the guardians of the transparency and the fiscal integrity of the corporations. “There is no such thing as business ethics. Just ethics. It’s not separated from the rest of your life.”

Commandment Six: Don’t Take Time to Think

Keough wrote that we are in the generation that is obsessed with technology. People said we are in the ‘information age’ but he disputed that we are in the ‘data age’ with all the ICT (Information and Communication Technology). We need to think and Keough tells you the vice of not thinking.

Commandement Seven: Put All Your Faith in Experts and Outside Consultants

This chapter has the popular case study, New Coke, not on how it failed but how it was caused. There is also a nice anecdote on Coca-Cola wine business.

Commandment Eight: Love Your Bureaucracy

“The bureaucrats who control these (bureaucratic) rituals guard them with their lives because any change undermines their own power or authority.” He also mentioned that bureaucracy in one of the main reasons talented individuals left the company. There are some short stories of Coca-Cola, Dell, NASA, etc regarding love of bureaucracy.

Commandment Nine: Send Mixed Message

“It doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll be rewarded.” is an example of a mixed message that Keough wrote about. Mixed messages create confusion. He wrote about Columbia and how Coca-Cola purchasing it sent a mixed message to everyone.

Commandment Ten: Be Afraid of the Future

The pessimists will not push anything forward be it corporations or a society. This chapter, Keough hit on the faces of those with pessimism.

Commandment Eleven: Lose Your Passion for Work - for Life

This is the bonus chapter and Keough wrote on how it is the most important one.

…

Next, I’ll compare this book to an ideal business book or a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, reliable, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 9/10: It is a little book written in a plain language and all the commandments were beautifully in sync. You do not have to fret with statistical data or figures, everything is easy to learn and absorb.

Distinction: 4/10: The major difference between this book and others is that it is written by Donald Keough. All the commandments and stories in this book are not new, just from an opposite perspective.

Practicality: 8/10: It is somewhat confusing to define ‘practicality’ of this book. Following the book will definitely lead you to failure and this book is written in a sarcastic tone. Thus, do the opposite and use the commandments in this book as a caution.

Reliability: 9/10: It is very hard to dispute his commandments. Look at the ten (eleven) commandments and try to tell which one will not lead to business failure. I can’t, and I don’t think anybody can. Although his experience alone is great enough, Keough put together different and interesting (albeit indifferent) stories of other companies and industries.

Insight: 5/10: This book is small and the stories are short. I wish stories, especially Coca-Cola ones, are longer with more insight and details. However, another thing I love about this book is quotations from various people. They are not numerous but I like every single one.

Reading Experience: 9/10: You will finish the book in no time. It is a pleasure to read. The tone of the book is sarcastic, casual, and joyful. I have never and will never have a chance to talk to Donald Keough but from the experience I have from reading the book, I come to think that the foreword by Warren Buffet might be true that “Don talks such sense and offers such inspiration. Don can tell you to go to hell so wonderfully you’ll enjoy the journey.”

Overall: 7.3/10: Get this book and you will like it. There are some flaws because it is very short but I truly believe that you can find much use of it. Hang this book it front of you office to remind you what you must not do in your business and you will shut the door to failure. By the way, I rarely pay attention to the praises and foreword but this book probably has one of the best compilations; Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, and Rupert Murdoch… well… and George W. Bush!

“Q: How many bosses does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: One. He holds up the lightbulb and expects the universe to revolve around him.”

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki is arguably one of the most humourous business books around. Despite the fact that most contents in the book are from his blog, How To Change The World, “Reality Check” is full of great business “checklists” (hence, Reality Check). And those checklists cover lots of aspect in business (be warned, this book is huge, 461 pages before an index).

Contents:

- The Reality of Starting

Guy starts with the checklist you need in starting a business or intrapreneurship (entrepreneurship inside a company) and how to construct a mantra (forget three paragraphs mission statement)

- The Reality of Raising Money

As a venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki wrote on how to raise fund from annoying and moody venture capitalists.

- The Reality of Planning and Executing

Business plans, financial projections, etc; you’ve been there and done that but Guy told you how to hit a homerun from them.

- The Reality of Innovating

Before jumping into innovating-everything bandwagon, this chapter tells you the myths, sins, and art of innovation.

- The Reality of Marketing

A brief revision of branding and identity.

- The Reality of Selling and Evangelizing

From the world’s top evangelist, he wrote about the art of selling, distribution, evangelism and PR.

- The Reality of Communicating

This main chapter covers lots of ground from e-mailing, presentation, demo, blogging, and moderating a panel.

- The Reality of Beguiling

There are lots of art (checklists and steps) of customer service, schmoozing, sucking up, sucking down (?!), and partnering.

- The Reality of Competing

A short chapter saying about your company’s defensibility and patents.

- The Reality of Hiring and Firing

Guy wrote about Silicon Valley hiring, how to hire, how to fire, craiglist, and linkedin, among other things.

- The Reality of Working

How to prevent Bozo explosion? What are mavericks in the workplace? What’s your EQ (Entrepreneurial Quotient)? This main chapter portrays the reality you face at work.

- The Reality of Doing Good

It is nice to end the book with philanthropy and how nonprofit organisations are changing the world

…

I’ll humbly compare “Reality Check” to my ideal business book; the book that is “easy to understand, distinct, practical, reliable, insightful, and provides great reading experience.”

Ease of Understanding: 9/10: The book is simple, straightforward, jargon-free, and very informal (even slightly rude sometimes). Forget theories and models, you will only find simple checklists, steps, and occasional interviews which are put in the main chapters (The Reality of…). One point taken because they are blog-like which make stringing nearly impossible. Guy must have tried very hard to group them together but it is not perfect.

Distinct: 6/10: From the contents, you will find nothing particularly new and we have seen and read all of them already. However, the distinct and unique characteristic of the book is its informality and straight-forwardness. It’s honest and it’s amusing. You won’t find many authors who could make fun of those business ideas naturally like Guy.

Practicality: 7/10: Despite the short chapters (96 chapters including intro and conclusion, 3-5 pages each), they are not just a bunch of pointless blog posts. The conclusion and call to action are in each chapter. There are three key themes within the book, 1) positive chapters (chapters starting with “The Art of..”, and “How To”; there are 51 of them), 2) negative chapters (”Lies of”, and chapters on a-holes; there are 14 of them), 3) interview chapters (with interesting authors like Chip and Dan Heath of “Made to Stick” or Garr Reynold of “The Presentation Zen”; there are 18 of them), and there are other 13 miscellaneous chapters.

Reliability: 5/10: There is very little (if at all) supporting data. The book is from Guy’s experience and rule of thumb. Complex statistics and formula might help but they will ruin the book. It is a worthy trade-off.

Insight: 6/10: The chapters are extremely short but they are compensated simply by having lots of them which are directed to the similar key points of the book. The credit is also to the interview (Q&A) chapters that Guy interviewed other authors for the different aspects of the stories.

Reading Experience: 10/10: This is, by far, the funniest (yet meaningful) business book I’ve read. The book make you feel like listening to Guy’s rant on the business as usual. You won’t get bored. Extra credit to the outrageous use of vocabularies; “bozosity”, “bull shiitake” (shiitake is a japanese mushroom), “assholedom”, “mediocracy” (mediocre + bureaucracy), and things like “karmic scoreboard”.

Overall: 7.2/10: Those who want to read something that “sounds” serious might not like the book. But beyond the casual and informal nature of Guy’s writing, what we’ve learnt from the book is valuable. I highly recommend the book if you want to be “clueful” (as opposed to clueless) in business. And you will have fun reading it and also a good laugh; you can’t say that to most business books.

“I have been asked literally thousands of questions. But most of them come down to this: What does it take to win?”

From the front cover, although a bit overstated, “No other management book will ever be needed.” - Warren E. Buffet, is not too far off the truth.

“Winning” by  Jack Welch, arguably the CEO of the 20th century, with Suzy Welch, the former editor of Haverd Business Review. Jack Welch turned G.E., General Electric, into one of the most competitive organisations in the world and also the most prestigious “talent” machine in the corporate world. Winning is a management book loaded with everything, you name it, leadership, HR, culture, budgeting, strategy, mission, etc.

Contents

Underneath It All:

1. Mission and Values

2. Candor

3. Differentiation

4. Voice and Dignity

Your Company

5. Leadership

6. Hiring

7. People Management

8. Parting Ways

9. Change

10. Crisis Management

Your Competition

11. Strategy

12. Budgeting

13. Organic Growth

14. Mergers and Acquisitions

15. Six Sigma

Your Career

16. The Right Job

17. Getting Promoted

18. Hard Spots

19. Work-Life Balance

Tying Up Loose Ends

20. Here, There, and Everywhere

…

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

Ease of Understanding: 8/10: The book is straightforward and spot on. On each topic, you’ll quickly say “Yes!” or “No!”. You also do not have to think too much because 90% of the times is about G.E. The only drawback is the structure of the book that different chapters are separated; they are not perfectly tied together. It is just a minor drawback.

Distinction: 7/10: It is just another management book on leadership, HR, strategy, etc. It just happens to be one of the best!

Practicality: 8/10: All of us are not going to turn our companies into G.E. However, the book is practical. You would not be thinking “How will I do this?.” On the other hand, you might think “Will I have the gut to do it?.” All the instructions in the book are very simple for, example; “…strategy is actually very straighforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.” He then wrote about the simple five slides needed in strategy making.

Credibility: 10/10: The book gets full mark on “credibility” and I see no reason to take any mark off. If you are playing golf, you’d better listen to Tiger Woods. Reading the words from arguably the CEO of the century is a sure bet. Success of G.E. is not a myth.

Insight: 6/10: Unfortunately, this book is not “deep” enough. Jack and Suzy Welch covered many topics (probably every basic topic on management). They are straight to the point with very little information and basically no research on any topic. However, who we are to ask for “supporting data” from Jack Welch!

Reading Experience: 9/10: Reading the book is like being in the room with Jack Welch and he keeps yelling “Do this! Trust me! Stop that! Stupid! Nonsense!” Reading the book is exciting when Jack Welch tells us blunt but bold techniques on how to make the company win. But if you “hate” Jack Welch, or Suzy Welch, or G.E., or all of them. The reading experience will not exceed 1/10!

Overall: 8.0/10: Winning by Jack Welch with Suzy Welch deserves a place in your bookshelf. It is a no-nonsense management book with practical ways to improve your companies. It is easy to understand and is written by one of the best CEOs in modern history. However, if you dislike this former CEO or his company, skip this book fast. It can be the book that you hate most. Otherwise, read it and follow the winning path.

In a couple of previous posts, I wrote briefly about how Sir Richard Branson made choices doing his career (life) here; and I wrote about how we should “focus” on the essentials gravitating all aspects of our roles together here.

If we know that making a choice is vital to our present and our future. If we know that we need to keep our roles in harmony, we have families, friends, and communities. So, how should we choose our career?

…

It happened yesterday when I talked to my girlfriend and she asked me what career should she take after her master’s degree.

I said: “None, stay home”

She angrily said: “What?! I should be good at something!”

I said: “Nothing, you don’t want to work hard and you want to be equally rewarded. That’s not going to happen.”

She said: “But I can do many things, decently”

I said: “But you won’t give a hundred percent. And that, you will be just average.”

We had a small argument there.

…

In the evening, I talked to her on the phone and I told her to stop talking because my head was going to burst.

I did that a couple of times in the past and she was furious that I stopped her from talking about…

A trip itinerary.

16 months in advance!

…

There! I thought and told her “That’s it, that’s what YOU should do. Become a tour organiser or a trip manager.”

I conclude it here that you need to take a career that..

make you talk about it all the time and never shut up.

…

There’s only one word that you need to look for. And it’s not “ability”, “competency”, “experience”, “interest”, “opportunity”, “advancement”, “salary”, “reputation”, “reward”, “environment”, “culture”, “lifestyle”, etc, etc.

You might already guess it and you probably guessed it right. It’s passion.

You might probably think “If only I know what my passion is”

or “my passion will not make money”

…

Firstly, everyone has passion, big or small, expressed or unexpressed; we all have one. Passion drives your soul. Passion gives meaning to your life. Don’t mistake passion with fashion. Fashion or fad or interest make you excited for a period of time and it’s gone.

Secondly, don’t confuse passion with hobby. Hobby or your favourite recreation are just activities. Passion is the root of your activities. Some hobbies might make money, some won’t. Passion is not a thing you do; passion is what makes you do things.

Moreover, passion does make money. If it does not make money; it’s the fault of things such as an ability to fulfills your passion or just a bad business model.

Of all the components of successful business, passion is the most difficult and yet, the easiest component you can achieve. You cannot just say, “Let’s develop passion for the next two quarters”. Unlike other intangible assets you possess like “creativity”, “intelligence”, “initiation”, “communication”, etc; you cannot intentionally develop passion. Yet, passion came out of nowhere. Moreover, passion has no limit. Sometimes, we have trouble to push beyond our current “creativity” level or our “communication” skill. Passion, on the other hand, can rise higher and higher without barrier. And good news, the more the better.

I’ll take an excerpt from the book I read recently: “The Future of Management” by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen where they talked about Management Innovation. They stated the “capabilities” that contribute to value creation in an organisation which are; Passion, Creativity, Initiative, Intellect, Diligence, and Obedience.

From 100%

Obedience: 0%; Rule-following employees are worth zip in terms of competitive advantages they generate

Diligence: 5%; Diligent employees don’t take short-cuts but they are not likely to contribute much to the value creation

Intellect: 15%: Most companies work hard to find intelligent employees but they are now commodities in this flat world

Initiative: 20%: Employees who don’t wait to be asked and don’t need to be told.

Creativity: 25%: Inquisitive and irrepressible employees; they are important for value-creation. They are people who always said “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”

Passion: 35%: “One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested” E. M. Forster, English novelist

Nevertheless, there are far too many people trying to make themselves more intellectual by getting degrees after degrees. Those same people often neglect passion. Many people studied hard for a degree in finance to be an investment banker. Do they really CARE about other people’s investment? Many people studied hard for a degree in marketing. Do they really CARE about the soap, shampoo, digital camera, or cars they are trying to market?

If not, then, they are in deep… trouble. Because the furthest they can contribute is merely 65% by the theory of Gary Hamel and Bill Breen. Actually, they have just achieved (maybe partially) 10% of the capabilities (intellect) from their degrees.

To quote the words of Charles Handy I got from Tom Peters’ slides from his blog:

“Passion was what drove these people, passion for their product, passion for their cause. If you care enough, you will find out what you need to know. Or you will experiment and not worry if the experiment goes wrong. Passion as the secret to learning is an odd secret to propose, but I believe that it works at all levels and at all ages. Sadly, passion is not a word often heard in the elephant organizations, nor in schools, where it can seem disruptive.”

…

One suggestion: “If you are living you life out of your passion, you are heading the wrong way. If you work without passion, get out, fast.”

…

My belief is that we don’t need to keep our passion alive. Because it’s already living. It’s breathing and it’s burning. It’s our job to find it and live it.

Live your life with, by, from, and for your passion.

I’ve been blogging for less than 2 weeks and I find that Seth’s Blog is getting better everyday, I admire his work he has done for years.

The reason I post about him so much is because I admire his thoughts so much that they are worth discussing.

His latest post, “The sad lie of mediocrity”.

I agree with the post but I have one question:

Question: “How do you measure mediocrity?”

When you say your employees are mediocre, how do you measure them?

Do you measure them with your company’s standard or do you measure them with the industry or world standard?

If you have vigorous recruitment process and training program, your “average” employees might be “excellent” compared with you competitors and everyone else. On the other hand, if your process is lousy, your “top” employees might be less than mediocre in the same industry.

In sum, I believe that every organisation will have “higher than average” and “lower than average” but mediocrity depends on you.

It’s not abnormal that I find Seth’s Blog a pool of idea but I find it interesting that Seth’s ideas always make me wonder and think of arguments and supports; I have yet to find another thought-provoking blog like his. And his latest post made me think hard.

The 90/10 rule of marketing a job

“It only takes 10% as much effort to hire someone in the bottom 90% of the class.

And it takes the other 90% to find and cajole and retain the top 10%.”

Question: “Are your top 10% worth 90% of your effort?”

From the classic management belief; The Pareto Principle or 80/20 Rule

In an application, 20% of your employees contribute to 80% of your outcome (or Seth’s 10/90 which will be a bit more to the extreme).

Does it mean that we should put an equal effort (80% or 90%) to the top 20% or 10%?

Nobody knows the most suitable percentage of effort but I have an interesting anecdote from Jack Welch in his book, Winning.

I’m not saying that Jack knows best! But people management practice from G.E., the talent machine, is worth noticing.

He divided them into, as you know, Top 20%, Bottom 10%, and Middle 70%.

I believe that, in the process of “hiring”, there is no compromise, we need to put 100% percent of our effort to select the top talent only. There’s no room for anyone less than the top to join the company.

And if your hiring process is good enough, there will be no chance for the “lousy” 90%. They must be good, very good, but just not as good as the top.

Surprisingly, I, personally, do not believe that G.E., or Jack Welch from his book, put 50% of effort on top 20%, let alone 90% for top 10%.

To paraphase an excerpt from his book: You need stars, the top 20 percent, to win. We stroke and reward them in outsize way. But stroking can backfire, A star’s ego can be a dangerous thing.

As for the bottom 10%, we need to part ways but it must be “no surprise” and must “minimize humiliation”.

However, the middle-70 is the hardest to manage and sometimes talented middle-70 leaves because they are in an “awful kind of limbo” not knowing which way to go. We need to train, share, push, and fight good fights with the middle-70. They are the heart and soul of the organization. We need to push them to the top 20%.

…

So, back to my thoughts, I believe that we should treat Hiring and Retaining in entirely different ways that is; we should spend 100% of our effort on hiring the top class employees, never spend a percent on hiring mediocre.

On the other hand, retaining is totally different that we must put most effort in the largest middle group by coaching, pushing, and guiding them.

Rewarding the top and firing the bottom are much more straightforward than your effort in the group in the middle.

I agree with Seth Godin on the hiring part, by investing in marketing your job. But on the retaining part, I am not quite sure.

“Why does management seem stuck in a time warp? Perhaps it’s because we’ve reached the end of management.”

Content

Part I: Why Management Innovation Matters; in this part, the author stated the problems we face with the current modern management and how can the new management have the “Ultimate Advantage” over the current management.

Part II: Management Innovation in Action; the authors demontrated examples of Whole Foods, W. L. Gore, and Google and how their “Management Innovation” shapes their management philosophies.

Part III: Imagining the Future of Management: in this part the authors showed how we can escape the orthodox management practices and embrace the new principles including Life, Markets, Democracy, Faith, and Cities while overcoming difficult challenges that we are going to face.

Part IV:Building the Future of Management: this part tells us how can we learn the lessons from IBM and Best Buy along with how can we put the beliefs we demonstrated earlier into practices.

Review Method: The score will show how close this book is to the ideal: A business book which is easy to read, distinct, credible, practical, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 7/10: The Future of Management is a book with a straightforward structure, there are examples followed by the related principles of Life, Markets, Democracy, Faith, and Cities that define the new management. And the conclusion and the “idea” on how to implement them are clear but we couln’t say this is the easiest read because of the abstractness of the ideas.

Distinction: 9/10: To be perfectly honest, there are many books on the so-called “future” already, we already talked about Google and the idea of flat organisation is not new. The reason that I give The Future of Management a near-perfect score on distinction is how the book uses some wise definitions of management, Part III, which are stunning. I never thought of comparing an organisation and management to “cities” together with “life”, “faith”, “democracy”, and “markets”.

Credibility: 8/10: Gary Hamel and Bill Breen did well linking the examples of Whole Foods, W. L. Gore, and Google to their ideas on how the organisation should, and would be. The linkage and references are solid making us believe that this is probably the way ” new management” will be.

Practicality: 3/10: No one will disagree with me on this, this is not Management Guide for Dummies, we know it, the authors know it. The authors stated that they do not know how to achieve this but this is a book that will inspire us on how to invent the future of management.

Insight: 8/10: Very insightful, examples of companies are packed with examples of practices that are thought-provoking. New principles are not loosely described but with solid ideas.

Reading Experience: 9/10: You’ll find reading this book is like a journey. It is not futuristic like watching Star Wars but more like watching the Matrix trilogy! The authors portray the current modern management and then “unplugged” you to the new world that you have never imagined. For orthodox managers, you will feel like watching “28 Days (Weeks) Later” where out of nowhere, there are flocks after flocks of zombies (future employees) chasing after you! Beware.

Overall: 7.3/10: excluding “practicality”, I’d say The Future of Management is more than 8/10. If you want a book packed with remarkable management examples and motivating ideas on how the future will be without much concern on practicality of ideas; The Future of Management by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen is a safe bet.