Tedded - Business Book Review

“Everything I did was for us, not for me, I didn’t manage; I led”

Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, a latest book by Seth Godin, again, amazes readers in many aspects. “Tribes” is a concept by Seth Godin denoting “leadership and technology”. “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and conncected to an idea.” And undoubtedly, this book is essentially for the tribe of Seth Godin.

I’ll compare, in my honest opinion, this book, Tribes, to the ideal business book that is “easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience”

Ease of Understanding: 7/10: Tribes is a typical Seth Godin’s work, easy language, no mind-numbing models or data, and short. However, the lack of structure is quite frustrating. There is no chapter, no storyline; this book is a cluster of blog posts.

Distinction: 6/10: The outstanding distinction of this book is how Seth Godin made this book feels more like printed blog posts rather than a typical book. He said he cherishes change and heretics; but I believe it has gone too far (or too tiny within his tribe). As for the contents of the book, it is nothing new. It is about leadership (things like communication, passion, or everyone-can-be-a-leader-if-you-want-to) and technology (twitter, facebook, (his) squidoo, yahoo, etc.).

Practicality: 1/10: From his second to last topic (or post), “You made it to the end. And it’s posible you missed the checklists, the detailed how-to lists, and the For Dummies-style introduction manual that shows you exactly what to do to find a tribe and lead it.” he continues “I think that was the point.” This book might inspire and motivate you to change but it does not tell you how. That is Seth’s point, and one point in practicality is fair.

Credibility: 4/10: The words from the marketing guru should be credible and I believe him but I do not believe what he wrote. This book, unlike his previous books, seems like a quick composition. His idea of tribe is not truly refined and he labeled it onto every possible thing, music concert, philanthropy, Barack Obama, Toyota Prius, Wikipedia, Twitter, a restaurant, Steve Jobs, fitness website, rock climbing, or the X prize. We all know that they are succesful but labelling them “this is an Apple tribe”, “this is an Obama tribe”, “this tribe, that tribe” without enough justification is not convincing.

Insightful: 4/10: I would like to state once more that they are a series of blog posts (126 altogether). This book has no in-depth finding or groundbreaking research. However, they are full of intelligent, clever, and somewhat inspring phases like

“This is a book for anyone who chooses to lead a tribe. Inside or out, the possibilities are huge”,

“Leaders have followers, Managers have employees. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change.”,

“…most organizations are waiting for someone like you to lead them.”

“Fans, true fans, are hard to find and precious. Just a few can change everything, What they demand, though, is generosity and bravery.”

“If you’re not over the top, you’re not going to have any chance at all of making things happen.”

Reading Experience: 5/10: If you are in Seth Godin’s tribe, make it 10/10. If you are not, don’t bother. Reading “Tribes” is like reading Seth’s blog, the difference is that it is in a book and it costs money. The contents are very random (surrounding the idea of leadership and technology) and you might be amazed by new and unrelated topics every a couple of pages or you might by annoyed by them.

Overall: 4.7/10: On the criticism of this book, Seth Godin wrote “People might say that it’s too disorganized or not practical enough or that I require you to do too much work to actually accomplish anything. That’s okay. In fact, criticism like that almost always accompanies change.” I feel that this book is useless and then, I am branded change-resistant. I admire lots of Godin’s previous books, his presentations, and continuously read his blog. However, I think this book is way below his standard and the quote from “Tribes” that sums everything up is on page 85

“Boy, are you in trouble. Better get rid of this book.“

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.

Now, I jut found the rhythm of my blog, the discipline I’d keep is to follow Seth Godin’s blog and post as many (related or not). I do think that taking his ideas and build around it would be fantastic.

So, today’s issue “A friend in need” by Seth.

With all respect, I disagree with Seth Godin, he stated “No one in particular will remember how you acted during the boom times.”

I think that his statement is over the top.

Question: Are good times irrelevant?

The reason, I believe, that distinguish the chance to remember in good times and tough times is “the point”.

“What’s your point?”

“What exactly are you doing?”

In tough times, “the point” is obvious, it’s the problem, fix the problem, fix it fast. We can concentrate on the problem because that’s the point. When the economic crisis is taking the world back to the past, talking about the national security is not the point.

In good times, in boom times, the point is less obvious, it’s obscure at best. Finding the point is tough. Most of the times, you lose the point, lose the focus and your “friend” will not remember.

How do you make them remember you in booms?

1. Reinforce positive emotions: most businesses and individuals, during booms, mostly focus on “new”, new options, new opportunities, new offering, new businesses, new products, new services, new people, new alliances and so forth. However, to make them remember, instead of finding new offering, we should evaluate the positivity of our friends. Find the positivity, build an experience, then attach yourself into it.

2. Convince them that this is not a boom time: if trying to find a point in good times is difficult, tell them that this is not a boom time. Tell them the problem and then you’ll have the point, then fix it. I do not recommend this method but starting your point with “Our planet is in peril” seems to work most of the times!

Inspired again by “Marketing lessons from the US election”, Seth Godin

The one thing that I think is the most crucial there is “telling the stories”.

“Telling stories” by Barack Obama led to online donations, permissions, energy from the volunteers from the uncommitted, from tribes.

From Tom Peters’ Re-Imagine

“…an effective leader making the rounds ask one … and only one… question: GOT ANY GOOD STORIES?

Stories… are the “red meat” that animates our “reasoning process.”

Stories… give us “permission” to act

Stories… are photographs of who we aspire to be.

Stories… cause emotional responses.

Stories… connect.

Stories… are us.”

…

Barack Obama’s stories

- Stories of lifes on the street he encountered (he told these stories since primaries and did it emotionally)

- Stories of Red States and Blue States of people who share the same dream, an American dream.

- Stories of change and how everyone of us can change, together.

John McCain’s stories

- Stories of him being a maverick

- Stories of his experience in the senate and in the war (they were like grandkids listening to the war stories from granddads, they were mostly boring, obviously)

- Stories of Obama

- Stories of Joe the Plumber (McCain tried to connect people to Joe the Plumber but it didn’t work, a plumber making $250,000 a year in income does not really relate to most people)

Sarah Palin’s Stories

- Stories of Joe Six-Pack and her records in Alaska, they are always fictional.

…

Obama’s stories win, all the time. His stories are emotional, his stories connect, and his stories are their, Americans, stories.

From my record, the best speech ever in the history of mankind is a man telling a story of his dream, link.

…

According to the book by Robert B. Cialdini, Yes!; “Just because yes is simple and obtainable, we shouldn’t be fooled into believing that anyone can easily secude it from others”

Just now, CNN announced Barack Obama elected president from their projection.

…

Yes, we can…

(Yes, you can, Americans. Now, make the world a better place)

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?

…

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)

…

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

Obviously, lately I’m obsessed with Seth Godin. His blog is influential and inspirational and often triggers my business curiosity with his examples and new ideas.

His latest post in the blog, The same cigarrette as me, talks about “badge”. Basically, when a badge represents a tribe, you sell a lot of your product to that tribe (an insider).

I thought this idea rings a bell in my head and I thought of “personality”.

We’ve always understood that customers are likely to choose a product or service that has similar personality to the customer.

Is it true? Is it not?

If we give examples of personalities of the product and their main customers, there will be hundreds of examples, iPod, BMW, Seth’s blog (I’m a bit over-obsessed already), Barack Obama, Gucci, Sony Vaio.

These examples can represent the personality of the product and the personality of the users.

Are they badges?

.

.

Maybe, maybe not.

I recall when I read Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, a great book indeed.

In part I, the first chapter, “The personality and character ethics”

Speaking of personality, Covey wrote

“Success became more a function of personality, of public image, of attitudes and behaviors, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction. This personality Ethic essentially took two paths: one was human and public relation techniques, and the other was positive mental attitude.”

“Other parts of the personality approach were clearly manipulative, even deceptive, encouraging people to use techniques to get other people to like them, or to fake interest in the hobbies of others to get out of them what they wanted, or to use the “power look,” or to intimidate their way of life.” [emphasis mine]

Strong words

On the other hand,

“…Character Ethic as the foundation of success - things like integrity, huility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule. Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is representative of that literature. It is, basically, the story of one man’s effort to integrate certain principles and habits deep within his nature.”

“The Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.“ [emphasis mine]

So, what I do believe is that the difference between a badge and a wannabe is the “character”.

A company needs to develop its character, breath it, and live it in order to be a badge especially in the times that Google makes everything transparent, you can’t fake here.

Personality, in this era, is irrelevant. No matter how hard you try to make yourself look good, everyone can see it through.

No more “Brand Personality”, embrace “Your Character”

Business as usual isn’t working anymore.

Seth Godin portrays the orthodox business practice trying to embrace the New Marketing as “Meatball Sundae”. Meatball is straightforward and ubiquitious. The New Marketing is whipped cream and a cherry

Part 1 speaks out the difference between the old marketing (mass media, TV, command-and-control) and The New Marketing (fashion, stories, permission and promises)

The highlight of the book is in Part 2, The Fourteen Trends

Trend1: Direct Communication and Commerce Between Producers and Consumers

Trend2: Amplification of the Voice of the Consumer and Independent Authorities

Trend3: Need for an Authentic Story as The Number of Sources Increases

Trend4: Extremely Short Attention Spans Due to Clutter

Trend5: The Long Tail

Trend6: Outsourcing

Trend7: Googl and The Dicing of Everything

Trend8: Infinite Channels of Communication

Trend9: Direct Communication and Commerce Between Consumers and Consumers

Trend10: The Shifts in Scarcity and Abundance

Trend11: The Triumph og Big Ideas

Trend12: The Shift From “How Many” to “Who”

Trend13: The Wealthy Are Like Us

Trend14: New Gatekeepers, No Gatekeepers

Part 3 is “Putting It Together”, it is basically the conclusion with some nice case studies in the final part

What I’m going to tell you is the breakdown of the dimensions of the content of the book into six dimensions: ease of understanding (how easy it is to understand), distinction (how unique it is), practicality (can it be done?), credibility (does it sound true and real or is it from out of nowhere?), insight (Is it deep of is it shallow?), and reading experience

If a book is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience, I consider it an excellent book.

Meatball Sundae:

Ease of Understanding: 8/10: Seth wrote it very simply, each part is divided into small sections (blog-like) instead of a long chapter. 2 points taken due to a maximum use of technological stuffs which can be hard to understand by brick-and-mortar marketers unless he or she read it with an online computer.

Distinction: 7/10: There have been books already about these trends, The Long Tail, far too many books on outsourcing and these technological trends, a famous The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman offers a great insight on this. However, Seth Godin is magical in the sense that he can thread and tie them together.

Practicality: 5/10: Although there are many new and fun things to learn and the 14 trends, he did not offer much on how to ride the trend. I now have a blog, subscribed to Twitter, Squidoo, etc. Now what? The stories mostly stop there

Credibility: 8/10: Seth’s words are honest and real, he wrote about blogs and communication and he is the master at it with examples of successes and failures and a long lists of examples from other sources in a small book.

Insight: 5/10: Since the book is divided into many small chunks, there is no subject that is deep. It is understandable though, this is no Philip Kotler’s textbook.

Experience: 9/10: This book is fun. My feeling was like sitting with Seth Godin himself while he shows me what’s in his laptop and what should we do with our browser.

Overall: 7/10: A very good book on how marketing is and will be and the trends changing the marketing landscape forever but too little on the spot on methods and how-tos.

You know what - I haven’t finished Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae! It should take like 5 hours for normal people. I have to admit, I’m a slow reader and sometimes I read the same thing more than once. Anyway

There’s a phase by Godin that has been ringing in my head since this morning

The shift from “How Many” to “Who”

Advertising is not gauge by how many people do you reach (old marketing), it is “who” do you reach (New marketing).

It’s like a turbocharged market targeting.

In the past, market targeting needs to be done by listing out market segmentation and evaluate which segment(s) is(are) the most profitable and probable for your product(s) or service(s).

And you target them.

Now, with Adwords, the bloody technology does not care about the segments of customers (as long as they are interested in the product or service or something related) and it targets the customers automatically.

To think that I’ve spent many classes and modules in both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree studying STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning)……………

Is it the right time to throw away those textbooks?