Archive for Books
What’s Holding You and Your Company Back?
Posted by: | CommentsAre you familiar with the Theory of Constraints (TOC)? If you’re not, the theory (an overall management philosophy) came into vogue post the publication of a book entitled, “The Goal,” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt.
In its most basic form the theory contends that any manageable system (like your business) is hindered from achieving its potential by a very few number of constraints–of which, one, is the major one. While the book focuses on the throughput of a manufacturing concern, the theory has been expanded into a general management philosophy–which can provide major dividends for you and your business.
Without going through the whole process, you can clearly benefit, at the start of this year, by focusing on its basic idea–which is, instead of looking for 50 or 100 constraints that are holding your business back, you want to look for a handful of major constraints–and then narrow those down to your major one.
The easiest visual picture I can off you is that of a pipe. If you have one section that is clogged so that only a dime’s worth of water can flow through it, it doesn’t matter what you do to improve the other area of the pipe. You can expand the diameter of the pipe in those other sections. You could even upgrade those sections from PVC to aluminum to steel to platinum to gold. And it won’t make a difference—until you fix that one point in the pipe that only let’s a dime’s worth of water through.
Likewise, in your business, you have some built in constraints. And until you fix them, you’ll always be hindered from achieving your goals. All other activities will be less effective, until you solve that major constraint.
Now, while I think it’s true that you win games by playing to your strengths (not your weaknesses), the best teams focus some of their attention on alleviating their weaknesses. For example, a football team that has a great passing game and a terrible running game would be foolish to focus their attention on running the ball. They’ll simply lose–and lose a lot. However, if they don’t pick up their running game, they’ll hinder their passing game’s potential.
In other words, too many people make success an either/or proposition. Either you focus on strengths or you focus on building your weaknesses. When, in fact, it should be a both/and. Run with your strengths and shore up your weaknesses.
However, that said, shoring up and focusing on weaknesses can be both demotivating and difficult for an organization and its people–which is why I like the Theory of Constraints. Because the theory doesn’t say focus on all of them, it says, “Focus on the major one.”
So, how do you do that? Well that’s for our next discussion. But for now, I’d recommend that you take out a piece of paper (or open a new document on your computer) and simply ask the question, “What are the major constraints that are hindering me (and my business/organization) from achieving my (our) potential?”
To your accelerated success!
Note: Your constraints could be external or internal, mental or physical, systemic or situational. For example, your constraint could be an individual. It could be a facility challenge. It could be a mental limitation. It could be a technology issue. It could be a reach issue. It could be a conversion issue. It could be a training issue. It could be a financial issue. Etc. Don’t worry about narrowing down yet. Just start thinking about your constraints.
Want to Increase Your Organization’s Speed?
Posted by: | CommentsIf you could speed up the pace at which your people implement and execute your ideas and plans, what would that be worth to you?
For years, I’ve looked for catalytic mechanisms to do just that and have found few. One of the few ideas I had heard about was the idea of holding a daily meeting or daily huddle–which I simply resisted as impractical and unsustainable. 
Now, if you’re my age range or older (I’m 48), you might remember watching LA Law or Murder One and seeing the actors conduct their daily meeting. Or maybe you read Patrick Lencioni’s 2004 book, Death By Meeting (you’ve got to love the title :-) and thought about the idea (I know I did).
However, for me, the person whom I’ve heard harp the most about it is Verne Harnish of Gazelles (the author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits). When I attended Verne’s two day conference on Mastering the Rockefeller Habits this past June, I anticipated that he’d talk about it–and I anticipated that I’d pass on the idea once again. However, while I was right about the former, I was wrong about the later. Let me explain how he won me over.
Verne began by discussing John D. Rockefeller’s daily habit that he and the other leaders of Standard Oil had. They would walk together to work, go their separate ways, and then at noon they’d reconvene and have lunch together. And they did this EVERY DAY. Remembering that John D. was/is, using current dollar amounts, the richest man to have lived, I thought, “That’s a pretty powerful argument for a daily meeting.”
Then Verne asked, “How many of you have the discipline of this man?” (which led to a slide of T. Boone Pickens). He said, “Here’s the daily routine of T. Boone. He has two analysts meet at 5:45 a.m. every day. They review the data from yesterday and overnight and then meet with T. Boone at 6:15 a.m. to present him with their findings. At 6:30 a.m. T. Boone works out and mulls over what they’ve told him. At 7:30 a.m., T. Boone meets with his top executives for breakfast (again every day) to talk strategy. Then at 4:30 p.m. they reconvene and he asks, ”What did we learn today?“
He then went on to talk about other companies like Goldman Sachs, where they convene for meetings twice a day, this time at 6:00 a.m. and again at 6:00 p.m. What was interesting about the Goldman Sachs reference was that, not only do they meet twice a day, their profit per employee is about two and a half times that of their competitors like Merril Lynch ($251K vs. $95K).
Sold! However, Verne had one more nail to nail in my coffin. He then asked, ”If you only meet once a month with your executives to discuss your business and review your metrics, how long is your decision cycle? If you meet once a week, how long is your decision cycle? If you meet daily, how long?“ Then, came the killer close, ”So, in a volatile market, who do you think wins–the team that meets monthly, weekly or daily?“ Doubly Sold!
Now, if you’re like me, you have all kinds of questions like,
- ”How long should we meet?“ (no more than 15 minutes)
- ”When should we meet?“ (whenever you want–just make sure it’s daily)
- ”What should we discuss?“ (Verne suggests, What’s up? What are the metrics? Where are you stuck? But you can use any questions you want–fixed or not)
- ”What if we’re not all available?“ (Everyone who can, should. If you can’t, bring a doctor’s permission slip :-)
- ”What if we’re not all in the same physical location?“ (phones and conference calls work)
However, rather than get bogged down in details, I’d simply encourage you to give it a try for the next sixty days. You’ll figure out the best formula in your organization. But this much I’m convinced of, if you and your team would touch base daily, focus on moving your key initiatives forward (that would be the metrics part), and help each other get unstuck–there’s no question in my mind that you’ll speed up the process of executing your plan and generating more business.
No one likes showing up at a meeting and having to say, ”I’m sorry, I didn’t get that done.“ But when you’re only meeting once a month or once a week, it’s a whole lot easier to swallow than when you’re meeting every day. The accountability of meeting every day is a very powerful tool.
So, when can you start? Today or tomorrow sounds about right!
To your accelerated success!
Steve Jobs’ Presentation Secrets
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’ve ever watched Steve Jobs do a product launch, you know you’ve watched a master communicator. And if you’ve ever wondered if you could ever communicate as effectively as Steve, there’s good news for you. Business Week Small Biz columnist, Carmine Gallo, has just published a book on “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.” And BW, has just run a photo gallery outlining the 15 major lessons from the book.
The ones I found most interesting and can probably help you the most were as follows.
- Plan in Analog – In other words, before Steve and his team move to Keynote (the Mac version of Powerpoint) and other digital options, he starts by creating/writing a storyboard, similar to a movie. And just like any good story teller, he builds anticipation and plans for surprises. When was the last time you did that?
- Focus on Benefits – Even though Steve is usually revealing updates to products, he doesn’t focus on the product. Instead, he focuses his comments on the benefits that come from using that product. Similar to the old adage, “No one needs a drill, everyone needs holes,” Steve keeps drilling down on benefits, as you can see in the following image for why developers should create Apps for the iPhone.
- Create Twitter Friendly Headlines - I love this one. If you look at the number of words on a typical PPT slide, vs. a Jobs’ slide, it’s almost humorous. Steve is notorious for minimalism. So, for example, when he introduced the MacBook Air, the title slide simply said, “World’s thinnest notebook.” Can you position your products with just three to five words?
- Create Visual Slides – I actually watched the webcast when Steve was introducing the MacBook Air and I can remember this slide. The image of a laptop inside an envelope was powerful. Not much more needed to be said. Note also how uncluttered the image is. Take a look at your last Powerpoint presentation. How many words were on your average slide?
- Use Props – Another common feature of most of Jobs’ presentations is that he always does some kind of demonstration. Frequently he sits down at his Mac and then you watch the screen to see in real time something that he’s doing. It might be to demonstrate the ease of creating a movie in iMovie or retrieving a lost file in Time Machine or playing around with new cool app on the iPhone. What can you use besides your voice and PPT slides?
- Practice a Lot – This is one of my favorites. I’m forever telling speakers they need to practice more before they get up to speak. While Steve’s presentations may come off very relaxed and unrehearsed, they’re anything but. He prepares for days for every moment of the presentation. Now, while you may not have days, you should at least run through your talk two or three times before presenting it.
Well, those were my favorite six. But you can see the whole presentation at BW by clicking here. However, don’t forget to print this list of six things out and use it the next time you have to give a presentation. Taking your cues from Steve Jobs isn’t a bad model to follow!
To your accelerated success!
Robert Kiyosaki and Where Change Begins
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know that my first premise for growth is, “No organization can consistently perform at a level beyond the capacity of the senior leader. Therefore, if you want to grow an organization, you need to start by growing the senior leader first.” In essence, “Grow the leader, grow the organization.”
In light of that, you’ll quickly guess why I was so pleasantly pleased this morning when I read an article in Entrepreneur Magazine by Robert Kiyosaki on “You Can Rebuild It.” (July, 2009, p. 28).
Midway through the article, Kiyosaki, using his own company as an example of change (literally reworking the entire fabric of what they do and how they carry out their business–which is good strategic work), makes the following statement.
You’ve got to love that! Kiyosaki gets it. He was using an old model that worked for a while, but in order to remain competitive and grow his organization–especially in this economic climate, he knew something needed to change. And if something was going to change, he knew that “something“ needed to begin with him.
In fact, in the article, he shared three questions he knew he needed to ask himself regularly throughout this change process.
- What am I afraid of doing?
- What am I not saying?
- What can I do better to serve my customers?
Three great questions. Over the course of time, he found a series of answers to those questions that then began to impact his actions. “And once I began to change,” he writes, “the company changed.” Exactly!
Game, set, match!
So, how about you? Where do you need to begin changing so that your company or organization can begin a new growth curve? Remember, “Grow the leader, grow the organization.”
To your accelerated success,
Malcolm Gladwell and Your Chance of Success
Posted by: | CommentsIf you haven’t read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book on Outliers, you may want to soon. While I don’t agree with all his conclusions (the difficult part of using case studies and statistics is that conclusions are subjective), I do think his commentary is fascinating and worth reading.
One of the dominant themes is that what we often attribute to success— the self-made, hard-working, talented individual who rises from the ashes–isn’t entirely correct. There are often other forces in place. For example,
2. If you want to make it big in the computer world, it sure would help if you were born in the mid 1950’s so that you’d come of age when computers were just breaking out of the punch card, one at a time, processing system (Bill Gates, 1955; Steve Jobs, 1955; Scott McNealy, 1954; Eric Schmidt, 1955; Steve Ballmer, 1956).
3. If you want to be a wealthy lawyer in NYC, it helps if you are Jewish and were “banned” from the big white protestant firms (pre-1970’s) so that when litigation and M &A work, especially hostile takeovers (in the 1980’s) became the real deal, you were in position to take over.
4. If you want to be wealthy, it sure would have been helpful to have been born between 1831-1840. Of the top 75 wealthiest people the world has ever known (in current dollars, which make Bill Gates #37, Cleopatra #21 and John D. Rockefeller #1), 20% of them were born within ten years of one another.
So, what’s the takeaway? Well one is the takeaway of choosing to be on the forefront of whatever change is taking place in your time period. Clearly we can’t control the decade we’re born into, but we can take advantage of the change that is happening–and choose to be on the forefront of whatever is happening. My observation is that too many people choose to cling to what they’ve done or focus on what sells now.
However the real winners are those who are willing to part with the past and embrace what’s coming–before everyone else does. Hard-work, talent, discipline, risk, etc. are all critical ingredients to success, but they also need to be tied to time in which we live–and what’s next.
So, in your line of work, what’s the next new thing? Once you decide that, how can you position yourself and your company to be there before everyone else is?
Remember, being number nine in a line of ten lemonade stands is rarely a great place to be. However being number one is!
To your accelerated success!
A Great Business Leader’s Book List
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re an entrepreneur or senior executive of a small or medium-sized business, hopefully you’re regularly reading Inc. Magazine. If not, you should be. I rarely find an issue where I’m not tearing out a few articles to file. And that holds true for this month’s edition, which marks their 30th anniversary.
However, my favorite part of this month’s edition was their article entitled, “The Business Owner’s Book Shelf,” subtitled, “30 books you should read and use.” Of all the book lists I’ve read over the past few years, this may be my favorite. It’s not perfect, but if you’re looking for a list of books to read, you’ll want to click here and read the article (which also gives a short paragraph about each book).
Perusing the list, my baker’s dozen of favorites would be:
1. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter Bernstein (1996)
2. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, by Guy Kawasaki (2004)
3. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson (2006)
6. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, by Michael Gerber (1995)
7. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, by Peter Drucker (1967)
8. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter Senge (1990)
9. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (1999)
15. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton Christensen (1997)
17. The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up, by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham (2008)
21. Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, by Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg (1996)
22. Ogilvy on Advertising, by David Ogilvy (1983)
23. On Competition, by Michael Porter (2008)
30. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, by James Surowiecki (2004)
Google Lessons for Growth
Posted by: | CommentsIf you thought like Google, how differently would you run your business?
In essence, that’s the idea behind Jeff Jarvis’s new book, “What Would Google Do?” (not to be confused with WWJD, though some do confuse the two :-) In a Businessweek (2/9/09) article, Jeff took and applied some of the core lessons from his book to the auto industry (you can read the article by clicking here>>).
However, since most of us aren’t running car companies, I thought I’d just share a few of the core ideas from the article and then let you play with them to apply to your own business. For example,
1. Give up Control. Don’t try to manage everything. Google doesn’t tell us how to do our searches or what to search for. It allows us to play with its technology and find happy accidents. Unfortunately, I watch too many executives and owners trying to control every part of the experience from their staff to technology to customers.
2. Low Prices are Good (Free is Better). Google doesn’t charge for us to use its search engine, nor for some of its most powerful tools, like the Google Optimizer or Google Analytics. It gives away a lot to drive the economic engine in another arena (Adwords). Though I’m absolutely committed to charging for value, there’s nothing wrong at all about figuring out what you can give away for free. The give to get strategy is alive and well–and in Googles case worth billions.
3. Release Experiments in Beta. Unlike some of us (me included) who prefer to release in full functioning perfect form, Google is willing to release new ideas in beta and then let’s users determine what to keep or change–or even if it should exist at all. Again, my observation is that too many of take too long to release ideas because we’re continually tweaking them (i.e. trying to perfect them), when we ought to be getting them out there and then letting our customers help us make them better.
4. Create Feedback Loops. Following on the heels of the point three, the only way to continually improve is to continually receive feedback (which too few of us do). Google excels at this by making it easy to make comments and by aggressively seeking out customer feedback. Even more impressive, they actually want it :-).
5. Manage Abundance, not Scarcity. Google doesn’t try to limit its exposure. The more content it can organize and the more places it can put ads, the better. Unfortunately, too many of us believe there’s a limited amount of opportunity out there and therefore spend way too much time trying to protect what we’ve got. Instead, we ought to think abundance and see opportunity everywhere.
6. Open Up Your Design Process. Google is all about collaboration, not secrecy. So why not open up your design process and allow your customers to help you design what you sell, so they can then buy the very thing they helped you design? What a novel idea!
So, as you look at your context, in your business, which of these Google lessons do you need to apply in order to help you grow your business faster?
Great Quotes from Seth Godin’s book, Tribes
Posted by: | CommentsI don't know about you, but I love collecting quotes from the books I read. After reading a book, like Tribes,
I like to go back through and make my own summary of thoughts, action points, and quotes from the book. In the case of, Tribes, here are some of my favorite quotes. I hope they stimulate your thinking like they do mine!
"If you want us to follow you, don't be boring! "Good enough," stopped being good enough a long time ago. Why not be great?"
"Management seeks to maintain the status quo, to deliver average products to average people . . . but life's too short to make mediocre stuff."
"Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead. If you're not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, you're not reaching your potential."
"You don't need to convince everyone. All you need to do is motivate people who choose to follow you."
"Ultimately, people are most easily lead where they want to go anyway."
"'Most people' don't matter so much. You can't can't grow by going after 'most people'"
"Heretics understand that changing the status quo is not only profitable, but fun!"
"When you fall in love with 'the system,' you lose the ability to grow."
"Ordinary thinking and ordinary effort are almost never enough to generate leadership."
"The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail along the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success."
"The longer you wait to launch an innovation, the less your effort is worth."
"If your organization requires success before commitment, it will have neither."
"Perfection is an illusion."
If you haven't read, Tribes, yet, go to the link in the left hand column (under Books I've Been Reading) and click on the cover. You'll be glad you did.
But, more importantly, go back through this list of quotes and ask, "Which one(s) do I need to listen to today?" Then act on it(them)!
So, are you ready to create your own Tribe?
Ready to Create Your Own Tribe?
Posted by: | Comments
Seth Godin has done it again. Last week, while on vacation, I finally got a chance to read Seth's book entitled, "Tribes," and loved it. The basic premise is that throughout history, tribes (composed of a leader, a group and an idea) have primarily been ruled by geography.
However, the internet has changed all that. Now, someone from Niles, OH can lead a "tribe" of people from India, Brazil, Sweden and Sacramento. That said, even though the internet has made this a possibility, Seth's argument is that the world is still in need of more leaders. In essence, Seth, the marketer, has written a short treatise on leadership in the internet age.
While, I'd clearly encourage you to read, Tribes, for yourself, you can start asking the basic questions he raises without doing so. For example,
- What group of people do you know who need leadership?
- Do they have a pressing need that they want met/healed/solved?
- What are you passionate about?
- What groups of people from your past do you connect with best?
- What do they need to hear or do or think, that would help them?
As business leaders, Seth, gives us all a great challenge. In this new wired age, how can we best express our leadership gifts, now that geographical boundaries are irrelevant?
Can you imagine what could happen for your business if you created a tribe of people who were all looking to you (or you and your company) to provide them with leadership and solve their problems? Whether you're a personal trainer or the CEO of a publishing company, an Executive Director of a Performing Arts Center or the Managing Partner of a Law Firm, the impact could be incredible.
So, are you ready to create your own tribe? I hope so! Because there are plenty of people who are counting on you to answer the call.
P.S. Seth doesn't really dig into this, but tribes are very profitable! Why? Because tribe members (i.e. fans) tend to buy more, pay more and tell more people about you and your company. So, what are you waiting for? Go start your own tribe!
P.P.S. Seth's book, Tribes, is the twelfth book down on my list of "Books I've Been Reading" in the column to the left of this column.
Bird by Bird, Step by Step
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the great joys of blogging is that the blogosphere is filled with delicious morsels that pop up in unexpected places. The other day, I was flowing a series of blog links when someone mentioned a book by Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, which isn’t about birds, but writing. In fact, the subtitle of the book is, "Some Instructions on Writing and Life."
A week later, I was in Borders when I came across this little book and, because I had read something positive about it in a blog, picked it up and started to read it. And have found it to be a delightfully wonderful, thoughtful and inspiring book.
Now, as to the title, it comes from an experience her brother had with their father.
"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead of him. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."
What a great image and phrase for those of us in ministry. The hugeness of the task ahead of us can be immobilizing. Trying to build a life-giving church is a daunting task. Rarely does a plan ever work out the way we intend it to. People are people. Budgets are budgets. Ministry is ministry. Expectations are expectations. Satan is Satan. Evil is evil. Conflict is conflict. And the great commission still lays in front of us every day.
So, how do we overcome the feeling of being immobilized?
Well, one way is to think, "Bird by bird." Books are not written as books—they’re written as words that form paragraphs that form pages that form chapters that form books. The key to writing a book, says Anne Lamott, is thinking, "Bird by bird." Don’t worry about the whole. Just do the small task in front of you. Likewise, successful ministries aren’t built overnight. They’re built "bird by bird."
So, whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed with having too much to do, maybe you might like to forget thinking about the whole. And instead think, "Bird by bird I can do this." Because you can. Hang in there! God is faithful!!