A summary of things you should know about Strategy Rules according to David Yoffie: Introduction In this episode David Yoffie takes a deep dive into his book, Strategy Rules, whereRead More
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]]>In this episode David Yoffie takes a deep dive into his book, Strategy Rules, where he unveils 5 five timeless lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs.
In their book Yoffie and his co-author, Michael Cusumano, share the successes, failures, commonalities, and differences of world famous leaders like Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs. The goal of the book is to teach you 5 new strategic rules for doing business, the best practices that come with high-tech entrepreneurship, and how to take your leadership to the next level.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who own or plan on owning a high-tech company and want to learn strategy techniques from the best leaders in the business.
The thing that makes this book different from others is most people write biographies on these particular individuals or they write histories of the companies. There is no book, that I am aware of, that dives deep into looking at three CEO’s, comparing and contrasting them, and trying to understand what they were able to do in similar ways that produced such extraordinary performance. We think that by looking across companies and across great leaders you get a deeper insight. It’s not about the individual personality traits; it’s about the ways they think and the ways they deliver performance.
Like many books we have an introduction and concluding chapter which gives you the high level overview of everything you might want to know. Then we go into and talk about each of the five rules in great depth. For each rule we have a single chapter so you can jump in where needed if you want.
The idea of what we call Look Forward Reason Back is the critical idea that ultimately determines what makes a great strategist. It’s that ability to look ahead, to have a vision, and then figure out what you need to do today to get to that particular end game. It’s also about anticipating what customers are going to need tomorrow, not what customers are needing today and then figuring out what they capabilities are that you have in your organization today that will deliver those customer needs of tomorrow.
The way we begin the book is by trying to first understand how these individuals were different and how they were similar. At a very basic level they could not be more different as individuals. Bill Gates was the classic nerd but grew up in a wealthy family, Andy Groves was a holocaust survivor and made his way to get a PhD in the United States, and we all know about Steve Jobs. But beyond that these individuals had some incredibly important similarities which we think are important for any entrepreneur who wants to be successful. Number one they were incredibly ambitious not just to make money but to build great companies and to change the world. Number two they worked incredibly hard and they also provoked incredible debates inside the company. Finally, they were all slightly paranoid and never took success for granted even when they were doing extraordinarily well.
All three of these individuals were able to build the most valuable companies in the world and the question is how did they do it and this is where the five rules come in. The five rules are what we call Look Forward, Reason Back, Make Big Bets Without Beating the Company, Build Platforms and Ecosystem not Just Products, Exploit Leverage and Power, and Shape the Organization Around Your Personal Anchor.
The first three deals with strategy and the last two deal with tactics and execution. If you want to be a great strategist you have got to be able to do things at a high-level as well as at a much more micro level and ultimately be able to execute. The idea of Look Forward Reason Back is that you got to be able to think several steps ahead into the future and then think about what you have to do today in order to reach that position.
We then break that down into a number of different activities that a great CEO is going to do if they follow these rules. The first one is that you have to start with some vision of where you want to go. This vision becomes critical in driving the success of all of these organizations which we define in great detail.
The second idea is that you got to be able to think big and make big bold bets that could potentially change the game but you have to do it without beating the company.
The third big idea is that you have to build platforms and ecosystems not just products. This is the notion that ultimately its great platforms that win, not great products that always win. The fourth idea is about the tactics and this is the notion that when you’re an entrepreneur you’ve got to be clever, you’ve got to stay under the radar, and you’ve got to employ tactics.
The last critical idea is the idea of how you execute when you have an organization that’s trying to do all these things. Ultimately this is about the CEO figuring out what they really do that is special, what it is that they have in their own capability set that enables them to do things that give them a comparative advantage to help their organization understand what will be successful. The notion here is that if you are going to be a successful CEO or entrepreneur first you have to know yourself and exactly what you can do well and don’t do well. All of these rules were quite similar across all three CEO’s and helped them start as entrepreneurs and ultimately build three of the most valuable companies in the history of the world.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 04:27
“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” – Andy Grove
“Here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to teach you electronics, you’re going to teach me retail. Let’s go walk the mall.” – Ron Johnson
I have been a professor at Harvard for 34 years and my co-author, Michael Cusumano, has been a professor at MIT for about 30 years. I have been involved in trying to understand the world of strategy and specifically the world of strategy and technology since the mid 1980’s. I had the fortunate experience of joining the Intel board of directors in 1989 which gave me an opportunity to meet Andy Grove and then Andy introduced me to Billy Gates and Steve Jobs. Today I continue to work broadly in this field and it has been the core of my research for most of my career.
I wanted to try to understand how an entrepreneur could develop into a leader of a great company and also think about what would lead to great performance. Ultimately when you think about companies that have done extraordinary well, the leaders who have done it better than anybody else have been Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs. And all three of them we know their history from beginning to end and know they have done a really great job. This was an opportunity to dive deep into three extraordinary individuals.
Judo Strategy by David Yoffie
Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter
Buy Strategy Rules by David Yoffie and Michael Cusumano on Amazon today
Visit HBS.edu to learn more about David, his book, and his profession
Follow David Yoffie on LinkedIn
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
Winning the Long Game by Steve Krupp
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Anticipate according to Rob-Jan De Jong: Introduction In this episode Rob-Jan De Jong reveals all his insights on his book, Anticipate, whereRead More
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]]>In this episode Rob-Jan De Jong reveals all his insights on his book, Anticipate, where he discusses the 2 skills that are key to mastering the art of leading others.
In his book De Jong provides a guide with practical techniques and inspirational stories that are designed to show you how to expand your visionary capacity when it comes to leadership. The goal of the book is to help you see things more clearly, rejuvenate your imagination, and manage from a birds-eye view in order to develop a strategic advantage on your competitors.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are managing the operations of a business and need help realigning their management strategy to predict the future of an organization.
My book not only tells you how important having a vision is in a leadership role but more important I explain how you go about developing that vision.
You can read the book straight through or jump in and out where needed.
The core takeaway is that vision is not something you are born with, it’s something you can develop.
The book is broken down into four areas.
The first area is your visionary content – how you go about trading ideas.
The second area is your visionary development – how you go about growing that capacity. Here I propose a developmental framework that really consists of two different dimensions, one is your ability to see things early and the other is how to in a responsible way put that together in a big picture story. I talk about the importance of envisioning multiple futures as you’re developing your big picture through techniques such as scenario planning.
The third area is about yourself and the productive behaviors that you must master in order to make this work. So there are things that you need to reflect on in terms of what builds my capability of doing this from a behavioral and mindset point of view. As you are reflecting on yourself it is equally very important to understand what it is that you stand for as a leader and the things that you truly believe in.
We bring it all together in the fourth area of the book and look at what it requires in order to make your vision fly as you communicate about it. In order for a vision to become powerful you have got to look at three different dimensions which you will find in the book.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 07:06
“Everything is the same until it is not.” – Ellen Langer
I am the father of twin 10 year old boys to whom I am also their soccer coach so I do a lot of work with leadership and put it to practice with 10 year olds. Professionally I work a lot with leadership teams and trying to get them to engage with their strategic agenda. The second thing I do is teach about this subject and I am involved in various executive education programs.
My inspiration comes from about seven or eight years ago while I was doing a lot of work in the field of leadership and at some point I asked the audience what’s the one word you find in the definition of leadership. Immediately they fired back the word vision. From there I asked all these leaders what their vision was and nobody could raise their hand and tell me because they didn’t have one. I didn’t understand how it could be that something we all know is important to have as a leader but yet we don’t have one. That fascinated me and was what inspired me to look into this subject and I wanted to share my discoveries of what I found over the eight years.
Mindfulness by Ellen Langer
Buy Anticipate by Rob-Jan De Jong on Amazon today
Visit RobJanDeJong.com to learn more about Rob-Jan and his book
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Prosperous Leader by Jacob Engel
Winning the Long Game by Steven Krupp
Own Your Future by Paul B Brown
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of a Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Building Your Booming Business according to David Mitchell: Introduction In this episode David Mitchell reveals all his insights on Building Your BoomingRead More
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]]>In this episode David Mitchell reveals all his insights on Building Your Booming Business where he discusses 5 foundations every organization must have to succeed.
In his book Mitchell delivers step-by-step business strategies and advice that will not only take your business to the top, but will help you systemize your business, build an effective team, provide high quality customer experiences, and drive more sales. The goal of the book is alleviate the consequences that come with unmotivated employees, escalating business issues, and an overworked schedule.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who own a business that is experiencing stagnant sales, a lack of employee motivation, and an inability to scale.
In my book I write in a conversational tone so I use a lot of examples both from my own life and from some of my client’s lives. I gather all the information and put it in one place where a business owner can pick it up and have the basic nuts and bolts they need to create a business that’s going to be successful. A lot of the business books that I have found out there are very niche oriented and I wanted a book that ties it all together.
I tried to create a progression that if someone were to sit down and start at page one they could read it all the way through. But I also structured it in a way that you can jump in and out where needed.
In everything that you do in your business you need to be thinking about the next step.
The subtitle of the book is The Five Foundations Every Organization Must Have to Succeed. Everything that I do is built around five foundations which are Marketing, Leadership and Management, Operations, Finance, and Systems and Controls.
I started the book with Marketing and the reason why I started it with this topic is because nothing happens until somebody sells something. We don’t have a business until we put it out on the market and somebody pays us for the value that we provide them. I help the reader walk through everything from defining their product well, understanding who their target market is, pricing it appropriately and also creating marketing strategies that actually encourage action.
When I go into the Leadership and Management section I really dig deep into the leader verses the manager. They are two very different skills, a leader leads people, and a manager is somebody who manages things, processes or systems. But in order to move your organization you have to do both and sometimes you do have to manage people. At the same time you need to help inspire them so I talk about how to do that and how to develop leadership styles that are appropriate for the stage of team development.
Operations are about working with your clients to develop operations and create one that not only delivers a great experience but also is able to deliver consistently.
In the section on Finance I talk about how to get more consistently with your clients and I also discuss cash management.
The Systems and Controls section dives down deep into how to get all of these different sections to talk to each other.
At the end of the book I throw in an extra foundation called Your Personal Foundation. This discusses things like building your integrity and how people don’t judge us on our intentions but rather on what we do. So we discuss how to follow through, time management, and rounding it all out with how to prioritize between work and family.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:48
“As business owners we are plate spinners and as plate spinners we can’t start all 20 of our plates that we are trying to get spinning at the same time.” –Unknown
I am a business coach, consultant, and professional key note speaker. I take an entrepreneurial and business view to business leaders, owners, and entrepreneurs to help them build their business.
As I was working with business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders I found that I was saying the same thing over and over again. So I took the same concepts and principles that I taught to my clients and combined it all in one book.
Leadership and Self-Deception by Arbinger Institute
Buy Building Your Booming Business by David Mitchell on Amazon today
Visit BuildingYourBoomingBusiness.com to learn more about the book
Visit BoomMyBusiness.com to learn more about David and het his weekly business tips
Follow David Mitchell on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
Winning the Long Game by Steve Krupp
Fail Fast or Win Big by Bernhard Schroeder
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
5 Simple Ways Entrepreneurs Can Attract Customers
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Prosperous Leader according to Jacob Engel: Introduction In this episode Jacob Engel reveals all the insights on his book, The ProsperousRead More
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]]>In this episode Jacob Engel reveals all the insights on his book, The Prosperous Leader, where he provides a comprehensive look into how smart people can achieve success independently.
In his book Engel gives you 24 simple, actionable steps to realistically analyze your personal strengths and weaknesses so you can create your own path to economic success. The goal of the book is to help you maximize your strengths while developing the actual skills you need to strengthen your own leadership and management abilities.
This book is perfect for aspiring entrepreneurs who are having trouble cultivating their own unique abilities and need help maximizing their strengths to become effective leaders and smart managers.
I would say what I bring to the table is a few different things. Number one I’ve ran a business myself and been involved in growth so I’ve got the practical experience. The other thing is that everything in my book is practical, useful, and step by step doable for the reader.
Every chapter stands on its own so you can jump around.
If you did not make it through college or didn’t make the A/B grades don’t despair! Read!
One of the greatest challenges that I see with entrepreneurs and business owners is that they seem to be going around and around in circles. Meaning they start a business, have a good concept, they build on it, and then all of the sudden things start to fall apart and they are back to square one. Many entrepreneurs have not figured out what it is that makes them successful or prosperous.
In the beginning of the book I write about the foundations that a person needs in order to build a successful enterprise or organization. I start off with the concept that you have got to know yourself and understand your strengths, abilities, and weaknesses.
The second chapter that I go into is nature vs nurture. Are we nature or do we learn and acquire things as we go through life? What I argue here is that there is a third component and that is called choice. I try to define the different choices that a person can make.
In the third chapter I move over to effective communications. I walk through the three types of communicators which are passive, aggressive, and assertive and each one has its own issues. What you really want to achieve is assertive and effective communication.
In chapter four I talk about emotional intelligence and what that means is when you hire people there a two parts to the hire. There are technical skills and then there are the soft skills. And as a business owner you must know how both of those work.
In chapter six I talk about time management. Time management is a challenge for almost everybody and it’s a great tool for effectively managing your time for yourself and others.
Chapter seven I discuss smartphones and if they are really smart in the work place.
In chapter eight I speak about a very interesting subject which is known today as ADD/ADHD. Many business owners have it; some of them realize it and other don’t. I help coach business owners and managers through the issues of ADD.
In chapter 10 I talk a lot about goals and creating them.
Chapter 11 I speak about critical thinking and how people don’t like to think too much.
I also cover how to be the right type of boss, why every business owner needs a coach, and how to build trust with your people.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 08:57
I was born in Brooklyn New York and still live in New York. My father came to this country with no family, money or language and was lucky enough to find a job in a little spice shop. My dad eventually moved to Brooklyn to open up his own spice shop in 1955. I joined the business in 1975 and we were doing about 10 million dollars in sales which was very significant at the time. My dad passed away in 1995 when the business was doing over a hundred million and eventually the business grew close to two hundred million. I realized that I was in the people business and that intrigued me. Entrepreneurs have great advantages but it also comes with disadvantages and I figured out how to build on our strengths and how to mitigate our weaknesses. And that’s how I got into understanding everything about starting a business, running a business, and building a business.
I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be a writer or a speaker. I was really motivated and inspired by my mentor who is probably one of the greatest people that studied and understands entrepreneurs. He told me to write a book and share my experiences and tips. So I spent about two years writing and rewriting.
Buy The Prosperous Leader by Jacob Engel on Amazon today
Visit TheProsperousLeader.com to learn more about Jacob and his book
Follow Jacob Engel on Facebook and Twitter
For questions contact Jacob via email here
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Lead to Succeed by Chris Roebuck
The Front-Line Leader by Chris Van Gorder
Winning the Long Game by Steve Krupp
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Winning The Long Game according to Steven Krupp: Introduction In this episode Steven Krupp takes a deep dive into his book, WinningRead More
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]]>In this episode Steven Krupp takes a deep dive into his book, Winning The Long Game, where he profiles the strategic leadership tactics of very successful and well-known business leaders.
In his book, Steven takes a creates vivid insights into the leadership discipline by contrasting successful leaders such as Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, and Pope Francis with others who are either mediocre or outright failures. The goal of the book is to teach you how to develop the discipline of strategic leadership in a world of growing uncertainty.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurial managers seeking to become more strategic in order to create sustainable value and inspirational fuel to keep their business running.
I think what makes it different is that we are really looking at the intersection of strategy and leadership. There are countless books on strategy and quite a few on leadership but very few that really look at that intersection. Another way that makes this book different is that we have taken this fuzzy idea of strategic leadership and thinking and we’ve turned it into very concrete tangible behaviors. We also give very specific tools and techniques that leaders can take to become more strategic.
This book can be read from front to back or you can jump in and out as needed.
The big takeaway for me is that everyone can be strategic. There are tips and tools that we can all use to look out further, to challenge assumptions, to make more sense of the data around us, that each of us can apply every day.
One of the things that is interesting about the book is that we start with a story about a fictitious character named Jane. Jane is in the middle of a performance review and has got a lot of positive feedback at the beginning of her review. But then the interview takes a strange turn and Jane learns that she has got some issues and her boss tells her that she’s not strategic enough. The premise of the book is how Jane can become more strategic.
After the opening chapter the book is organized around six disciplines you’ll need. The six disciplines are anticipate, challenge, interpret, decide, align, and learn. The discipline of anticipation is about being able to see sooner and scan wider. In this chapter we give successful stories of different people who have anticipated well and also stories of ones who haven’t.
The next chapter we talk about the discipline of challenge and we start with an unlikely leader for a business book which is Pope Francis. Pope Francis practices two components that we think are the essence of the challenge discipline. He opens the window to let in fresh thinking, fresh ideas, and fresh points of view.
The third discipline is interpretation and that’s about amplifying signals and connecting dots between them.
The next discipline we get into is decisions. There are two things that we think are critical for deciding. One is exploring your options and making sure you don’t rush into a decision and the other important thing is having the courage to make tough choices.
The fifth disciple and the next chapter is about align and that’s really about how to rally people together so that they are on board with you. And also how to bridge differences because there will be miss alignment and competing issues to deal with.
The sixth and final discipline chapter is about the learn discipline which is about experimenting, trying new things, and then diving deep to learn from those.
We bring it all together around one very well-known leader Nelson Mandela. We should how Nelson applies all these six disciplines in his vision of transformation in South Africa.
At the end of each chapter we take a step back and ask ourselves what Jane would do in each of these situations. We give very practical tips, tools, and techniques that people can use to get better at any or all of these disciplines.
“My gift was not knowing.” – Sara Blakely
I am currently the CEO of Decision Strategies International. I have professionally been a psychologist and did a lot of work throughout my career helping organizations become more effective. I have a wife, three kids, and a number of animals.
There are a couple of sources of inspiration. About five years ago I was doing a lot of work with boards on CEO and top executive succession and the issue that came up over and over again was that leaders are going to need to be more strategic. However, having heard that over and over again, what I also learned was that very few people had much of a definition of what it meant to be more strategic. They didn’t have a clear guideline of what that is, how to define it, how to access it, and how to develop it. So the lack of definition and clarity around building this capability combined with the great need were the two sources of inspiration for writing this book.
Abundance by Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis
Buy Winning The Long Game by Steven Krupp on Amazon today
Visit DecisionStrat.com to learn more about Steven and his book
Follow Steven Krupp on LinkedIn and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Lead To Succeed by Chris Roebuck
The Front-Line Leader by Chris Van Gorder
MOXIE: The Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership by John Baldoni
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of a Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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