www.viewpoint.net.nz - NZ Transport, Aviation, Logistics & Supply Chain Blog

Empowerment a catchphrase from the 90s?

Finally a book from Ken Blanchard that takes more than one minute to put into place. Unfortunately it is still narrative and it would be great to read about a real company that really existed that made these things happen.

I brought the book because I was working on our strategies for the year ahead and noticed it talked about sharing information (something we do OK at) and creating boundaries (something we are currently working on). I hoped it would be something I could read with my team but as a story it is just to slow moving.

It lacks what John Allen calls "intellectual curiosity"

Did I enjoy it, not overly. Did I learn something? I always do.

Below is a summary of the book from a diagram call "The Empowerment Game Plan"

Click Image to see in full size

Book Summary

Empowerment - Takes More than a Minute
Ken Blanchard

Genres          Management, Empowerment
Pages           135
Readability     2 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment     3 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

The Google Story

Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google as a research project while studying at Standford University. From there they have grow Google into a worldwide household name and one of the largest companies (by market value, not revenue or employees) in the world.

The Google story follows the incredible rise of the company, its culture of innovation and its “Don’t be evil” philosophy. The growth in the Google business is mind blowing, for me at least. Founded in 1998 here is their revenue growth

Google’s Revenue History

Year	Revenue (US$ in millions)
1999	$.2
2000	$19.1
2001	$86.4
2002	$440
2003	$1,466
2004	$3,189
2005	$6,139
2006	$10,604

Google is an only in America story. You simply couldn’t have build a company like this in New Zealand for 3 very clear reasons:

1. Our IT network simply wouldn’t be able to handle the volume and you would have to move off shore in your 1st or 2nd year.
2. We simply would have enough IT people available to be employed to build the system.
3. In the 2nd year they raised $25million (about NZ$48million at the time) in Venture Capital. You would not raise that sort of money in NZ.

All that said, it is a remarkable story and has some key lessons:

1. Keep your project teams to 3 – 5 people. Anything more slows down innovation.
2. They have a 20% rule to drive innovation. Their engineers spend 1 day a week working on any project or idea they like. If it is good enough it may get funded and launched as a product.
3. An awesome employee culture meant they employed people for less and stole people from other huge companies in their formative years. Without it they probably wouldn't have made it.

Book Summary

The Google Story
David A Vise

Genres             Google, Business
Pages               325
Readability       4 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment        4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Finally, now that I have read the Google Story it makes me think it would be almost impossible to take on Google in their core brand (not that I was thinking about it). I still think some of the lessons of my previous post apply, but it fails to acknowledge just how intelligent the founders of Google are.

Get your FREE PRIZE here

Free Prize Inside follows on the back of  'Purple Cow' and 'Unleashing the Ideavirus'. Seth Godin again does a great job of provoking a review of how we conduct our marketing and challenges us to create remarkable businesses. He introduces two new terms 'a Free Prize' and 'Egdecraft'

A free prize is an idea, an innovation or an add-on to your existing service that makes your product more remarkable. It is ideas that are so simple that they make people talk about your service, and this leads to an ideavirus.

Edgecraft is the craft of finding ideas that are innovative enough to take you to the edge and beyond. It acknowledges that to be noticed you need to be different, and to be different you need to be edgy in your industry.

Here are some quotes:

'If people aren't blown away, they won't talk about it. If they don' talk about it, it doesn't spread fast enough to help you grow.'

'Edgecraft is an iterative process that is much easier for an organization to embrace than brainstorming.

There are hundreds of available edges, things you can add to, subtract from or do to your product or service. Find an edge and go all the way to it. Going partway is time-consuming and expensive-and it doesn't work very well. Going all the way to the edge is the only way to jolt the user into noticing what you've done. If they notice you, they're one step closer to talking about you.

It's all marketing now. The organizations that win will be the ones that realize that all they do is create things worth talking about.'

Book Summary

Free Prize Inside
Seth Godin

Genres          Marketing, Management, Ideas
Pages            235
Readability    3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

You can download "Unleashing the ideavirus' for free here. Or you can check out Free Prize Inside here. Oh and there is a Free Prize in Seth's Book as well. If you enjoy ideas and stretching your thinking, READ IT.

Delegation meets the Monkey

The One Minute Manager meets the Monkey is, as the title suggests, another in the One Minute Manager series. Like the rest of the books, it is written in a narrative style with lessons along the way. This makes it easy to read but because the people are fictional you often wonder if a real person can implement everything taught the in book.

The storyline, for want of a better description, is about a manager who is over worked, doing long hours, stressed and as a result is a poor leader. He discovers that the reason for this is actually monkeys. Monkeys are tasks or problems that people below him should be handling and resolving, except he continues to say "I will sort that out for you".

The man in the story, learns to leave the problems and tasks on his people's back and helps them with direction. Effectively it is a story of delegation and coaching, so here are the 4 lessons of the monkey:

Rule 1: Describe the Monkey: the dialogue must not end until the appropriate "next moves" have been identifies and specified.

Rule 2: Assign the Monkey: All monkeys shall be owned and handled at the lowest organizational level consistent with their welfare.

Rule 3: Insure the Monkey: Every monkey leaving your presence on the back of one of your people must be covered by one of two insurance policies:

1. Recommend, the Act
2. Act, then Advise

Rule 4: Check on the Monkey: Proper follow-up means healthier monkeys. Every monkeys should have a checkup appointment.

In summary, it was an easy read with some timely reminders about getting your people to solve their own problems.

Book Summary

The One Minutes Manager meets the Monkey
Ken Blanchard

Genres          Management, Coaching, Delegation
Pages           130
Readability     2 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment     4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

74 of the toughest questions in business today

Jack Welch was chairman and CEO of the General Electric Company from 1981 to 2001.  He generally regarded as one of the top CEO's of his time and was recongised for his candid straight up view of doing business. This book follows on from his previous book "Winning" and answers just 74 of the questions that he has been asked as he has toured.

Many of the chapters serve as timely reminders, other chapters blew my mind with the scale of multinational business and a few chapters I just out right disagreed with.

Below is an excerpt taken from the last chapter:

Winning, actually, doesn't have anything to do with markets. Or we should say, it doesn't have to have anything to do with them. By our definition, winning is a personal journey. It's about you as an individual setting a goal and achieving it. That goal could be creating and supporting a happy, healthy family. It could be founding or funding a homeless shelter. It could be teaching children to read; it could be sailing around the world.

And then again, it could be building thriving company that succeeds in the global marketplace.

Winning is about reaching the destination you chose. It is not necessarily about profit, though it can be. But winning is, at its most fundamental, about making something of your life. It is about progress and meaning. It is about achievement.

If you enjoyed reading "Winning", then this book is a great follow on, and is worth reading.

Book Summary

Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today
Jack and Suzy Welch

Genres         Business, Leadership, Winning
Pages           272
Readability   3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Getting the best people

So you have a goal to build a strong employer brand. Great idea, but as you know that is easier said than done.

How does a medium sized company in the transport and logistics industry compete for great people against what can be seen as more sexy and edgy industries?

Well I am reading Jack Welch's book at the moment "Winning: The Answers". In the book Jack details the six critical factors for getting the best people.

1. Preferred employers demonstrate a real commitment to continuous learning.
2. Preferred employers are meritocracies. Pay and promotions are tightly linked performance, and rigorous appraisal systems consistently make people aware of where they stand.
3. Preferred employers not only allow people to take risks but also celebrate those who do. And they don't shoot those who try but fail.
4. Preferred employers understand that what is good for society is also good for business.
5. Preferred employers keep their hiring standards tight.  They make candidates work hard to join the ranks by meeting strict criteria that centre around intelligence and previous experience and by undergoing an arduous interview process.
6. Preferred companies are profitable and growing.

It's that easy! Well maybe? Interestingly enough though, this checklist could be applied to warehouse staff, truck drivers and senior managers. Have another look.

Oh, by the way he says it will take years, if not decades.

If you are interested you can listen to a podcast from Jack & Suzy on the same topic here.

Never read "Hello Laziness"

In France 1 in every 5 people are employed by the state. Employment and business law is so regulated that growth is minimal. There is little being done to encourage start-up businesses and when a change to labour laws was suggested 1,000,000 people marched (and rioted) against them.

It is against this backdrop that I review the book "Hello Laziness" by Corinne Maier. I brought the book because I thought it was the sort of book I should read before I gave it to anyone (something I will not be doing).

The author appears to be bitter, anti business and discourages employees from taking ownership and learning new things. An example is the first of the authors commandments:

"Salaried work is the new slavery. Remember that work is not a place for personal development. You work for your pay cheque at the end of the month, full stop."

I am glad I don't live in France (from a business point of view).

The irony is that the author would probably say, that as a business owner, I am exactly the sort of person you should be wary of.

Book Summary

Hello Laziness - Why hard work doesn't pay
Corinne Maier

Genres        Business, Being a lazy employee.
Pages         121
Readability   3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    1 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

What does a Purple Cow have to do with Marketing?

"Very Good" is not being "Remarkable" is the single biggest thought I will take out of the book 'Purple Cow' by Seth Godin. It has significant implications to my business and will drive me to explore being more remarkable and ingenious in the services we provide as I think we are often Very Good.

'Purple Cow' is about making sure that your business is offering remarkable services.

It talks about traditional advertising basically being less effective and in most cases totally ineffective, and then offers insights into making your business remarkable. It is a thought provoking book and is (by default of marketing generally) targeted more towards product development that service based business. A key quote for me is:

"The opposite of 'Remarkable' is 'Very Good'

Ideas that are remarkable are much more likely to spread than ideas that aren't. Yet so few brave people make remarkable stuff. Why? I think it's because they think that the opposite of 'Remarkable' is 'bad' or 'mediocre' or 'poorly done'. Thus, if they make something very good, they confuse it with being virus worthy.

If you travel on an airline and they get you there safely, you don't tell anyone. That's what's supposed to happen. What makes it remarkable is if it's horrible beyond belief or if the service is so unexpected (they are an hour early or comp my ticket because I'm cute) that you need to share it.

Very good is an everyday occurrence and is hardly worth mentioning.

Are you making or doing very good stuff? How fast can you stop?"

Purple Cow - Page 67

Seth recently had an article in the Guardian which he posted on his blog called "How to be Remarkable". It is a great summary of thoughts from his book and blogs. READ IT!

Book Summary

Purple Cow - Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable ^
Seth Godin - www.sethgodin.com

Genres        Marketing, Business, Product Development
Pages         142
Readability   3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)