SMALL GIANTS: COMPANIES THAT CHOOSE TO BE GREAT INSTEAD OF BIG BY BO BURLINGHAM

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The author shared his new discovery about companies that have resisted the temptation to grow if it meant compromising their mission for growing. He tagged these companies as companies that choose to be great instead of big because they choose to focus on well-conceived core values coined round their employees, communities, and customers. This idea counters a business’s believe of rapid growth and stockholder performance in small businesses. Small giants in this context are businesses that maintain their personality and core focus without bending to the siren song or potential merger or public stock offerings. The most exciting part of Small Giants is the unique part these businesses take to grow and stay dominant while retaining their popularity. 

The 14 companies Burlingham studied demonstrate a sustained success customer, competitors, and external observers are drawn to most notably the resistance of selling out and growing merely to get that proverbial “next level.” Instead, they remain dedicated to their employee driven culture and communities, which created their success. Companies such as Cliff Bar and Co. owned by Gary Erikson would rather work at the eleventh hour than sell his business to a large food conglomerate.

Often, small business owners are passionate that they would instead choose quality over profit. Employees in these companies tend to be more motivated, focused on quality and passion rather than only maximizing profit and meeting sales targets. Therefore they tend to have more loyal employees and significant local ties with communities. 

Small giants have a soul. They have an excellent working environment that has been cultivated from early on and elusive quality that is intriguing, meaningful, and exciting for employees. The most important reason for this is the drive for outstanding quality. The small business owner could achieve that. At Zingerman’s Deli, all employees have a passion for great cooking. This event helps them understand and consider factors that many other companies might count as unimportant, such as the smell of food. They are the company’s best fans, putting themselves in the place of potential customers.

In addition, small business owners take their time in selecting the perfect location that will significantly impact the experience of customers who visits. Such devotion to setting and locating their business rightly is one of the reasons why they are often happy where they are with no desire to change location. Above all, there must be a fitting reason why small businesses choose to stay put, delivering the highest quality service if concentrated networks of partners can be developed. 

In conclusion, Bo Burlingham helped his readers to understand what Small Giants are made up of and how small businesses can grow to be one. The author shared his thought about small giants to be businesses that have chosen to stay true to their ideals rather than choose growth and compromise their mission. They are passionate and more concerned about what they do and focused on doing it exceptionally well. Following this little principle has made them very successful. This book will help you to discover a more excellent way to make your business successful. It also depends on you whether you will prefer to chase quality rather than growth or vice versa.

THE BIG THREE – KEYPOINTS

Key Point #1: Small Giants have a soul

Key Point #2: Owners of small giants retain control of their company so they can do what they love

Key Point #3: Small Giants understand employee’s satisfaction and motivation.

One Last Thing

“Busyness is certainly one of the reasons that owners don’t think about whether or not their journey is taking them to a place they really want to wind up. They’re constantly preoccupied—it goes with the territory—and figuring out the ultimate destination doesn’t seem particularly urgent alongside, say, meeting the next payroll or landing the next big customer” -. Bo Burligham

ONLY THE PARANOID SURVIVE How to exploit the crises point that challenge every company BY ANDREW S. GROVE

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In this book, the former CEO of Intel Corporation, Andrew Grove, describes the major crises Intel suffered from his experience at running Intel. He introduces a strategic model that can be used to thrive and adapt to crises. He tagged this strategy SIPs or Strategic Inflection Point, a strategy that can be implemented to bring out the most from a company’s sink moments. The author also describes the strategic inflection point as a point when balances of forces shift from old structure and way of doing business to new. 

There are three different forces that may cause SIP, which include: 

1. Strength of competitor (i.e. competitors’ focus and funding. Are they well-funded? Do they have a clear focus of the business?)

2.Strength of Suppliers (are they so much that the business has a lot of choices or are they few such that they have the business by the throat), existing customers( are there a lot or few of them and what is their demand rate?), potential competitors ( this is about those that are not competing yet but have the potential to join the competition when it becomes favorable) 

3.Substitution (are there other substitutes for your product/service? If yes, this is more deadly), and lastly, complementor (does your product have a complement and how powerful and complementary are they). 

 

A strategic inflection point is also a time in the business trajectory cycle when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can either be an opportunity for a company to thrive or collapse. SIPs are likely to be caused by technological change when not maximized or competitors when they become more efficient or deliver more value. It can be a threat when ignored. An example of such change was IBM, when consumers could easily handpick computer parts such as microchips, drives, software, and build a customizable PC for themselves. IBM didn’t see this coming, so they did not compete well with companies that sold individual components. Some of these changes are hard to track, more reason why companies have to be on a lookout for any changes in a proactive way.

Intel adopted the SIP strategy, and that was what changed them into Microprocessor Company. They became a market leader in a short time. The need for strong leadership at this point cannot be underestimated. Strong leadership is needed to remain focused and relevant. Organization CEO’s need to be cautious of changing the core of the business. Especially because human beings get emotionally attached to past and present processes, to avoid staff getting emotionally attached to the current state of business, a lot of staff have to go, and others will have to be retrained for the new position. Some existing employees of companies get glued to the old way of doing things because a person’s work is part of the person’s self-image. Therefore changing the nature of a person’s job puts their personality in question, which is more reason why companies prefer to bring in external consultants to analyze their business with fresh objective of view.

The author also identifies the need for effective communication in an organization. A company should gladly open up to both leaders, managers, and subordinates about new product development to remain competitive. Middle management is, most times, the first to identify a business problem, have ideas on how to improve the process, and have a solid bead on daily operation. A flexible team builds a trusting environment for new ideas to develop and prosper. A flexible and versatile workforce is always challenged to be creative. 

In conclusion, Managers and employees should have a clear communication to and from leadership and middle management. Also, getting a consultant for objective opinion will go a long way when SIP occurs.

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS

Key point #1: SIPs does affect not only the CEO but also a significant concern for the employees in an organization

Key point #2: SIP could either result in a catastrophe for a company or open a tremendous opportunity.

Key point #3: If SIPs are adopted at just the right time, then the company gets the opportunity to lead an entirely new market.

One Last Thing

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis; Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them. – Andrew Grove

THE EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE

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The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done

BY PETER F. DRUCKER

The book, Effective Executive, written by a renowned management specialist and a classic theorist is best pick for working professionals who want to elevate their effectiveness a million, and one notches higher. The author, Peter Drucker, began by explaining the importance of effectiveness to an executive. An executive in this context includes both manager and leaders who is expected to make a decision by virtue of their position, and have significant impact on the performance or result of the company. An executive is expected to be better equipped with the right knowledge and competence that can help make the right decision at the right time. Effectiveness is the primary function of the executive. It is a habit that can be learned, moreover; Peter Drucker points out seven  habits of the mind that must be learned and acquired to be an effective executive. These habits include:

1. KNOW THY TIME: Executives start their day off by planning their task, but effective executive starts their day off by recording actual time use and disposing of this little time in large chunks. Also, of high importance is the ability to fish out unproductive, time-wasting activities and possibly get rid of them knowing that time is a limiting factor; it has to be managed effectively. This can be done by asking oneself, “what do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness.” If this question can be answered truthfully, a chunk of your time will be retrieved.

2. WHAT CAN I CONTRIBUTE?: This is a question that stresses on responsibility. Most executives focus on what the organization owes then or should do for them. Any professional that emphasizes his downward authority is a subordinate no matter how exalted his rank is. On the other hand, any professional who takes responsibility and focuses on contributions no matter how junior is an effective executive. To be an effective executive, you must always ask yourself what you can contribute to avoiding aiming at the wrong things. Every organization needs performance in three major areas: it needs direct results, the building of values and their reaffirmation, building, and developing people of tomorrow. All these three organization needs have to be built into the contribution of every executive.

3. MAKING STRENGTH PRODUCTIVE:  An effective executive maximizes all available strength: the strength of subordinates, strengths of associates, the strengths of a superior, and one’s own strength. They understand that where there is strength, there will always be weaknesses; therefore, focuses more on strength than weaknesses. They delegate the task to individuals base on what they can do best and taking into account their functional qualities. 

4. FIRST THING FIRST: Effective executives tend to focus on one thing at a time and understand the need to concentrate time, effort, and resources at greater and major opportunities. The author made his readers understand that the more you can concentrate resources, strength, and time on a singular point of application, the more you can achieve a number of important tasks at a much less time. The secret of focus is to establish posteriorities. Establishing posteriority means choosing tasks that should not be done and sticking to it. This can be done by choosing the future over the past, focusing on possibilities rather than problems, and aiming at something significant rather than a goal that is easy and safe to achieve.

5. THE ELEMENT OF DECISION: Effective executives think clearly and deeply before making a decision. They understand that problems are symptoms of underlying situations; therefore, one of the great strategy an effective executive implements is understanding the leading cause of a problem. Also, they understand that the thing one worries about never happens.

6. EFFECTIVE DECISIONS: Effective executives understand that to decide is based on choosing from opinions, then measuring the effectiveness of the action based on one or more predetermined criteria or feedback. 

7. UNDERSTAND MANAGEMENT VS. LEADERSHIP: Effective executives understand that management its a tool for accountability for the day to day operations, and leadership is the road to build a better future for the organization and the people trusted to them. An effective executives, build trust and guidance for the day to day management, but his attention should be fully focused on the future.

In conclusion, to be an effective executive, one must record where the time goes, focus your vision on contribution, focus on using your strength and making it productive, prioritize the most important task first and take rational action. 

 

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS

Key point #1: Effectiveness can be learned

Key point #2: Effective executive record, manage, and consolidate time.

Key point #3: The effective executive does not focus on minimizing weakness but maximizing strength.

One Last Thing

“Most effective executive is entrepreneurs, entrepreneur, and entrepreneurship – the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” -Peter Drucker

 

VALUE AS A SERVICE: EMBRACING THE COMING DISRUPTION

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Rob Bernshteyn, Chief Executive Officer and President of Coupa, gives a step-by-step manual for today’s business leaders on how they can better provide and measure the delivery of value to customers. The writer was driven by the desire to create dialog and industry about where things are going based on a lot of quantifiable successes, he alongside his group has generated in Coupa with their customers. The book summarizes the new standard brewing in business and examines how companies are gravitating offerings that offer a value to customers. Successfully delivering Value as an Agency requires a brand new sort of relationship between sellers and clients, one that’s results-based, as opposed to a transactional exchange of services and goods for money.

It is more of a partnership where both parties are permitted to support each other as well as hold each other responsible for achieving measurable results they have both agreed upon. Rob went further to explain regions of change which will be required for a business comprising of individuals with a different skill to offer value as a service. Given that change is difficult and any type of business transformation generally encounters change immunity and making this change is the hardest portion of transitioning to value as a service, the right leadership ability is required to lead the business through.

Among the key elements needed according to Rob is the leader needs to work to instill a set of core values that the full company will also ascribe to be willing to work with. Signing up for value starts from your first commitment to your prospects. They ought to get a feeling of the value clients are achieving utilizing your service. Sales discussions should focus not only on features and functions, product demonstrations or product benefits. Instead, they ought to start as authentic and receptive learning sessions about the customer’s strategic management, assets and needs. Rob describes one  Coupa strategy which has helped the organization sell value as a service.

He said, ”it is a policy from our business to sign a contract but to achieve an agreement on particular business success standards that we’ll work together to attain. In our line of business, a typical arrangement could be that together we’re going to save a hospital network $50 million on syringes, scrubs, bed linens, IT and maintenance and cut their order fulfillment and processing time by 60 percent. By working together to set these very specific, quantifiable goals, we’re already setting the tone for another type of relationship.” This effort has to be supported through an internal culture of value creation that is based on worker empowerment. In Value as a Service world, the two parties involved should remain focused on what they’re currently attempting to do together. This is where workers need the culture behind them. To get the best from your employees and clients, you want to create this culture.

And building this culture starts with clearly and frequently communicating the company values. Leadership should communicate them repeatedly until they’re tired of repeating them, and at that point, they should keep repeating them. To deliver Value as a Service, you should be able to put a greater burden of responsibility on staff members. That’s why they need a strong structure and culture supporting them. Skills are easy to learn, once you’ve made the mental shift. It’s the mind shift that delivers the value for both companies, and everyone involved.

Value as a service is an illumination of the future of business exchange, i.e. quantifiable value. You either provide it and compete or offer vague assurance, busy work and mere customers’ satisfaction on the road to irrelevance.  We no longer live in a world of product or services. Customers seek outcomes and brands promises is paramount. Value as a Service precisely highlights this shift to an outcome-based value approach and provides a roadmap on how to excel in a future of quantifiable value.

The Big Three – Key Points

Key point # 1: Leadership needs to work to instill a set of core values that the full company agrees to work with.

Key point #2: Good product and excellent customer service are no longer enough. Constant and never-ending enhancing your value are the key.

Key point #3: Value as a Service starts and ends with leadership.

One Last Thing

“What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tail wind is now a headwind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.” – Jeff Bezos

THE LEADERSHIP GAP: WHAT GETS BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR GREATNESS

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Lolly Daskal, executive coach for his work, has found that leaders can improve on themselves and their results from identifying their distinctive leadership archetype and recognizing its own shadow. People are inclined to cover their very own default option and address difficult situations in ways that worked for them in resolving the matter, the worst strategy. Humans are receptive to change adaptation is really important to achieve one’s peak point in today’s changing world. Among the many reasons why many leaders get stuck is because they rely on what’s worked for them in the past even when it is no longer working.

On the flip side, fantastic leaders look for opportunities to learn and develop to serve the people they lead a lot better. Daskal, in her book, explores the seven archetypes of professionals by diving into why each exhibit abilities and corresponding expansion blocking gaps. She further provides the readers with guidance as they voluntarily seek to spot the negative and positive traits that are important within themselves. From this section, readers earn clarity into the potency and the fighting part of their leadership style and how to better adapt and pursue success as a leader. The writer focuses on seven leadership archetypes that are:

  1. The Rebel: somebody who’s driven by confidence backed up by proficiency.
  2. The Explorer: somebody who’s fueled by intuition. The Truth Teller: somebody who embraces candor.
  3. The Hero: somebody who’s courageous.
  4. The Inventor: Someone teeming with ethics.
  5. The Navigator: somebody who trusts and is trusted.
  6. The Knight: Someone whose loyalty is everything.

Everybody fits to the leadership gap. These gaps, when entirely concentrated on, leads us into the shadow side and tends to manifest itself by overuse of your strength. This evolves from the thought where leaders and workers are urged to concentrate only on their strength. Ones we have the ability to accept your power with the darkest part without bias, we may start to make a path ahead.

The author sees the leadership gap as the most successful victim of their very own success and struggles except they identify and comprehend what they really need to know. No person is perfect, but we may be the best version of ourselves. And being the best version of yourself comes along with us, recognizing our leadership gaps, use our knowledge in a new way and also stay in our bliss. A leader can be both even a collapse and an unbelievable victory. By understanding this, you are able to take charge of your very own fate and that of your staff or organization by merely identifying your gaps and finding the solutions to overcome them.

To conclude, being a leader is difficult, as well as a leader, you’ll find yourself in dark and difficult times. In these conditions, you now have what you want to choose the light over the darkness by making use of the leadership archetype the situation needs.  The rebel, explorer, truth teller, hero, inventor, navigator, and knight; we have them all in us.

THE BIG THREE – KEYPOINTS

Key point #1: To get to our greatness, we have to leverage our gaps

Key point #2: Who we are is affected by the choices we make.

Key point #3: Greatness is available to all of us.  We just have to choose it.

One Last Thing

“Within each of us are two competing sides, a polarity of character. Only one leads to greatness.”

― Lolly Daskal, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness

THE GIG ECONOMY: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO GETTING BETTER WORK, TAKING MORE TIME OFF AND FINANCING THE LIFE YOU WANT.

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The Gig Economy is a unique guide for livelihood examination professionals and anyone who’s ready to utilize their professional background and experiences to construct a brand new career path that achieves satisfaction both personally and professionally by integrating more work lifetime stability, improved suppleness, more safety, and greater potential.

From Uber into the presidential debates, the gig economics has been ruling the top billing.  Today, more than a 3rd of People in America are working at the gig economics, integrating together short term jobs, contract work, and independent assignments. For all those who have figured out the principle, life has not been better.

The Gig Economy provides suggestions about the way to earn a living beyond the corporate boundaries through contracting and freelancing to achieve personal and professional satisfaction and safety. Conventional full-time jobs are insecure, increasingly restricted, and full of workers who wish they were doing anything else with their lives. Learn how working at the Gig Economy as consultant, contractor or freelancer may offer an attractive, intriguing, flexible, and rewarding solution to the corporate community. The Gig Economy is the channel for this only you control your future world that is tentative, but rewarding. Succeeding in it begins with changing gears to realize to the larks of an employer.

Is minding your abilities, knowledge, and network to create your very own career path, the one which is resistant to the larks of an employer. According to your priorities and vision of success, Cultivate relations without networking, assist you! Construct a lifetime based on your priorities and vision of success, develop links without networking, produce your own safety, risk, prepare for your future confront your fears by lessening layoffs and outsourcing, conventional full time.

Layoffs, recession, company jobs aren’t only unstable, but they’re increasingly scarce.  In an economy marked by layoffs and outsourcing, a conventional full time much this alternative path: developing skills and attitudes to get out by themselves and tap into the many opportunities of the entertainment economy job is disappearing.

Millions of individuals are keenly picking in its own way than a traditional full-time job very producing a supply schedule and provides. Throughout action, they are in its own way, than a conventional full-time job supervisors and unforeseen fortunes of organizations, when creating a delivery program and income protection, work world and describes to you might offer. The economy gig takes you within this challenging yet reassuring fields can flourish best, yet it the way to deal with. The book highlights professionals in risks and develops a plan to shows powerful, economics work for you.

 

THE BIG THREE – KEYPOINTS

Keypoint #1: Produce your own safety by cultivating sources of earnings, new abilities, and your very own security net.

Keypoint #2: Carefully evaluate risks and develop a plan to lower your fears.

Keypoint #3:  Increase financial flexibility by reducing fixed costs and boosting income and savings.

One Last Thing

The gig economy is empowerment. This new business paradigm empowers individuals to better shape their own destiny and leverage their existing assets to their benefit. ~John McAfee

H3 LEADERSHIP: BE HUMBLE, STAY HUNGRY, ALWAYS HUSTLE

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H3 Leadership: Be humble, Stay Hungry and Always Hustle. It’s a book filled with insight from over 2 decades of work and expertise as a leader. The author, Brad Lomenick, shares his hard-earned encounters on the best way to develop a fantastic leadership habit and put it to use because there’s a difference between knowing and doing. Knowing that a habit takes time to develop, he designed a plan which might assist leaders, both from the organization and outside world, to develop a consistent habit which produces great leadership results. Leading tends to be more comfortable than leadership. Leadership is constant work. It is put into practice every day in the work we do, the tasks we take responsibility for, the patterns we produce and it hangs on the success we might stumble upon.

Brad makes his readers understand the 20 most important habits to cultivate as a leader and orders them into 3 segments: BE HUMBLE, STAY HUNGRY, ALWAYS HUSTLE.

Segment #1: BE HUMBLE

Habit #1 – Self-Discovery: Know who you are.

Habit #2 – Openness: Share the real you with others.

Habit #3 – Meekness: Remember it’s not about you.

Habit #4 -Conviction: Stick to your own principles.

Habit #5  – Faith: Prioritize your day, so God is first.

Habit #6 – Assignment: Stay out of your calling.

 

Segment #2 – STAY HUNGRY

Habit #7 – Ambition: Develop an appetite for what’s bull.

Habit #8 – Curiosity: Keep learning.

Habit #9 – Passion: Love what you do.

Habit #10 – Innovation: Stay current, creative and engaged.

Habit #11 – Inspiration: Nurture a vision for a better tomorrow.

Habit #12 – Bravery: Take calculated risks.

 

Segment #3 – ALWAYS HUSTLE

Habit #13 – Excellence: Establish standards that frighten you.

Habit #14 – Stick-with-it-ness: Take the long view.

Habit #15 – Execution: Dedicate to completion.

Habit #16 – Team Building: Create an environment which attracts and keeps the best and brightest.

Habit #17 – Partnership: Collaborate with co-workers and competitors.

Habit #18 – Margin: Nurture far healthy rhythms.

Habit #19 – Generosity: Leave the world a better location.

Habit #20 – Succession: Locate power in passing the baton.

Briefly about self-discovery; nurturing the habit of self-discovery entails becoming intentional about your daily life rhythms by listening to your life, observing your attitudinal patterns and setting your personal life apart from your professional assignment. Self-discovery is a position you cultivate intentionally not a clinic you finish. Trust me, individuals will choose to follow a leader who is always real over a leader who is always right. The next generation will be attracted to a leader’s realness rather than a leader’s riches. Jeff stated, and I quote “The more sway you make, the more you have to lose, the less likely you are to be exposed and share your own battle.” Humble leaders are leaders, they make it about others and stay approachable.

The best leaders according to Jeff are principled leaders. They understand the differences between principle and personal preferences and are willing to encourage the right things and stand against the wrong things. These leaders protect their reputation, value and conscience, developing the habit of conviction. It is doing what’s right rather than what’s easy, being effective and not only efficient. And the further you go, the higher you climb as a leader and guess what?… the harder it gets. Talent and ability get you to the top but what keeps you there is integrity and character. Nothing comes easy.

If you are not learning, you are not leading; if you are not growing, you are not going. At the point when it gets interesting, it is vital for you to be interested. Passion takes you farther.

Leadership is a choice, not a position. Listen to your followers to make an influence. People follow who they trust and not the position.

 

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS

Keypoint #1: The best leaders are leaders with principles and integrity.

Keypoint #2: When it gets interesting, it is crucial you are interested.

Keypoint #3: Talent and ability can take you to the top but what keeps you there is character and integrity.

One Last Thing

Hustle beats talent when talent doesn’t hustle. So, stay hungry, stay foolish.

Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done

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Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done. It’s a breaking through book that’s so keen on harnessing better productivity is target setting, focusing on set aims, been powerful and more. Jeff said as a way to finish we need to get rid of perfection first’. This usually means the less we think about how perfect things ought to be the more productive we become. The battle is with perfection. It can occasionally be the reason why we do not start things from the first case, but as Jon describes a gorgeous beginning isn’t the most significant barrier. The start does issue.

The beginning is important. The first few steps are crucial, but they aren’t the most important. Do you know precisely what things more and makes the beginning look almost silly and simple and almost insignificant? The finish. By not targeting perfection, the result might seem to be better. You get a surprise, something you did not see coming as there’s no room for surprises with regards to perfectionism.

Then Jon Acuff informs us about the different type of motives we could be very sensitive to: self-doubt or achievement. Self-doubt is that internal voice which thinks precision is crucial.

To prevent failure, we need perfectionism. How exposed will we believe whenever we finish something, and it isn’t as perfect as we once anticipated it to be. Therefore, we get frustrated before we finish. To get the most gratifying result, add a few fun, and divide your aims into half and select the best alternative forgone. Lofty targets that make us get to the stars are fantastic, but they could have us distribute to perfectionism, and for that reason, we can never finish what we started. Nobody wishes to be known as the man that achieves only half the target that he planned.

In order words, we are not the superheroes we’d love to be. We simply cannot do whatever the world wants us to do, and the earlier we realize and learn to say no, the more likely we are to succeed in what we mean yes, to. Acuff’s solution would be to cut the target in half, down to a thing which might not look entirely as praiseworthy, but it’s manageable. After we may attain the seemingly small objectives, we are much more prone to continue going, that makes us more prone to succeed. He also points to the 2 distractions which perfectionism will bring to our manner: obstacles and hiding areas.

The book shows clearly that beginning without being dramatic doesn’t justify a successful ending of a job. Everything cannot be perfect. There’s no such thing as ideal, is there? What ideal looks like for you to be completely different from what perfect looks like to someone else. Jeff helps his reader to understand that to get it all done, you have to take it bit by bit and not focus on the ‘all.’  Doing it in bits makes us achieve more in less time because as humans, we are more efficient when we focus on one thing that different things clamoring for our attention.

THE BIG THREE – KEYPOINT

Keypoint #1: There’s joy in imperfection

Keypoint #2: Splitting goals brings about better results.

Keypoint #3: To achieve a successful goal, going to your hiding place or using a great obstacle is never an option.

One Last Thing

Progress is quiet. It whispers. Perfectionism yells hides and failure progress.

SPRINT

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Jake Knapp a Google venture partner, alongside John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz birth the idea of Sprint which majors on how to solve problems and test new ideas in just five days. This book is a practical guide to choose among many best ideas and make most out of the experience.  The concept of sprint came up when Jack had to come up with an essential feature for Gmail which would automatically sort messages. He had to innovate fast. To do that, he came up with three key aspects to manage the project process:

DEADLINES: Tight deadlines eliminate procrastination. The shorter the time, the faster the result because every allotted time is filled with an activity

GET PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT SKILL SETS: Get people with a different skill set into one room. The more diverse a team is, the better.  A better sprint team usually consists of seven categories of people and less irrespective of their hierarchy level.

THE RESULT: The result must be a concrete prototype. What gets you real feedback is when you present a functional idea. Brainstorming vague ideas is easy but not worth it.

These three-fundamental concepts work well when each sprint get together one on one and work together to produce something of actual value.

Jack furthermore explains sprint as a method that helps define a problem, compare ideas, prototype one of them and get feedback from customers all in five days. Though it might seem like an intensive process, it has a great potential for a big payout.

Before the sprint process, a recommended number of seven people with a different skill sets must be included:

 

  • The Decider (someone who have enough information on the problem or the leader of the company

 

  • The Marketing Expert
  • The Finance Expert
  • The Customer Expert (someone who has a unique customer view preferably from the customer care unit)
  • An Engineer or Logic Expert
  • The Troublemaker (Someone who always have contrary opinion)
  • The Facilitator (someone who is unbiased about a decision and keeps things on time). Usually a project manager).

 

 

The idea is to make sure everyone on the team understands the problem that needs to be solved and create a purposeful start on Monday.

Jack did a great job by defining the purpose of each day and what needs to be accomplished.

Monday’s goal is to create a discussion around the set goal, map out the challenge and define the problem that will be tackled on the sprint

Tuesday’s goal is to find a solution to the problem identified on Monday. Each person on the team writes down their proposed solution on a piece of paper and is given at least three minutes to present the solution to the whole team out of which the best there will be selected.

Wednesday’s goal is to make a decision. The best way is to critique all ideas and choose the one that will be explored in the sprint. This can be done by discussing sketches and then participants can get to vote via color stickers for their favorite idea. It is advisable to keep all ideas anonymous to avoid skewing of people’s opinion. Once the idea is picked, the team can then storyboard the prototype

Thursday’s goal is to make a prototype of the concept selected on Wednesday. Not a perfect prototype but a reality. The team can make use of keynotes or interactive prototypes other than professional tools. Professional tools take longer time and make you focus on too many details.

Friday’s goal is to see the customer’s reactions by interviewing them. You do not need thousands of customers to carry out the interview; five to six people is enough to expose 85% of the problem and get qualitative feedback. Record your conversations so the team can see the result. Jack gave some hints on how the interview process should go like interacting with the customer, putting the customer at ease, etc.

Once the interview is concluded, the team should go ahead and analyze the result to know if the prototype us promising and deserves further development or if the prototype fails.

Either way, design sprint is a way of finding answers to big questions, bring attention to work that matter, reduce risk and get better solutions.

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS

Key point #1:  Design Sprint reduces risk, proffers the answer to significant problems and brings about a better solution.

Key point #2: Sprint is not a one-man business; it can best be carried out by a team made up of different skill sets.

Key point #3: The core concept of Sprint is to decrease the waste of resources (time, energy and money) on the wrong ideas.

One Last Thing

“By asking people for their input early in the process, you help them feel invested in the outcome.”

― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

The Fifth Discipline

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Peter Senge, an expert in leadership and sustainability, discovered that a gap existed between an organization and how it learns new things. This discovery brought about the evolution of The Fifth Discipline. The Fifth Discipline explains that the concept of a learning organization is to seek to facilitate and encourage learning at all levels. In this manner, the organization has the ability to adjust continually and transform itself in a highly dynamic and competitive world. In this summary, we will give a rundown of the five basic learning disciplines and the seven learning constraints.

THE FIVE BASIC DISCIPLINES
Peter Senge shares five basic principles that set a learning organization apart from a traditional organization; A shared Vision, Mental Models, Team Learning, Personal Mastery, and System Thinking.

A Shared Vision
All employees in a company are committed to a shared long-term inspiration. They share the same vision of where the organization needs to go. When the vision is unique and shared, staff members will automatically participate in improving processes to get the organization closer to accomplishing its vision. In Peter’s words, a vision is being shared when “people are not playing according to the rules of the game, but feel responsible for the game.”

Mental Models
Mental models are all the limiting beliefs and flaws a person has which influences their actions. The official hierarchy of an organization is the first mental model. In itself, it is the ecosystem where departmental and individuals’ Mental Models begin to bloom. When individuals begin using phrases such as “that’s not the way we do things” and reject new ideas or when leaders passively attempt to give you the history of how things came to be, these are the symptoms of resistance to growth. The first step in having people change their Mental Models is to have people reflect on their own behavior and beliefs. Personal values can overcome all the shortcomings of hierarchical power, but to do so what is needed is transparency and openness.  One part of openness is to quit playing “power games” and be open and honest about the real needs of the individual, department, and organization and then streamline them.

Personal Mastery
Shenge describes Personal Mastery as the strength of ability of people to proactively learn to achieve results continuously, achieve clarity and depth of vision, see reality objectively and close the reality-vision gap. Team influence and environment play a part in Personal Mastery. Effective teamwork leads to outcomes in which individuals could not have accomplished on their own. Members within a team learn faster and more than they would have alone. They align and develop their capacities as a team and build on individual talents and vision.

System Thinking
System thinking is described by Peter Senge and the golden discipline. This is the fifth discipline and unifies all of the five principles. It is the cornerstone of a learning organization. An organization is like a living organism that needs to be analyzed with a holistic viewpoint rather that small unrelated manageable parts.  System thinking encourages leaders to understand the impact of their department or business unit on the system. Every decision made should be based on the holistic principle of System Thinking.


THE SEVEN LEARNING CONSTRAINTS
Like any other living organism, when it’s not working according to its purpose, it will show signs and symptoms. From Senge’s point of view, there are seven disabilities that most organizations suffer from and impair them from being effective learning organizations.


1. I am my position: When a staff members define themselves as the position they fulfill within the organization. If we use our jobs as a substitute for our identity, we run the risk of failing to understand the purpose of what we are doing for the organization or we perceive ourselves as having too much or too little power. Therefore one will fail to take responsibility or fail to think that all responsibility lies with them.

2. The enemy is out there: Failing to understand that external and internal problems are part of the same overall system; there are not isolated. When we fail on the inside, the competitors see it on the outside.

3. The illusion of taking charge: Confusing response to consequences of a challenge (reactive action) with working with problems (proactive reaction) by focusing on outside threats only without first discovering how we contribute to the current problem.

4. Fixation on events: Being focused on the short term, often prevents us from foreseeing long-term patterns of change that are the cause of the immediate circumstances.

5. The delusion of learning from experience: The idea that most staff members learn from experience is an illusion. More often than not, people do not experience the consequences of their decisions in the organization directly, especially when the systems are not in place to provide honest feedback.  

6. The myth of the management team: Management and leadership are not the same. A  good manager is not automatically a good leader. Management-minded people tend to not work together but rather fight over turfs and avoid doing anything that may risk them looking bad. Real leaders cross the line, take risks and compromise as long as the vision is moving forward.

7. The parable of the boiling frog: We tend not to be conscious of or are unwilling to notice threats that arise regularly which leads to an inability to react until it’s too late. Status quo is the godfather of anti-progress and anti-innovative culture. It grows slowly, painlessly until someone in the market beat you in your own game.  

The book ends with an explanation of how to integrate and apply the five disciplines to building a learning organization. As staff members practice the discipline of personal mastery, they experience gradual progress, analyze their own mental models and become more comfortable and identify new ways of thinking. A shared vision helps people see how their actions contribute to transforming and shaping their future. All five disciplines set the foundation for team learning, which allows staff members to build the type of results they desire, at a level beyond their individual capacities. Systems thinking underlies all four other disciplines to help everyone to see the big picture, their role in it, restructure assumptions and reveal causes and ways to leverage in complex situations.


THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS
Keypoint #1: In a learning organization, people do not want to work according to the rules of the game but rather they feel responsible for the game.
Keypoint #2: To solve problems, we need a shift of mindset from seeing small parts to a holistic view, moving away from being reactive to being proactive.
Keypoint #3: Quit playing “power games” and be open and honest about what your real needs are.

One Last Thing
“Taking in information is only distantly related to real learning. It would be nonsensical to say, “I just read a great book about bicycle riding—I’ve now learned that.”
― Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline