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

SLIDEOLOGY:THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CREATING GREAT PRESENTATION

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Nancy Duarte, a presentation designer, and coach, altered the world of presentations by producing an easy-to-read masterclass on presentation — SLIDEOLOGY. Slideology talks about advanced presentation designs. It assumes that the presenter will probably utilize Microsoft powerpoint or other presentation software such as Google slips or Keynotes, an integral part of their presentation but one of the core strengths of Slideology is the fact that it explains the process of better presentation planning, design and delivery whether you utilize slideware or not. In addition, it introduces readers to 3 pillars of presentation competence which are:

1-  Create a strong story

2-  Illustrate with simple visual

3- And deliver with conviction

We, humans, are visual communicators; presentations must be delivered longer in forms of images/diagrams as visual aids. Slides should be simple and the text should be reduced, preventing bullet points. Text should be no less than 30 font.

Slides are there to improve the story and also to help the readers see what the presenter is saying  so the ideas/messages can be transmitted efficiently. Use icons instead of numbers as images tell a better story. When people relate better, it increasing the retention of data. Using various icon brings information to life.

To give a strong presentation, the presenter should know his/her audience to get ready for material and shipping. Pace info across multiple slides to increase its impact. The number of slides to present is dependent on one good rule: the 10/20/30 rule that says- 10 slides, 20 minutes and  no fonts smaller than 30.

Nancy went further to examine three things that ought to be handled creatively in a consistent way to avoid noise or confusion:

  • Deal elements: contrast (to help the audience see primary things), hierarchy, unity, space, closeness and stream.
  •  Visual elements: background, color (appropriate color palette), text and images.
  •  Movement: time, speed, distance, direction and eye flow

Duarte divides the book into five core areas:

  1. TREAT YOUR AUDIENCE AS KINGS

They didn’t even come to your presentation to see you. They came to determine what you may do for them.  Provide content that resonates and make sure it’s clear what they’re to do.

  1. SPREAD IDEAS AND MOVE PEOPLE

Communicate your ideas with strong grammar to engage all of their senses. They’ll adopt the ideas as their very own.

  1. HELP THEM SEE WHAT YOU’RE SAYING

Think like a designer and movie producer and guide your audience through each idea in a manner that can help their comprehension. Appeal not only to their verbal perceptions but to their visual impressions as well.

  1. PRACTICE DESIGN, NOT DECORATION

Don’t limit your content to pretty talking points. Instead, present information in a way that makes complex information clear.

  1. CULTIVATE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

Display information in the best way possible for comprehension rather than focusing on what you need as a visual crutch.

 

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS

Keypoint #1: Develop flow within a slide intentionally.

Keypoint #2: People’s retention of data increases when they can “see the numbers.”

Keypoint #3: Think like a designer to create effective slides.

One Last thing

“Don’t blend in; instead, clash with your environment. Stand out. Be uniquely different. That’s what will draw attention to your ideas.”

― Nancy Duarte, Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences

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

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

How Google Works

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How Google Works talks about how to succeed as a company in a fast growing era and digital age. Their answer is to attract smart creatives and give them an environment where they can thrive and scale. The author also focuses on corporate culture, strategy, talent, decision making, communication, innovation and dealing with disruption.

Google’s early principles were simple but powerful: constantly focus on the user, always hire as many great software engineers as you can and perhaps the most important part, give those engineers freedom. Google was managed with informal meetings of small engineering teams. Eric Schmidt and Rosenberg took advantage of the opportunity given to them to create a business plan to take on Microsoft. To carry out this task, they invested more time in learning new ways of managing these smart creatives who are not shackled by organizational structures and defined rules. Using this process, the new management methods being learned were documented and this book gives insight into how Google works, providing a series of steps in the development of a company.

CULTURE: Culture is an important consideration when starting a company. Google imbibed the culture of close interaction among employees from inception to date. The culture was deliberate to reduce envy of other colleagues facilities. Collaboration was highly prioritized which has helped in increasing integration. It had been discovered that smart creatives care about where they work to produce their best of work. Google’s culture was an intentional “established a culture of saying YES!” Equally important to saying yes, is to start things which lead to experiences, which in turn leads to an increase in knowledge.

STRATEGY: The author moved on to the principles of Google’s strategy which are:

Bet on technical insight, not market research. Technical insight either increases functionality or reduces the cost of a product significantly. Almost all successful Google products were developed using this strategy. Google search was and it is better than any other search engine because the founders worked out how relevant a web page is to a search query based on which other pages are linked.

 

Optimize for growth and not for revenue. In order to achieve something, you need to be able to grow quickly and globally. Google resisted the urge to make money by placing advertising on its homepage and instead focused on improving and investing in the search engine.

Let great products grow the market for everyone. Keep your product open by adhering to standards and sharing computer code for example: losing control but gaining scale and innovation.

TALENT: In the organization, talent cannot be substituted with any amount of business strategy. Google’s recruitment process is carried out by the interviewee’s potential future peer. The most important thing they look out for is passion, growth mindset and character.

DECISION: There is more to decision making than just making the right decision. The timing, the process of getting to a decision and the way the decision is carried out is extremely important. The author dove deep into Google’s decision making process and principles and they were implemented.

COMMUNICATION: Effective leaders share information rather than keeping it to themselves. As a  leader, knowing the details is very key. This requires asking the right questions and getting the right answers even if it’s not good news. Emails aim to respond quickly. Emails are meant to be clear and straight to the point. There shouldn’t be any content there that people can skip.

INNOVATION: Thinking big is vital and provides a unique advantage of giving creative smart people more freedom to express themselves. One thing that Google has found in it’s process is that big challenges often attract big talent.

In conclusion, when making decisions, think more about the future and how it will impact the outlook.  Schmidt and Rosenberg believe that with enough data and skills, any problem can be figured out and therefore solved. Computers were and will continue to design, to make lives easier and better but for yet more people. The future is bright and technology will transform practically every field.

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS
Keypoint #1:  The Basis of success with product excellence is iterating, at speed.
Keypoint #2: Determine who runs the company based on performance and passion not based on function and experience.
Keypoint #3: Optimize for scale not revenue.

One Last Thing

“The most valuable result of 20 percent time isn’t the products and features that get created, it’s the things that people learn when they try something new.”
― Eric Schmidt, How Google Works

The New Edge in Knowledge

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The New Edge of Knowledge by Carla O’dell and Cindy Hubert focuses on the best and most effective practices to ensure organizations have the knowledge needed for the future. Each chapter of the book shares ideas on new ways of working and collaboration by using knowledge management as a social network and how leading companies apply them.

Carla defines knowledge as information in action and knowledge management as a systematic effort to enable information and knowledge to grow, flow and create value. Social networking, one of today’s most popular ways of collaborating, has helped people be good at filtering, switching and organizing their memories. Social media becomes social computing when applied to a non‐commercial intent among people to share and co‐create.

Knowledge management, or KM for short, can either be done in the workflow or above workflow. KM in the workflow is when we enable staff members to collaborate, capture and share knowledge without an additional burden or interruption on their part. Knowledge management above the workflow is when we ask staff members to stop their work process to move to another mode to reflect, capture or share. One is not better than the other, it simply depends on the type of organization and the speed on which the knowledge is needed.

Furthermore, Carla describes an effective strategy in creating a call to action on identifying and prioritizing the organization’s critical knowledge. The first step in creating a call to action for knowledge management is to understand the value proposition for enhancing the essential flow of knowledge. The next, critical knowledge has to be identified. After that, the critical knowledge must be located. A key component is to develop a knowledge map that acts as a snapshot in time to help the organization understand what knowledge it has and what it lacks. The next step is to enable the knowledge flow process. A critical step to facilitate the transfer of best practices is to identify and adopt superior practices rapidly. By sharing what works best, staff members get the theory, evidence and expertise all at once.  Examination of critical success factors is usually essential. Often knowledge and best practices exist in every organization, yet employees rarely share them. And even when they do, methods are not necessarily implemented.

The author gives a special place to social networking in the way of capturing and sharing knowledge. Social networking refers to online sites where users can create a profile and designate a network of people to see their posts and following their activities. It is the pure manifestation of the user-driven philosophy. Social networks could become an essential adjunct for creating and sustaining the engine of relationships and knowledge in a Web 2.0 world. The guidelines for enterprise social networking are: ride the wave, every organization isn’t Facebook, imitate what works, observe what really happens, trust but verify, encourage extended networks and use social networking as an adjunct to expertise location.

The book also illustrates the ways to a cultivate knowledge‐sharing culture. There are three ways to directly influence the norms and behaviors of employees. First is to lead by example. Executive involvement lends credibility to KM programs and ensures the efforts will be long term. There are 10 desirable types of leaders for Knowledge Management identified as: progressive leader, investigative leader, all‐for‐one leader, trusted the leader, methodical leader, visionary leader, implementation leader, observant leader, innovative leader and follower‐centric leader. The second way is to brand aggressively. To develop a knowledge‐sharing culture, there is a need for consistent messaging- a formal and pervasive communications push and reinforcement of desired behaviors through rewards and recognition. The third and last way is to make it fun. It can be done by making Knowledge Management tools and approaches engaging, using humor, introducing friendly competition, enabling two‐way interaction and seeking inspiration elsewhere.

This book explores the knowledge management value proposition for any organization, provides proven strategies and approaches to make it work, shares how to measure knowledge management’s impact and illustrates high-level knowledge sharing with excellent case studies.

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS
Keypoint #1: Lead by example. Knowledge management is a cultural shift for the organization, so it’s required for the leaders to go above and beyond in their support.

Keypoint #2: Knowledge management is not a new catchy phrase, it is the edge on which organizations of all types, for-profit and non-for-profit, will be competing within the new knowledge economy.

Keypoint #3: Brand aggressively and make it fun. Besides leaders in the organization actively carrying the banner of knowledge management, there is a need to make it stick.  Influencing an established culture will require every staff member to embrace it.

One Last Thing
“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” Peter Drucker

LEAN B2B: Build Products Businesses wants

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Lean B2B is a book that was birthed out of several business successes and failures. A little story about why the author wrote Lean B2B. Garbugli, alongside his ex-business partner, decided to start a business that would eventually become HireVoice, a platform to help the industry understand how the market perceives them as employers (employer brand monitoring). At first, there was a series of positive feedback but after the first few modules failed to capture the engagement with the prospects, they discovered that employer brand perception was not enough of a critical problem for companies to pay for their solution. In the end, they failed to build a sustainable business but succeeded in in-validating a startup. It was a successful validation with an adverse outcome. It took Garbugli and his business partner six months to in-validate their first two products, but only three months to invalidate the last three. Garbugli says “Inappropriate B2B customer development cost us four months of runaway and therefore Lean B2B is written to help entrepreneurs save those four months.”

Lean B2B (business to business) is not business a management or product development book. It’s a book about discovering problems that matter and being efficient as possible when going from idea to product-market. The goal of any startup is not to be a startup. A startup is a temporary organization designed to find a reputable and scalable business model. An entrepreneur who is willing to dig deep into the value chain and the into needs of the enterprise will find opportunities for breakout products. They just need the patience and product to see a chance to enter the market. B2B markets are generally much smaller compare to B2Cs. Burning leads in B2C might not be a big deal if the market has millions of potential customers but, with the substantially small market in B2B, burning leads quickly becomes a big deal. To succeed in B2B, entrepreneurs need to build deep relationships with a relatively small number of companies.

Where does it start? The only thing that matters in the first 12-18 months of a company is figuring out how to get your products into the hands of the right people. You have to identify the customers you would like to sell to. The ideal customer is an organization who matches, at a minimum, two of the following criteria:

  1. Has a problem
  2. Is aware of the existence of the problem
  3. Has already tried to solve the problem and failed to address it
  1. Is not happy with the current solution to the problem
  2. Has a budget to get the problem fixed

When you are a startup, client development is the most vital activity you can do. You can develop a product, raise capital, hire a team and incorporate your business but if your product assumption doesn’t match the market needs, you’ll eventually regret having done any of those things. Your startup process will depend on your ability to be laser-focused on finding the ideal product for the right market and not burning all the money in the process. Analytics, responsive design, domain name, branding, press, etc. are not keys to your success. Without the product that people want, the perfect press release or analytic set up will never matter. Forget about vanity metrics and think small. You need to focus on P-M fit (Product-Market fit). This is when you have five passionate customers. The temptation will be strong to start optimizing and building sales channel before reaching P-M fit but resist it. Don’t build a company before you reach P-M fit. Keep your burn low.

In my professional life, I have started dozens of organizations, some with excellent results, others not so much. In the process I have read many books on startups and entrepreneurship. Lean B2B is one of the most practical and closest to real-life experience you can find. This book teaches how to build credibility with prospects, put your products into the hands of early adopters, conduct problem interviews, prioritize problems and opportunities, build an MVP, prepare a pitch, conduct solution interviews, assess whether you have found product-market fit and techniques to speed up Product-Market validation.

THE BIG THREE – KEYPOINTS

Key point #1: Entrepreneurs don’t know the market or customer but they know the product vision; it feels more natural to start there.

Key point #2: The key to succeeding in B2B is to learn to think like your customer.

Key point #3: Sometimes starting with what you have is the best thing to do.

One Last Thing

Only move forward with creating a product that will be “above the bar.”

– Brian Lawley

If… Then… Else….

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In “If…, Then…, Else…;”, the authors; Davids, Secor, Farnum, and Lewis offer a practical analysis of typical behaviors and personalities found in Information Technology systems organizations and applicable advice on how to minimize the potential damages these negative influences often assert.

One of the first things every Information Systems (IT) professional learns is that there is a huge difference between data and information. The authors combine to share over 100 years of IT experience and have endured numerous attempts to bridge the “IT Communication Barrier” through “off the shelf, generic teaching materials or let’s say unhelpful data.  These canned training aids far too often soar over the heads of IT professionals who neither relate to nor care for the “psycho-babble” the materials offer.  “If…, Then…, Else…;” offers instantly recognizable, thoroughly applicable, and immediately useful information organized in a format consistent with an IT professional’s paradigms – or what IT folks would call, information!.  This empowers the reader to recognize the negative patterns and communication cravats often associated with common day-to-day IT workplace interactions and transforms that situation from a setback to a constructive, contributing engagement.  Michael Davids says, “The intent is to provide a path to effective and efficient ways to adapt to these real-world use-cases and effectively interact with these common, stereotypical IT personalities.”

The book “If…, Then…, Else…;” focuses on common personalities and situations expressly within the IT world offering career-beneficial insight on navigating those often choppy waters. The authors provide a unique tapestry of character and scenario intersections certain to resonate with anyone involved with IT participants. As personalities and situations “hit home” with the reader the authors provide invaluable guidance on successful interaction in those specific conditions.

Furthermore, the authors collaboratively provide insight and guidance on the best way to identify and respond to the general temperaments and attitudes of IT professionals. This book is written by IT professionals for IT professionals about IT professionals, “If…, Then…, Else…;” proffers a tool to aid professionals in achieving a favorable interaction and the best possible outcome throughout daily IT operations and interactions; a key in attaining overall career success. Also, it identifies how  IT Professionals can focus on specific personalities that represent actual people in which they interact within real-world situations they find themselves in virtually every day. With that, you can extract truly applicable, and immediately useful insight into:

•    How to recognize when a challenging behavior appears

•    How to most effectively respond to the behavior transforming a deterrent into a contribution (or at least minimize the potential damage).

•    How to prepare for and clean up after an ensuing interaction with a person you know has the propensity to fall short of expectations and hopes.

  If you are an IT professional, work among IT professionals, or simply interact with IT professionals, you already know they are “unique”; why not attempt to learn to understand them?

I am a medical doctor by training that happens to have a knack for technology and innovation. I am constantly reading and learning how to help my team succeed. Without a doubt, this is one of the best books I have ever read in my effort to better understand the IT professionals entrusted to me. It creates not only an understanding but also a roadmap on how to help them grow and succeed in their career path. There are too many takeaways from this book and can only be tapped into if you get a copy.

THE BIG THREE – KEY POINTS:

Key point #1:   To gain the “comfort” in the realization that you are “not alone” and the behaviors that challenge you in your workplace are common among virtually every IT organization.

Key point #2:     To learn how to “catch yourself” from falling into the same old reaction patterns which allow these behaviors to escalate into detrimental directions; instead, channel the “gems” hidden within these unique personalities to glean the benefits they have to offer!

Key point #3:  By focusing on specific personalities that represent actual people in which you interact in real-world situations you find yourself in virtually every day, you can extract truly applicable, immediately useful insight into:

  • How to recognize when a challenging behavior appears

  • How to prepare for and clean up after an ensuing interaction with a person you know has the propensity to fall short of expectations and hopes.

One Last Thing:

  “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” –Ken Blanchard

The Steve Jobs Way. iLeadership for a New Generation

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Jay Elliot served as the senior vice president of Apple; he worked side by side with Steve Jobs which helps him to bring us a deep insider perspective of Steve’s Singular ileadership style which encompasses for major principles which are the product, talent organization, and marketing. There is no doubt that Steve jobs reign supreme in this four domains. Jay Elliot described Steve Jobs success in details. The more he advanced, the simpler his product became.  In some instances, it’s less about the product and more about the user. Every user wants to be successful. When you know how to operate something masterfully, how does it make you feel? More people will buy if customers feel good using your product.”

The Steve Jobs Way describes Jobs as a person who strives to improve the user experience. The vision drove him in every of his creation and Wozniak during their cooperating time.  Jobs believe there is nothing cooler in the world than creating a product that millions of people immediately want and many who don’t have are envious of those who do. He has the ability to create a consistent, positive product image in the mind of his customers. Jobs combines stick-to-itiveness with an intuitive sense of exactly what it takes to get the public enthralled with a product. This is because he understands that it isn’t a question of how well the product is designed and how smoothly it works (although they are critical factors) but of how it is perceived by the user which of course, is the key to product success.

The Steve Jobs Way points out that Jobs regularly spoke about the power of synergy and trust. Sometimes even during the development process in the company, Jobs referred to his Mac engineers as his most trusted associates. Each employee was provided with a T-shirt with Jobs single quote” pirates! Not the navy.”

The Steve Jobs Way also portray Steve Jobs as a man of principle. He is regularly guided by them.  “If you are not satisfied with no for an answer, your engineers will have no other option than to deliver you the technology product that you require.” Jobs seek new opportunities; hire talented people and transfer, their reality in short time.  He believes that a broad set of experiences expands our understanding of human experience. A broader understanding leads to breakthroughs that others may have missed. Breakthrough innovation requires creativity and creativity requires that you think differently about the way you think.  You can have most innovative ideas in the world, but if you can’t get people excited about it, it does not matter. His model of business is The Beatles. “They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business; great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people” Steve said.

In The Steve Jobs Way, Jay Elliot shares the lessons that come out of Steve’s Intuitive approach to show how the creative and technologically brilliance of ileadership can be utilized to drive breakthrough in any organization irrespective of size.

THE BIG THREE – KEYPOINTS

Key point #1: Innovation takes confidence, boldness, craziness, and discipline to tune out the negative voices.

Key point #2:  You have to focus on improving user’s experience rather than the product design.

Key point #3: Work through your people and celebrate as a unit with every success.

 

One Last Thing

“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google

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Galloway, an entrepreneur, and professor at NYU Stern provides a perceptive analysis of the four-horse race to become a billionaire company in THE FOUR: the hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The author casually uncovers how each of these companies has deployed iconic leadership, technology, storytelling, fearless innovation, lightening execution and blatant plagiarism to devastating effects.

The author expressly demonstrates that despite their brilliance, the Four have not achieved dominance by themselves. They are driven by technology and capital and have thrived within a hyper-consumer de-regulated capitalist culture. Starting in America, then rapidly scaling throughout the world, the Four are the product of a Faustian bargain between weary institutions and evaporating middle class, attention-seeking media, and profit-hungry market. Fundamental to the success of these four great companies is how they used strategy and technology to appeal to basic human needs and desires.

In Galloway thesis, each of them appeals to a particular human organ. Google targets the brain and thirst for knowledge, Facebook leverages on the heart and our need to develop empathic and meaningful relationships, Amazon targets the guts by satisfying the impulse to consume while Apple focuses firmly on our genitals. With their discovery of human desires, the Four have gone about declaring war on what entrepreneurs euphemistically refer to as “friction.”

Friction includes every obstacle in the way of satisfying a given desire. Starting from the synaptic connection in the brain responsible for decision-making processes to the rules issued by regulatory and tax authorities to supply chain all the way down to the manufacturers of products in the developing world. However, the author affirms that this is not bad news. The laws of friction have been an undeniably positive development for consumers. Products are cheaper and the level of customer service has reached new heights. This system is so successful that people grant The Four access into their lives.

The Four are attempting to cement their dominance by becoming providers of public infrastructures. In this regard, Amazon is leading the pack. It is marshaling a global logistics operation that is the envy of most nation-states, including a fleet of Boeing 767s, drones, thousands of tractor trailers and trans-pacific shipping. Google has server arms and is launching blimps into the atmosphere that will beam broadband down to earth. These organizations are committed to becoming a permanent fixture of the future.

For the foreseeable future, Galloway suggests that the four will continue to reign supreme. That is, if they don’t pounce each other. If history taught us something, it is that Gods don’t share power well. And on current figures, Amazon seems the most aggressive and effective at stealing market share. They are even out stealing Google in searches with 55 percent of product searches starting on Amazon against Google’s 28 percent. As the author put it, “The prize? A trillion-dollar-plus valuation and power and influence greater than any entity in history.” In chapter nine, Galloway teases with a possible Fifth Horseman, exploring candidates, from Netflix to China’s famous Alibaba. Toward the end of the book, Gallow advises young talents on how to succeed in a new tech-dominated world. Throughout the book, Galloway pulls a few punches and never holds back any controversial opinion.

The author does not write the book to tarnish the reputation of the four companies but rather to offer a source of encouragement and understanding of the value of business. “I wrote this book for the same reason. I hope the reader gains insight and a competitive edge in an economy where it’s never been easier to be a billionaire, but it’s never been harder to be a millionaire.” Through this statement, Scott Galloway makes his intentions clear.

By far, one of the most exciting books I have read in the last two years. Understanding The Four is understanding the why, what and how of our habits today. I also found this book of value as a guideline for novices in the field of innovation and entrepreneurialism trying to understand the competitive and challenging business ecosystem the four themselves have created.

THE BIG THREE –  KEY POINTS

Key point #1: The Four have not achieved dominance by themselves despite their brilliance. Their similarity is that technology and capital drive them, thriving within hyper-consumer and deregulated capitalist culture.

Key point #2:  The Four used technology and strategy to understand and appeal to basic human desires.

Key point #3: The Four undoubtedly faced threats among each other, the entrance of a possible 5th horse and other forces outside of their industries, such as Google’s ongoing confrontation with the European Commission. However, the Four will continue to reign supreme.