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Jun
17
How the Mighty Fall
Filed Under Inspiration, Leadership | Leave a Comment
“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” — Dick Clark, former CEO at Merck
Jim Collins initially thought that How the Mighty Fall was a simple magazine article. An opportunity to rest his mind from six years of research working on his next book following Good to Great. I’m glad he didn’t try to fit this interim book into an article! However, if you’re looking for an article excerpt, Business Week did a decent job.
I love the way Jim Collins organizes information. His well-researched principles are so palatable and practical, mostly because he lets the story stay at the steering wheel. How the Mighty Fall is a darker book of sorts, spending the majority of its pages studying the five stages of decline, outlined here.
Stage 1: Hubris born of success
- Success entitlement, arrogance
- Neglect of a primary flywheel
- “What” replaces “why”
- Decline in learning orientation
- Discounting the role of luck
Stage 2: Undisciplined pursuit of more
- Unsustainable quest for growth, confusing big with great
- Undisciplined continuous leaps
- Declining proportion of right people in key seats
- Easy cash erodes cost discipline
- Bureaucracy subverts discipline
- Problematic succession of power
- PErsonal interests placed above organizational interests
Stage 3: Denial of risk and peril
- Amplify the positive, discount the negative
- Big bets and bold goals without empirical validation
- Incurring huge downside risk based on ambiguous data
- Erosion of healthy team dynamics
- Externalizing blame
- Obsessive reorganizations
Stage 4: Grasping for salvation
- A series of silver bullets
- Grasping for a leader-as-savior
- Panic and haste
- Radical change and “revolution” with fanfare
- Hype preceded results
- Initial upswing followed by disappointments
Stage 5: Capitulation to irrelevance or death
Whenever I read Collins’ stuff, I am always drawn to his repeated admonishment to stay true to your core values and principles.
“Discontinuous leaps into arenas for which you have no burning passion is undisciplined. Taking action inconsistent with your core values is undisciplined. Launching headlong into activities that do not fit with your economic or resource engine is undisciplined. To neglect your core business while you leap after exciting new adventures is undisciplined.”
“If you’re struggling with the tension between continuing your commitment to what made you successful and living in fear about what comes next,” says Collins, “ask yourself two questions:”
1. Does your primary flywheel face inevitable demise within the next five to ten years due to forces outside your control—will it become impossible for it to remain best in the world with a robust economic engine?
2. Have you lost passion for your primary flywheel?
“The #1 ingredient for a culture of discipline,” says Collins, “depends first and foremost upon having self-managed and self-motivated people.”
“The best leaders we’ve studied had a peculiar genius for seeing themselves as not all that important, recognizing the need to build an executive team and to craft a culture based on core values that do not depend upon a single heroic leader.”
“Reorganizations and restructurings can create a false sense that you’re actually doing something productive.”
At the conclusion of How the Mighty Fall, Collins channels the spirit of Winston Churchill and his famous “never give in” commencement speech from 1941. “We all need beacons of light as we struggle with the inevitable setbacks of life and work,” says Collins. “For me, that light has often come from studying [Churchill].”
Never give in. Be willing to change tactics, but never give up your core purpose. Be willing to kill failed business ideas, even to shutter big operations you’ve been in for a long time, but never give up on the idea of building a great company. Be willing to evolve into an entirely different portfolio of activities, even to the point of zero overlap with what you do today, but never give up on the principles that define your culture. Be willing to embrace the inevitability of creative destruction, but never give up on the discipline to create your own future. Be willing to embrace loss, to endure pain, to temporarily lose freedoms, but never give up faith in the ability to prevail. Be willing to form alliances with former adversaries, to accept necessary compromise, but never—ever—give up your core values.
Mar
2
Meet Tom Freston
Filed Under Inspiration | Leave a Comment
Thanks to Fortune’s Patricia Sellers, it looks like I have another person to add to my list of people to watch. An early adman and one of the brains behind the launch of MTV, Tom Freston was at Viacom for 19 years before Summer Redstone fired him. It was time “to make a change,” said Redstone on Labor Day in 2006.
Thirteen days after he was fired, Freston flew to Singapore, then on to Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and China with his wife, Kathy, her mother, Joan, and his brother, Bill. Ever since, Freston, now 63, has been roaming the planet, visiting 30 other countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. “You really realize that you’re not at the center of things,” he tells Fortune. “You’re less than a pinpoint on the map.”
Freston has since been tapped by Oprah Winfrey and Bono. Oprah wants Freston to run her new network and Bono needs help organizing ONE and Product RED.
But Freston isn’t in any hurry to commit. Instead, he’s helping Oprah and Bono in a consulting role, and pacing himself accordingly.
These days [Freston] is putting his money into an orphanage and medical clinic in Southeast Asia and reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, where he once lived. Last summer, if you had the right map, you could have found Freston running around Kabul with a cameraman, researching one of two film projects there. Says [DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg]: “In his heart and his gut, Tom is a mad adventurer.”
I’m inspired by people who know their strengths and leverage them to help others. Not because they’re asked or cajoled, but because they’re compelled and centered.
Feb
20
Learning From Zappos
Filed Under Inspiration, Leadership | Leave a Comment
After reading Jeffrey M. O’Brien’s Fortune story about Zappos, you’d think the company and its quirky-brilliant CEO, Tony Hsieh, were near perfect. I was drawn to so many insights in this article, a nod to Zappos being No. 23 on Fortune’s 2009 list of Best Companies to Work For.
From the full time life coach and 10 Commandments, to their high octane culture, Zappos is doing a lot of things right.
The Zappos HR team uses offbeat, cartoony applications and wacky interview questions (How weird are you? What’s your theme song? What two people would you most like to invite to dinner?) to screen for creativity and individuality while filtering out egomaniacs and wallflowers.
All new hires complete four weeks of training, including two weeks on the phones, beginning every day at 7 a.m. They can’t be late or call in sick. Anyone too good to work the phones during a holiday rush isn’t Zappos material. New recruits are even offered a $2,000 bribe to leave the company during training, one final effort to weed out the half-hearted (only three people accepted last year).
Zappos encourages managers “to spend 10% to 20% of their time with team members outside the office, and any employee can give any other employee a $50 bonus for a job well done.”
Love it.
Jan
23
TED
Filed Under Inspiration, Stuff I Like | 1 Comment
I’ve been a TED fan for many years, a peripheral observer to the cult-like movement started back in 1984 “out of the observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between Technology, Entertainment and Design.” In 2001, media entrepreneur Chris Anderson struck a deal with Wurman for the passing of the TED torch. The momentum has been gaining ever since.
Primarily an event-based movement—and not inexpensive to us common folk—TED has been making its mostly brilliant talks available in a variety of formats. This is where guys like me can benefit because I can experience the 18-minute talks (give or take) on my Apple TV, iPhone and online.
Go TED.
Jan
19
Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2009
Filed Under Inspiration | Leave a Comment
Established in 1983, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is our newest U.S. holiday. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that every state recognized it (thanks Utah!) and besides George Washington, Dr. King is the only other American honored with a national holiday.
I love this day for many reasons, especially because it hasn’t been hijacked by consumption like so many other holidays. We don’t exchange gifts or over-eat. Stores don’t have sales. We don’t buy roses or watch fireworks. We don’t memorialize the past or wallow in national pride. Instead, we’re summoned to action. We honor the character of a man who believed “that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
I’ve blogged a lot about Martin Luther King, Jr. I love reading his words and being inspired by the way he communicates. Jamaica and I took an entire road trip listening to his autobiography a few years back.
As Barack Obama comes into office tomorrow, it’s great to see how he has already been a part of championing the USA Service initiative. King would be proud!
Jan
9
William Tyndale, Hero for Information Age
Filed Under Inspiration | 1 Comment
The story of William Tyndale, the man behind the translation and distribution of the Bible, is a story we should not soon forget. The Economist, in their December 20 issue, has a great overview of Tyndale’s legacy.
His ruling passion was a simple one: he wanted to render the defining texts of his age and culture—the Old and New Testaments—in an accurate English translation which even “the boy that driveth the plough” could grasp. And the fact that he eventually fulfilled his aim, and paid for it with his life, should be acknowledged more frequently by anybody who cares about freedom of expression.
I was particularly interested in the overlap and partnership between William Tyndale and Martin Luther. Both were champions of seeing the Bible move from Latin to a language everyone could understand. And both were determined to see the reading of the Bible become more democratic and less dictated. If Luther is the transformer of the Catholic church and its dated dogma, Tyndale was the transformer of the English monarchy and its theocracy of one.
“Just as Stalin eschewed world revolution in favour of ’socialism in one country’, the project of Henry VIII—at least after his break with the Pope in 1530—could be described as ‘theocracy in one country’. In other words, an effort to establish total political and ideological control by blocking out foreign influence and crushing all rival centres of power at home. To do this, he was (like Stalin) prepared to use and then discard one trusted lieutenant, and one ideological slogan, after another.”
[Tyndale's] life’s vision and dying supplication—for English people to have access to the Bible in their own language—came to pass (to use one of his own famous phrases) rather swiftly. A year after his death, a complete Bible—two-thirds of which had been translated by Tyndale, the rest by his associate Miles Coverdale—was published by royal permission. This electrified a nation where only a decade earlier, bishops had frantically tried to suppress copies of Tyndale’s subversive work. Six copies of the new translation were put on display in Old St Paul’s Church, and a spontaneous public reading of the entire text soon began. One man would stand at the lectern and proclaim the word until his voice gave out and a replacement stepped in. As a direct legacy of that heady moment, the Church of England is required by law to display a complete, accessible Bible in all its places of worship.
I’m inspired by men and women who are committed to their beliefs, even unto death!
Jan
7
Fastnet Lighthouse
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Great article in the December 20 issue of The Economist about Fastnet Lighthouse. It’s located at the mouth of the Atlantic, on Ireland’s south-western tip. The story of this particular lighthouse is so interesting and loaded with mystery and history. The men who built Fastnet were master masonries and ridiculous risk-takers. Building a lighthouse on a rock out in the dangerous Atlantic is not something you consult Wikipedia and Home Depot to figure out. And these guys were doing it over 100 years ago! Amazing story.
Dec
17
What Matters
Filed Under Inspiration, Media | Leave a Comment
My friend Jeff Sinabarger is always finding great media that communicates stories of significance. On his blog today was a link to the “What Matters to Me” video for the VFS and YouTube “What Matters to You” Scholarship Competition. Love it!
Nov
19
Jamaica’s Sole
Filed Under Inspiration | Leave a Comment
This week I have been in Pasadena, about 12 miles north of where Jamaica and I live in downtown Los Angeles. I’m in meetings all week with the Foursquare board of directors and, because the schedule runs from early morning through late evening, I usually stay at the hotel with the rest of the board. This provides a variety of conveniences, including a commute that lasts as long as an elevator ride! It’s also nice when Jamaica can come and stay with me which has been the case this week.
Last night I returned to the room after a long day of deliberations. Jamaica had arrived a few minutes before me, herself returning from a small group we’re a part of that communes with a handful of our homeless friends each week.
One of our homeless friends last night was barefoot and had lost her shoes. In a blink, Jamaica took her shoes off and gave them to our friend. If you don’t know my wife, this is the way she’s wired. It’s second nature for her to give sacrificially.
The funny part of this story is when Jamaica came back to the hotel. As she got out of the car and gave the keys to the valet (the only way to park at this hotel), the attendant noticed she was barefoot. “Are you a guest here?” said the valet guy. “Yes, I’m in room 621.”
Then she walked through the fancy lobby and up the elevator and to our room.
Barefoot.
I love my wife.
If you don’t have anyone to give your shoes to, perhaps you should consider a $5 donation to Soles 4 Souls which gets two pairs of shoes to people in need.
Nov
18
“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance.” —Ronald J. Sider
Nearly 30 years ago, a bi-partisan U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger suggested that “promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to U.S. national security than most policy makers acknowledge or even believe.” The deepest causes for conflict in the world today, according to former U.N. Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali, are “economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard much talk these days about overcoming foreign conflicts with generous giving, extreme kindness and courageous leadership with integrity.
Sider nails it when he says, “The rich often neglect or oppose justice because it demands that they end their oppression and share with the poor.” He continues, “We know that knowing more will make us morally obligated to change.”
So Now What?
“We must develop a theology of enough,” says Sider. “Christians in the United States spent $15.7 billion on new church construction alone in the six years between 1984 and 1989. Would we go on building lavishly furnished expensive church buildings if members of our own congregations were starving?”
“God casts down the wealthy and powerful in two specific situations,” says Sider, “(1) when they become wealthy by oppressing the poor; or (2) when they fail to share with the needy.”
Sider doesn’t mince his words. “Is the church really the church if it does not work to free the oppressed?”
But how much should we give? John Wesley gave a startling answer. One of his frequently repeated sermons was on Matthew 6:19-23 (“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” KJV). Christians, Wesley said, should give away all but “the plain necessities of life”—that is, plain, wholesome food, clean clothes, and enough to carry on one’s business. One should earn what one can, justly and honestly. Capital need not be given away.” But Wesley wanted all income given to the poor after bare necessities were met. Unfortunately, Wesley discovered, not one person in five hundred in any “Christian city” obeys Jesus’ command. But that simply demonstrates that most professed believers are “living men but dead Christians.” “Any ‘Christian’ who takes for himself anything more than the plain necessaries of life,” Wesley insisted, “lives an open, habitual denial of the Lord.” He has “gained riches and hell-fire!” Wesley lived what he preached. Sales of his books often earned him fourteen hundred pounds annually, but he spent only thirty pounds on himself. The rest he gave away.
John V. Taylor suggests that “the biblical norm for material possessions is ‘sufficiency.’” We see this concept of sufficiency throughout Scripture. Sider says that the “costly generosity of the first church stands as a challenge to Christians of all ages.”
He even goes so far as to dare church institutions to “undertake a comprehensive two-year examination of their programs and activities to answer this question: Is there the same balance and emphasis on justice for the poor and oppressed in our programs as there is in Scripture?”
Rich Christians is another one of those books that is either going to sit on a shelf filled with highlights and tear stains, or become a manifesto for change.