An MBA Book Club, Part 5

Multipliers

Liz Wiseman and Greg Mckeown

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Summary

Effective leaders—“Mulitpliers”—can double the output of underutilized and uninspired employees through a set of practices designed to recognize, liberate, and challenge them.  “Diminishers,” on the other hand, reduce otherwise successful and talented people into fractions of their potential selves.  The difference, then, becomes the difference between excellent and mediocre companies.

Favorite Quotes

·         “It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewert Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person.” Bono

·         The Five Disciplines of the Multipliers (and their opposites):

1.      The Talent Magnet (Empire Builder)

2.      The Liberator (Tyrant)

3.      The Challenger (Know-It-All)

4.      The Debate Maker (Decision Maker)

5.      The Investor (Micro Manager)

·         “Look for talent everywhere, find people’s native genius, utilize people to their fullest, and remove the blockers” (p 64).

·         Using five meeting poker chips—for 120, 90, and 30 second comments (p 91).

·         “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders.  Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” - St. Exupery

·         Why this matters:

1.      People will give you more (and be more fulfilled)

2.      Organizations cannot rely on additive resources—they need multiplicative ones

3.      What if we could access twice as much of the world’s available intelligence and channel it to the perennial problems we face? (p 219)

·         “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” –Albert Einstein

Response

I struggled a little bit with this read—it seemed that the points that the author was making were self-evident and redundant, but without the added benefit of being pithy or memorable.  This certainly comes across harsher than I intend to be, but for me this book fits squarely between a better-than-average article in a management magazine and an inferior version of First, Break All the Rules.

Part of the problem may lie in the fundamental comparison between Multipliers and Diminishers—although the author notes up front that there is a continuum between the two, the contrast were drawn so starkly that it is hard to read the book and identify oneself as anything approaching the Tyrant, Know-It-All, or Micro Manager described in the pages.  Without a nuanced perspective on where we might be failing, I fear that most readers will never see themselves as needing reform (but the Boss sure could use this book!).  In this, the book fails to live up to its admonition to “spot yourself at times in the anatomy of a Diminisher.”

An MBA Book Club, Part 3

Great by Choice

Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen

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Summary

In an age of increasing instability and turbulent industries, the world’s most effective businesses —the 10Xers, so named for their superior financial performance—demonstrate a set of common traits: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia.  These traits, manifest in practices such as the 20 Mile March, Firing Bullets, then Cannonballs, and avoiding Death Line risk, allow companies to thrive in uncertainty. 

Favorite Quotes

·         Amundsen v. Shackleton: a South Pole contrast in styles

·         “Innovation by itself turns out to not be the trump card we expected; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline” (p 10)

·         “On the one hand, 10Xers understand that they… cannot control, and cannot accurately predict, significant aspects of the world around them.  On the other hand, 10Xers reject the idea that forces outside their control or chance events will determine their results; they accept full responsibility for their own fate” (p 19).

·         “Fanatic discipline keeps 10X enterprises on track, empirical creativity keeps them vibrant, productive paranoia keeps them alive” (p 20).

·         Fanatic Discipline: “Discipline, in essence, is consistency in action—consistency with values, consistency with long-term goals, consistency with performance standards, consistency of method, consistency over time” (p 21).

·         Empirical Creativity: “Social psychology research indicates that at times of uncertainty, most people look to other people—authority figures, peers, group norms—for their primary cues about how to proceed.  10Xers look to empirical evidence” (p 25).

·         Productive Paranoia: “10Xers believe that conditions will—absolutely, with 100 percent certainty—turn against them without warning” (p 29).

·         Level 5 Ambition: “They are passionately driven for a cause beyond themselves” (p 33).

·         “What is your 20 Mile March?” (p 68)

·         “Firing an uncalibrated cannonball that succeeds can be even more dangerous than a failed cannonball.  Keep in mind the danger of achieving good outcomes from bad process” (p 85).

·         4 Types of risk: Death Line, Asymmetric, Uncontrollable, Time-based (p 103).

·         “How much time before our risk profile changes?” (p 111).

·         “Most men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses.” –Moliere

·         “The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change; the signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency” (p 138).

Response

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for Jim Collins’ work.  I’m not overly impressed by the apparently rigorous process through which he and his team identify great companies and their comparisons.; the numbers aren’t what get me.  But as Rozenweig states in The Halo Effect, “The test of a good story is not whether it is entirely, fully, scientifically accurate—by definition it won’t be.  Rather, the test of a good story is whether it leads us toward valuable insights, if it inspires us toward helpful action.”  And that is what Jim Collins does for me. 

I love the way he conveys concepts in concrete, memorable stories or analogies—he is the poster child for Made to Stick strategies.  The use of the Amundsen and Shackleford expeditions as polar opposites (pun intended!) was a perfect way of capturing the difference between companies that thrive in chaos and those who falter.  Similarly, the models of the 20 Mile March and Bullets and Cannonballs—like the Hedgehog Concept before them—have a way of firmly implanting themselves in my brain.  That is Collins’ wheelhouse.  (He begins to lose me when he becomes more abstract—zooming in and out or SMaC as a noun, verb, and adjective.)

I read this book through two lenses, evaluating both my own personality and that of Amazon in our ability to survive these uncertain times.  I found that of the four traits­—fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, productive paranoia, and Level 5 ambition—I exhibit two, empirical creativity and Level 5 ambition, while falling short in the other two.  As a company, Amazon seems to possess the same two traits.  In one sense, this makes me a great match for the company culture—I’m good at what they like (and visa-versa)—but it may also mean that I need to seek ways to shore up those deficits, both personally and professionally.

An MBA Book Club, Part 4

First, Break All the Rules

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

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Summary

The world’s best managers defy conventional wisdom—the rules—by individualizing their approach to each employee depending on that employee’s unique and innate strengths.  This strengths-based method allows employees to focus on those tasks at which they are best and from which they derive the most satisfaction.  By gearing the selection, evaluation, and placement processes toward cultivating these inherent talents, and by getting out of the way by defining desired outcomes (but not tactics), average manages become great managers.

Favorite Quotes

·         Advice for new managers: “Pick the right people.  Once you’ve picked them, trust them.  Don’t overpromote people. Never pass the buck. Make very few promises to your people and keep them all” (p 16).

·         ‘“The most valuable aspects of jobs now are the most essentially human tasks: sensing judging, creating, and building relationships.’  This means that a great deal of a company’s value ‘lies between the ears of its employees’ and when someone leave the company, he takes his value with him—more often than not straight to the competition” (p 23).

·         Isaac Newton splitting light with a prism in order to see its composite parts (p 27)

·         The twelve questions most indicative of a superior manager:

1.      Do I know what is expected of me at work?

2.      Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

3.      At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

4.      In the last seven days, have I received recognition of praise for doing good work?

5.      Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

6.      Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

7.      At work, do my opinions seem to count?

8.      Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?

9.      Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?

10.  Do I have a best friend at work?

11.  In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?

12.  This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

·         “People leave managers, not companies” (p 33).

·         The frog and the scorpion (p 56)

·         “Everyone can probably do something better than ten thousand other people” (p 148).

·         “Self-discovery is the driving, guiding force for a healthy career” (p 194).

·         “Consistent poor performance is not primarily a matter of weakness, stupidity, disobedience, or disrespect.  It is a matter of mis-casting” (p 209).

·         Effective performance management routines: simple, frequent, focused on the future, employees keep track of their own performance (p 223).

Response

Reading this book after Buckingham’s newer effort was actually more helpful, I think, than if I had read them the other way around.  For me, the order “First, Discover Your Strengths” and “Now, Figure Out How to Help Others to Do So” makes way more sense.

Although I will not initially be cast in a managerial role at Amazon, this book provided me some tools to proactively self-manage.  I found Gallup’s twelve indicator questions to be particularly helpful in evaluating my job satisfaction and engagement, not only in my past and future employment, but also in my present schooling and Church membership.

As an aspiring economist, I firmly believe in the doctrine of specialization, and in that regard this book preaches to the choir.  In my personal life, however, I have a hard time just giving up on areas in which I struggle (unless you count singing, of course).  I think that it will become increasingly important for me to find talents to emphasize, even at the expense of my self-view as a “jack-of-all-trades.”

An MBA Book Club, Part 2

The Halo Effect

Philip M. Rozenweig

           «« (but growing)

Summary

Many of the leading business management books are based on bad science and flawed logic.  Chief among these sins against reason is the Halo Effect, the implied causality between high marks on subjective data and company performance.  Successful companies (and their leaders) will consistently be rated as top-tier in all areas, due to the difficulty in separating ends from the means.  This casts serious doubt on works and authors not giving enough credence to the halo.

Notable Quotes

·         The Eight Other Delusions

1.      The Delusion of Correlation and Causality

2.      The Delusion of Simple Explanations

3.      The Delusion of Connecting the Dots

4.      The Delusion of Rigorous Research

5.      The Delusion of Lasting Success

6.      The Delusion of Absolute Performance

7.      The Delusion of The Wrong End of the Stick

8.      The Delusion of Organizational Physics

·         “Collins urges his readers to ‘confront the brutal facts.’ Well here’s a brutal fact you may wish to consider: If you start by selecting companies based on outcome, and then gather data by conducting retrospective interviews and collecting articles from the business press, you’re not likely to discover what led some companies to become Great.  You’ll mainly catch the glow from the Halo Effect” (p 120).

·         “Studies in organizational performance stand in two very different worlds.  The first world speaks to practicing managers and rewards speculations about how to improve performance.  The second world demands and rewards adherence to rigorous standards of scholarship.  These two worlds operate on different logics, follow different sets of rules, and speak to audiences with different needs, but they rarely intersect” (p 135).

·         “The test of a good story is not whether it is entirely, fully, scientifically accurate—by definition it won’t be.  Rather, the test of a good story is whether it leads us toward valuable insights, if it inspires us toward helpful action” (p 137).

·         “Anyone who claims to have found the laws of business physics either understands little about business, or little about physics, or both” (p 173).

Response

While reading this book, I was extremely disgruntled.  I made notes such as “If you ask this guy what time it is, he’ll tell you how a watch works.  Or even better, if you asked someone else what time it was, he’d interrupt the person and tell you why he’s wrong.”  I could easily imagine the genesis of this book occurring when the author, having just polished off Jim Collins’ latest book, threw it against the wall amid a stream of epithets.  It seemed to be an irritated book critique elevated to its own book.

And yet…I can’t help thinking about Rozenweig’s conclusions.  As we’ve read several other books (including Collins’ most recent addition to his line of bestsellers), I have an insidious little voice whispering, “Halo Effect.  They’re assuming causation. These performance scores are due to company performance, and not the other way around.”

Sure, Rozenweig breaks each of his own three rules in prescribing how best to measure superior performance.  In sharing his own examples of successful leaders, he interviews them posthoc, quotes articles from the business press, and offers platitudes with no data, let alone suspect data.  But participating in the delusions doesn’t make them any less delusional.  In fact, my bridling at the author’s hypocrisy is more a confirmation of his main points, rather than a refutation of them (in fact, as I was reading through the book for the first time, I thought he was intentionally contradicting himself to make a point).

And so, while I may feel like this book was a bit of parade-raining, the management publishing industry may have been due for a storm.

An MBA Book Club, Part 1

Now, Discover Your Strengths

Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

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Summary

We are well-versed in weakness, both our own individual shortcomings and the common failings and flaws around us.  In stark contrast, then, is the limited focus on and vocabulary of strength.  In childhood we develop and discard a superhighway of neural pathways; as a result, we are each physiologically built with certain strengths.  Discovering and cultivating these talents is critical in creating a career at which one can excel.   

Favorite Quotes

·         Two assumptions behind great management:

1.      Each person’s talents are enduring and unique.

2.      Each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength (p 8).

·         Strength: consistent near perfect performance in an activity (p 25).

·         When people change, “they do not change their basic nature, or talents.  They simply redirect their talents toward very different and more positive ends” (p 44).

·         Three ways to continue learning as an adult:

1.      Continue to strengthen your existing synaptic connections (perfect talents)

2.      Keep losing more of your extraneous connections (focusing on strengths)

3.      Develop a few more synaptic connections (the least efficient method)

·         My Strengths (Top 5): Futuristic, Inclusiveness, Learner, Positivity, Strategic

(Additional): Adaptability, Ideation, Self-Assurance

·         “Irrelevant nontalents can mutate into real weaknesses under one condition: as soon as you find yourself in a role that requires you to play to one of your nontalents—or area of low skills or knowledge—a weakness is born” (p 149).

Response

One of my best friends and I have been have an ongoing debate about the nature of perfection: me espousing the Platonic belief of the one true form, her taking the Aristotelian view of the plurality of perfection.  After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s discussion on pasta sauces (of all things!) my perspective had begun to change, but this book sealed the matter once and for all.  I really identify with the concept that we each have inherent talents or strengths that we need to develop; that perfection is not uniformity; and that a full synthesis of perfections is to be achieved in the aggregate.

I also really appreciated the authors’ discussion on the need for a vocabulary of strength—and how well they executed on that need with their specific, detailed 34 strengths.  The Strengths Finder test was able to give voice to things that I recognized in myself, but had never been able to describe.  It also helped me to draw a strong connection between what I enjoyed in my previous employment as a high school administrator and my future job as a product manager at Amazon—the Futuristic aspect of both roles.

If what Buckingham states in First, Break All the Rules, that “self-discovery is the driving, guiding force for a healthy career” is true, then I certainly advanced my career in reading this book.  

Dr. William Nelson, Scientist

If you haven't listened to my new favorite song down on the playlist to the left of your screen, I can't recommend it highly enough.  Remember, of course, that this comes from someone for whom Willie is a musical monument.

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