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Jack Covert Selects - Strategic Intuition
Posted Dec. 19, 2007 9:39 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about how professionals in different fields make important in-the-moment decisions using the instinct gained from past experiences and expertise. One would think that strategic decision-making, the focus of William Duggan's new book, is detached from intuition and based in rational planning, reflection and intellect. This is the classic idea of the split between right brain and left brain functions--the distinction between creativity and rationale. However, referencing modern brain science, Duggan explains how--with advances in MRI technology and brain imaging--that previous model of the brain and its functions has given way to the idea of "intelligent memory." He then takes a look at what this new model tells us about intuition.
Brain science tells us there are three kinds of intuition: ordinary, expert, and strategic. Ordinary intuition is just a feeling, a gut instinct. Expert intuition is snap judgments, when you instantly recognize something familiar, the way a tennis pro knows where the ball will go from the arc and speed of the opponent's racket....The third kind, strategic intuition, is not a vague feeling, like ordinary intuition. Strategic intuition is a clear thought. And it's not fast, like expert intuition. It's slow. That flash of insight you had last night might solve a problem that's been on your mind for a month.
The main point of Strategic Intuition is that large, long-term improvements are not the result of setting a goal and planning a strategy. Instead, accomplishments build on one another. Even the fact that the stricter split-brain model has given way to a new, more nuanced one as a result of the development of the MRI is an example. The same can be said of Newton improving Copernicus's model of the solar system or Microsoft's improvements of the personal computer.
Not only does Duggan tell these stories compellingly, he weaves in the work of three great minds who have influenced his thinking--Thomas Kuhn on science, Joseph Schumpter on economics, and Carl Von Clausewitz on military strategy. He also includes a chapter on three eastern texts to discuss the mentality one needs to maximize the potential of strategic intuition. Innovation is the result of an intuitive and flexible approach rather than setting a goal that is planned, fixed, and inflexible. As a whole, this book might just change how you look at human thought and strategy, and influence how you organize yourself and your team strategically.
Jack Covert Selects - The Opposable Mind
Posted Dec. 14, 2007 9:55 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Most leadership books teach readers how to become a better strategist or a successful manager or how to get things done. "In recent years, the dominant question addressed for the would-be leader is 'What should I do?' rather than 'What should I think?'" The latter question is what Roger Martin answers in The Opposable Mind.
Martin interviewed a variety of business leaders--including the founder of Four Seasons Hotels Isadore Sharp, Procter and Gamble's CEO A. G. Lafley, co-founder of Red Hat Inc. Bob Young, and Meg Whitman, of eBay fame. He found that their one common skill was being able to employ integrative thinking. That is, they have the "ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each."
Take Taddy Blecher, co-founder of CIDA City Campus who ventured to educate young black people in post-apartheid South Africa. With a university education priced at $5,000 a year, most South Africans couldn't afford the higher education necessary to pursue new opportunities. Nor could the government financially support enough young people's education to make a difference. Blecher sought a third model by building a university that is "completely self-sustaining and self-generating because it's generating its own economic activity." Beyond attending classes, students at CIDA are responsible for running the university, including maintenance and paperwork. This keeps costs down and enables students to apply their knowledge. Blecher's ability to use integrative thinking to create a new educational model has given thousands of South African youth access to an extraordinary higher education.
By becoming integrative thinkers, Martin explains, we can "hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension. We can use that tension to think our way through to a new and superior idea." By utilizing this skill in everyday decisions, we can ultimately find more successful and creative solutions to the issues that face our businesses.
Jack Covert Selects - Human Sigma
Posted Dec. 13, 2007 3:48 p.m. by 800-ceo-read
In Human Sigma, John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund paint a grim picture of business and the traps some companies fall into. Organizations create a world where computerized machines run everything and humans are expendable creatures that offer no contribution. The authors even call this sort of business practice "Terminator Management." Fleming and Asplund acknowledge that this is the extreme, but they caution that the business world is on its way to becoming a misguided, thoughtless, emotionless machine.
Fleming and Asplund assert that companies have neglected the human element of Six Sigma or, as the authors call it, Human Sigma. Most companies, like banks or huge retail conglomerates, regard individuals as volatile and/or unpredictable. As a result, they do not pay enough attention to basic employee-customer interactions to keep their companies focused and growing. The authors provide five rules of thumb for companies to stay on track and not lose the Human Sigma, a vital factor of every organization.
Rule 1: E Pluribus Unum: Every interaction between employee and customer should be seen and evaluated as a collective entity, not separate.
Rule 2: Feelings are Facts: Emotions drive the interactions for the employee/customer relations.
Rule 3: Think Globally, Measure and Act Locally: Manage at a local level.
Rule 4: There is One Number You Need to Know: A single performance metric the measures the employee and customer engagement
Rule 5: If You Pray for Potatoes, You Better Grab a Hoe: Good intentions do not constitute a plan of action. Be ready to carry it out.
The human quotient has never really left organizations, but companies focus instead on problems or situations that are more concrete. It's easier to solve a problem of disinterested or ill-informed employees handling a call-center by getting a fully automated phone system than creating a self-empowered team that feels passionate about both the company and customer they work for. Yet rote technological changes can lead to continued customer dissatisfaction, especially when customers are emotionally tied to a company.
This book clips along at a surprising speed, offering insights from many companies that have and have not implemented Human Sigma. The authors explain how companies can identify with their customers, how employees matter in all circumstances in business relationships and how this plan of action needs to not only be implemented, but maintained for success.
Jack Covert Selects - Zoom
Posted Nov. 16, 2007 9:01 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
"The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age could well end long before the world runs out of oil." That statement pretty much sums up the argument made in Zoom, and ironically, it was not made by an environmentalist, but by former Saudi oil minister Sheik Yamani. Having built our economy on the internal combustion engine, which burns carbon-heavy fuel and emits harmful greenhouse gases, we are now facing a dilemma in our country. But, we are a nation of drivers, and not only would we not want to give up our cars, it would be impossible to do so considering the miles we are conditioned to traverse. This new book by two correspondents for The Economist suggests that a change of course is a must.
Their premise is simple enough. "Oil is the Problem. Cars are the solution." That may sound odd at first (big oil in Texas and the "big three" auto makers of Detroit have been so linked for the past century that they now seem inseparable), but it seems painfully obvious when you've finished the book. Zoom looks at the current state of affairs in Detroit, Texas, and Washington, and prescribes steps needed to move us toward the car of the future. A car that is healthier for us, better for business, and cleaner for the environment. They believe two separate approaches are needed:
Both top-down public policies and bottom-up marketplace innovations must play a role in propelling the world to the post-petroleum age of carbon-free cars. On the policy front, it looks like Washington politicians may finally be shamed into serious action by the clamor in states and cities for action on global warming, a real budding grassroots revolution. As for those marketplace innovations, will the dinosaurs of the car and oil industries finally learn to dance? Or will it be an unruly and disruptive bunch of upstarts, entrepreneurs, and innovators that leads the effort...?
Toyota surpassed GM earlier this year as the world's top auto seller, in part by addressing this need for a new approach, and is now forcing American auto makers to look at a world beyond petroleum. If Detroit wants to remain relevant and viable, the big three must come out of their entrenched positions and address the concerns of consumers and challenges of innovation. The authors believe that what they call the "Great Awakening" of American consumers will lead to a demand for change, "promising a clean-energy revolution even bigger than the telecommunications and Internet revolutions," and that belief--and this book--are infectious.
Jack Covert Selects - Two books! - One Foot Out the Door - and - Giving Notice
Posted Nov. 14, 2007 8:16 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay by Freada Kapor Klein, Jossey-Bass, 240 pages, $27.95 Hardcover, October 2007, ISBN 9780787998097
Two books out this fall address a serious issue facing employers: a nation of disengaged workers. In June I wrote about Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, a book that challenged the current career model and its shortcomings for women--and, consequently, a major brain drain in this country's businesses. These two books, One Foot Out the Door and Giving Notice, delve deeper into the reasons all types of employees are feeling dissatisfied in their work, and draw attention to a growing problem that has the potential to shape new generations entering the workforce.
In One Foot Out the Door, Judith M. Bardwick, a former professor of psychology and now a highly-regarded management consultant, begins by giving an overview of the economic ups and downs of the past half-century. She points to the economic recessions of the late '70s and early '80s as the time when our economy's unwritten "social contract"--employees work hard and employers take care of them--fell apart. As cutbacks were made, work was outsourced and people were laid off, the workforce became disengaged and discouraged as they saw their job security vanishing before their eyes.
Today, the author claims, as many as two thirds of American workers are in what she calls a psychological recession: "an emotional state in which people feel extremely vulnerable and afraid for their futures...[and] expect the worst to happen, so they see no reason to give it their all." They're either actively looking for new jobs or are going through the motions in current positions. Bardwick calls for a "twenty-first century safety net that will reduce the fear by providing financial support and a good sense of community, while avoiding a reinstatement of entitlement attitudes."
On another front, Freada Kapor Klein, co-founder of the Level Playing Field Institute, looks into discrimination that drives knowledge workers out of the well-intentioned corporations that don't fully realize the assumptions and stereotypes that continue to plague their corporate culture.
To show the cost of bias, financial and human, and to bring to life the types of discrimination and unfair treatment many people face, the author profiles three fictional characters "as they negotiate life in a high-end corporate workplace." Then, she offers a framework corporate leaders can follow to identify and uproot those barriers.
If you're looking for ways to recruit or retain talented people, both Bardwick and Klein offer strategic, smart suggestions for establishing a workplace that is welcoming to a diverse set of people and committed to their job satisfaction and growth.
