The Big Idea: Show your employees love and they will show your customers love. Foreward Most people are looking not only for monetary security but also for satisfaction in their work. Southwest’s People have produced an unprecedented and unparalleled record of job security, Customer satisfaction, and Shareholder return. What Is Leadership? LUV is our symbol…
Freakonomics did a podcast on Trader Joe’s strategy and company culture. The Big Idea: ignore competitors and focus on your customers; hire for cultural fit. How is Trader Joe’s different from competitors? How is Trader Joe’s doing vs competitors? What are the key lessons for companies?
The Big Idea: focus on profit not revenue; meetings interrupt deep work; remote work leads to deep work and attracts top talent. Think of your company as the primary product that you are building. What are the features and benefits of your company? What areas of the company need improvement? Think about how the company…
The Big Idea: History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Chapter I: Hesitations Chapter II: History and the Earth Chapter III: Biology and History Chapter IV: Race and History Chapter V: Character and History Chapter VI: Morals and History Chapter VII: Religion and History Chapter VIII: Economics and History Chapter IX: Socialism and…
THE BIG IDEA: Great companies have a clear purpose for their existence, and it’s not the pursuit of money. INTRODUCTION The Wright brothers were able to inspire those around them and truly lead their team to develop a technology that would change the world. Apple inspires. Apple starts with Why. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak,…
Eight Principles of Successful Rainwater Harvesting Begin with long and thoughtful observation. Start at the top of your watershed and work your way down. Start and simple. Slow, spread, and infiltrate the flow of water. Always plan an overflow route, and manage that overflow as a resource. Create a living space. Do more than just…
1162 Genghis Khan was born into the Borjigin tribe under the name Temujin. His childhood was poor and his family struggled to survive. Temujin, however, thrived and made many political alliances among other Mongol tribes. 1177 Temujin was captured by a rival tribe and imprisoned. With the help of a guard, he escaped by hiding…
The Big Idea: Pay attention to the timing of events, decisions, and actions. PART ONE: THE DAY CH 1. THE HIDDEN PATTERN OF EVERYDAY LIFE According to studies of Twitter, mood increases in the morning until about 11am, plummets after lunch, and then increases again in the evening. Quarterly earnings calls in the morning tend…
The Big Idea: The most consistently successful people invest their energy into building a set of good habits. People who consistently seem to excel share one key thing: they are better at building and sustaining new habits. Those who build habits are like people who live below their means, slowly building up an impressive balance…
The Big Idea: great companies are built by consistent execution of a strategy with built-in positive feedback loops — like turning a giant flywheel over and over, building momentum with each turn. When building a great company, there’s no single defining action, no grand program, no single killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, and no…
I. Cascades II. Elements of Chaos Heat Death Hunger Drowning Wildfire Disasters No Longer Natural Freshwater Drain Dying Oceans Unbreathable Air Plagues of Warming Economic Collapse Climate Conflict “Systems” III. The Climate Kaleidoscope Storytelling Crisis Capitalism The Church of Technology Politics of Consumption History After Progress Ethics at the End of the World IV. The…
Bottom Line: A leader has ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of an operation and should have extreme ownership of it. The laws of combat are: Cover and Move, Keep It Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command. INTRO Leaders cast no blame. They make no excuses. Instead of complaining about challenges or setbacks,…
The Big Idea: For small volumes of water storage, use ferrocement if you can and plastic if you cannot. For large volumes of water storage, use ponds if you can and ferrocement if you cannot. Design Principles 1. Lease as much of the water work as possible to nature. 2. Divert water just after evaporation…
The Big Idea: start businesses in emerging markets where there is much less competition. I decided to visit the small Eastern European country of Estonia. People who build successful businesses — are driven by circumstances and then led by opportunity. As an entrepreneur , you must be first and foremost an optimist. Being a successful…
The Big Idea: Bill Belichick built a dynasty around on a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, strategic flexibility, and detailed preparation. Part 1: Culture “Do your job” is the New England Patriots mission statement. The goal is to improve on a daily basis, work hard, pay attention to the little details, and put the team…
The Big Idea: Apply lean production principles (Theory of Constraints) to software development. Reduce the work-in-progress to let developers concentrate on only one task at a time. Agile development with Kanban means creating a kanban board with tasks posted and a well-defined workflow. There are no milestones or sprints and there is minimal overhead. Inspired…
THE BIG IDEA: To build a dream team, find independent thinkers from diverse backgrounds. Then ensure there is just enough tension to generate creative solutions but not so much tension that the team is dysfunctional. INTRO Between 1960 and 1990 , the Soviet national hockey team won nearly every international match it played. It was…
The Big Idea: 1) IQ matters but the best predictor of success is relevant experience plus high emotional intelligence (EQ). 2) Interview 20 individuals before selecting finalists. 3) The preferred strategy for sourcing is to contact people who may know the best candidates. INTRODUCTION Organizations are all about people. People are the problem, but they…
You don’t have to work miserable 60 / 80 / 100 – hour weeks to make it work. You don’t even need an office. Ignore the real world. It’s a place where new ideas , unfamiliar approaches , and foreign concepts always lose . Learn from your successes. Failure is not a prerequisite for success….