Archives for posts with tag: ideas

Book Review: Restoring the Soul of Business by Rishad Tobaccowala

February 19, 2021 //
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Being, effectively, a self-taught manager, there are things you come across that drive you crazy. One of those things is the insistence, from people with MBAs, to only look at data when it comes to decision making. While I am a great proponent of education; I have my career in spite of a lack of further education – not because of it, I find the constant insistence on relying on data to be frustratingly narrow minded and lacking in imagination.

Restoring the Soul of Business, Staying Human in the Age of Data by Rishad Tobaccowala is one of the few business books that actually supports the downplaying of data, and by god is it refreshing to hear.

I should make clear; this is not a “touchy feely” plea for businesses to be based on being nice to people; but the business case for giving equal weight to both “stories” and “spreadsheets.” That the best business decisions are often not data driven, but driven by the experiences and ideas of individuals.

There are points in the book, like with many books that argue for seemingly “too good be to true” ideas and concepts, that the reader can become frustrated and want to yell “Yes, but..” Mr. Tobaccowala; however, deftly sprinkles in touches of reality which gives context, and caveats, to benefits that seem to have no place in the business world of real people.

Restoring the Soul of Business is a plea for the middle ground. That data has its place, and is not an omnipotent modern god as pointed out by Cathy O’Neil in her excellent Weapons of Math Destruction that I reviewed here, and that people with ideas and intuition, stories in other words, can balance each other in the workplace. Over reliance on either the “story or the spreadsheet,” a phrase that does begin to grate after a while, is a trap to which we can all fall into; and many businesses already have.

It is the realism of Restoring the Soul of Business that makes it a book worth listening to. That data driven companies tend to have cold cultures and little innovation which in turn leads to poor customer service. The examples litter the headlines; Southwest Airlines vs. United Airlines for just one example.

While there are lots of books that ask us to take a better look at our data, I have reviewed a number of them, this is one of the few books making the case for balance.

And that makes it a fresh, and interesting read, and a book to take to heart.

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Categories Books, Business, Leadership, Management, personal development

Book Review: Better by Atul Gawande

January 9, 2021 //
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There are books that influence other books, and ideas that multiple authors undertake sometimes with wildly different results.

Better is a book that is accompanied with a healthy dose of Deju Vu. I have previously read Dr. Gawande’s “Being Mortal”, written years after Better – which was published in 2007, which had rocked my world and changed my perceptions on life, death, and above all quality of life. Better, therefore was a bit of a letdown. A lot of the stories, Better is essentially a collection of anecdotes, were familiar and there was no real great insight or overarching theme other than just to be “better.”

Perhaps because I am not a doctor, and yet know enough about how medicine and hospitals work from the fringes where veterinary medicine resides, that Better did not bowl me over as I was expecting. It is in fact telling, that Veterinary Medicine is not mentioned once in Dr. Gawande’s Better given that a lot of the issues he seeks to shed light on; medical costs, liability, and vaccinations are handled wildly differently by veterinarians than human doctors. There is a feeling that even though this is a book about looking at problems differently, the research has been performed on an ad hoc basis rather than in any systematic fashion.  

This is a book about out of the box thinking and overcoming inertia. Human medicine has become so specialized and therefore a victim of institutional dogma that change can easily been seen as heresy. Better suggests that it is often not the ideas that matter, particularly when those ideas fail create passion in others, so much as the people who champion those ideas.

It is not a book full of great revelations, it is a book that shows excellence and failure, and what those stories look like. The hope, upon reading such a work, is that others are inspired to replicate some of the ideas, or at least try not to stand in the way of those ideas when they are presented by others. And it is hard to argue the point that we can all do better, by being passionate and by not settling for the status quo.

All of this is not to say that Better is not enjoyable. These are interesting, and at times inspiring, tales that are worth reading. This is not a book to change your view of the world, I suspect not even in human medicine, but it is possible at this is too high a standard to hold any book to.

Dr. Gawande’s other books do have the reputation for this incredible high standard, but is it ok the settle for just being entertained and to find something interesting.

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Categories Books, Career Advice, personal development

Book Review: Hit Makers by Derek Thompson

September 14, 2019 //
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hitmakers

Why do some ideas become wildly popular while others languish in obscurity?

Derek Thompson’s riveting, and impeccably researched, book; “Hit Makers,” postulates that there is a formula to making ideas popular. It argues that knowing how manipulate ideas to create successful products has major implications, but that it is also just as important is to understand when successful products are the result of manipulation.

At its core, Hit Makers asked two questions:

  1. What is the secret to making products that people like, whether they are music, movies, TV shows, or Apps in the vast cultural landscape of today?
  2. Why do some products fail, while similar ideas catch on and become massive hits?

Mr. Thompson tells us that people are both neophiliac, a love of the new, while also being neophobic, a fear of the new. People who are hit makers marry old and new ideas. They create familiar surprises. People tend to gravitate to the familiar – the most popular movies in recent times have all be sequels or reimagining of existing properties. People want new things, but they want those new things to seem familiar.

The most popular theory of modern content creation is that if you make great content, it will be recognized, shared, and go viral. However, Mr. Thompson states; “Content might be king, but distribution is the kingdom.” Catchy tunes that do not get air play on the radio will remain unknown. New tunes get on the radio by being new, but being familiar enough to listeners that they do not turn off.

Repetition, repeated exposure which creates familiarity, can actually be used to engineer popularity in groups of people. Politicians have known this for years. Consider this speech by Barack Obama:

“For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we’ve been told we’re not ready or that we shouldn’t try or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.
It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.
Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.”

Or this speech by Winston Churchill;

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Mr. Thompson makes a convincing case, although not guaranteed, that popularity can, and has been for centuries, been manufactured and manipulated, but that it can also occur spontaneously by specific sets of circumstances.

Hit Makers is a starting point for understanding how and why things become popular and how we can get our ideas to find their audience, and what we can do to create that audience in the first place. It postulates that we misunderstand terms such as “viral” and “influencer” therefore ideas are not spread in the ways that we hope.

Hit Makers is a phenomenal book for anyone who sees to understand ideas and popularity. It draws from history and the present day. It should, for better or worse, change the way you share ideas and see how ideas change the world.

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Categories Books, Business, Content Marketing, Marketing, Movies, Politics, Social Media

Book Review: Made to Stick – Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath

August 10, 2011 //
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Another great book from the brothers Heath.

It is interesting to note that in retrospect the lessons of “Stick” have had such an impression on the authors that their follow up “Switch” (which I reviewed here) is all the better for it.

The concept of “stickiness” is lifted wholesale from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, but its practical applications go further, from my understanding that Galdwell’s popular work.The basic premises is that stories, personal connections, are what make ideas stick not great raw facts. This has huge implications for marketers and managers. The book delves very deep into why this concept works and does give some great real world examples as you would expect from a book with such a central theory.

Where the book really succeeds, is in it’s ability to predict where ideas will work or not. There is a great example about a journalism class and being able distill ideas, or stories, down to their most basic essence. Another frequently used example is Southwest Airlines who’s most basic mission statement “The Low Cost Airline” informs everything they do. This mission statement becomes a simple idea, that can answer complex questions and can direct behavior.

An intriguing part of the book, and also an excellent framing device, is the use of urban legends and why they succeed where other news items, education, and presentations don’t. If we could make our ideas like urban legends our work as managers, marketers and educators is 90% done.

Switch is the better read, but stick is the more intellectual and deeper work and also have the potential to be significantly more important.

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

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Categories Books, Business, Management, Marketing
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