“The Art of The Start”
NOW AVAILABLE
Order
your copy today using this link.
As you know, I am a voracious reader.
I seldom finish reading a business book cover to cover because
so many of today’s books are filled with academic
“fluff.” (My apologies in advance to my former
professors or business practitioners who teach our future
leaders…)
Guy Kawasaki’s book is different.
“The Art of the Start” was
designed and invented to offer simple, practical execution
advice for anyone starting anything. If you’re tired
of using traditional “by the book” methods to
launch a product or service, and want some street smart
advise from Guy, this book is for you.
I had the honor of helping Guy review
and edit the book—and craft the chapter on “The
Art of Rainmaking!”
At Apple Computer, Kawasaki helped turn
ordinary customers into fanatics. As founder and CEO of
Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested his creative,
out-of-the-box ideas on real start- ups. Today, Guy publishes
for Forbes and speaks to thousands of entrepreneurs each
year.
One reviewer, Pete Smyth, describes “The
Art of the Start” perfectly: “I've recommended
this book to all my friends and business associates to help
them take action. After all, plenty of folks have a solid
academic foundation and understand the intricacies of business,
but need help executing.”
Order
your copy today using this link.
(we donate a percentage of profits
to our community charities)
Tired of reading books?
Well, here is another option…
If you want to get straight to the source
of innovation, you can meet Guy Kawasaki LIVE -- November
16!
Join us on Tuesday, November 16
from 2-3 pm PT/5-6 pm ET on our Top Performer Audio
Conference to speak directly with Guy...
And you will probably spend less than
a week’s worth of double lattes.
“Set Your Entrepreneurial
Spirit Free”
Live Audio Conference
with Guy Kawasaki **(Sorry conference
date has passed)**
Do you ever feel like you've lost sight
of your company's vision because you're “deep in the
weeds” with too many meetings and red tape?
Without innovative and creative ideas,
your competition could leave you in the dust.
Guy Kawasaki will tell you benefits of treating every company,
whether it's 10 people or 10,000, as a startup. In this
audio conference, Guy draws parallels between entrepreneurs
starting new companies and employees in established companies
who are trying to create a new product or service.
No matter which best describes you, I personally promise
you’ll learn the field-tested, battle-hardened lessons
of The Art of the Start.
Guy will give you proven guidance on how
to:
Guy Kawasaki motivates you to move from ideas to action.
He shows you how to think, act, and implement like revolutionaries
of innovation. He inspires you to unleash entrepreneurial
thinking within your organization and helps you foster the
creativity needed to become an industry leader and stay
there.
If you even remotely work near someone who owns a computer,
then you have heard of Guy.
He has written eight books including
Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your
Competition Crazy, and The Macintosh Way.
When he’s not speaking around the globe, he’s
the Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures and
a Forbes columnist. He is very well known as one
of the original Apple Macintosh evangelists. Guy earned
his B.A. from Stanford and an MBA from UCLA.
Don’t hate yourself for missing
this audio conference.
**(Sorry conference date
has passed)**
October Featured
Column:
Goodbye Suggestion Box, Hello
Profits
(A primer on how to set your creativity and innovation free)
Did you know that one of the least expensive
sources of untapped profits happens when you generate workers’
ideas? What would your company look like today if more than
two ideas per person per week flew into your “inbox?”
Over the last century, scores of managers
have attempted to tap the tremendous potential of workers’
ideas. I recently interviewed Dr. Dean Schroeder, co-author
of Ideas Are Free: How the Idea Revolution Is
Liberating People and Transforming Organizations.
Dean and his co-author, Alan Robinson,
traveled to more than 150 organizations in 17 countries,
interviewing 1,000 managers and workers. They wanted to
know what idea systems led to unusually high levels of performance
and a strong, healthy work environment.
Many of Schroeder’s and Robinson’s
findings were surprisingly counterintuitive, starting with
three essential secrets to success:
Think small.
Big, dramatic ideas are like St. Bernards.
Everyone loves them, but nobody likes to clean up after
them.
I met an idea “dog” in 1999.
I was advising one of the top 5 ERP software company teams
at their quarterly Directors meeting. The CEO, a former
McKinsey consultant, announced 39 new “turnaround
initiatives” in front of a crowd of tired, burnt out
directors. That’s right, 39. He was in love with his
own grandiose ideas and lost the audience in the process.
What was he thinking?
The super-sized breakthroughs that promise
fame and fortune seldom deliver. The authors learned it’s
actually smarter to go after small ideas… Here’s
why:
They build competitive advantage. They
don’t migrate to competitors-and even if they do,
they’re often too specific to be useful.
They point to deeper issues. They often
appear in patterns and in turn can pinpoint weightier problems
and opportunities.
Small ideas can be managed and measured.
They come up on a regular basis-unlike big ideas, which
come along rarely and unpredictably-giving managers plenty
of experience in managing and measuring them.
Small ideas have a big, cumulative impact.
Collectively, small ideas amass into a big, competitive
advantage. Look no further than a recent quote from 3M Post-It
Note inventor Art Fry: “The reason 3M has been able
to maintain their market position is that nobody has been
able to assemble all the little ideas to replicate our product
design and combine it with the quality we offer.”
Avoid the pitfalls of rewards.
Rewards are unnecessary. Workers will
offer plenty of ideas without them. For them, the most powerful
incentive is the knowledge that their ideas will get a fair
hearing and, if they’re worthwhile, that they’ll
be used and recognized. Says Schroeder, “An employee
in a can company in Southern Sweden earned $50,000 for his
first idea. He stopped giving ideas because he thought his
ideas were worth much more than $50,000.”
Historically, the instinct of most managers
is to offer monetary rewards for ideas. The most common
scheme--offering a percentage of the value of an idea-usually
backfires.
First, Rewards are inherently unfair.
Because it’s the easiest thing to do, most rewards
are given to the originator of an idea. But what about everyone
else involved in evaluating and implementing the idea? Is
it any surprise that people hold back their ideas in team-based
projects, knowing they can be rewarded later individually
through the idea system?
Furthermore, rewards create more overhead
and fewer ideas. If a sizable reward for an idea is at stake,
the idea’s value must be calculated as precisely as
possible. Evaluating the benefits of an idea takes countless
hours of staff time and energy. Who will you trust to perfect
the calculation algorithm?
Finally, rewards encourage people to “game”
the system. As the saying goes, “If money can be made
by doing something wrong, someone will.”
Make ideas part of everyone’s
job.
Top “idea companies” make
ideas part of every employee’s job and getting ideas
part of every manager’s job. Additionally, many of
them track and assess results in individual performance
evaluations.
Here’s an example of a simple, efficient idea system
in use today. At one company Schroeder visited, managers
and employees are expected to bring two ideas-however small-to
their weekly department meetings.
Here is how you can organize the meeting:
Each person presents his ideas, which
the group then discusses and refines. If the group agrees
that an idea should be implemented, or that it requires
further consideration, they determine who’s accountable
to make it happen. Most meetings involve 8 to 10 people
and last about 45 minutes.
As you launch or refine your idea system,
be sure it has all the attributes of an effective system.
Here’s how:
1. Make ideas part of everyone’s
job.
2. Create a simple method
for people to submit ideas.
3. Allow ideas to be discussed
and evaluated by people who have direct knowledge.
4. Provide immediate feedback.
Throw out the suggestion box that encourages random, anonymous
ideas.
5. Set up a system to make
decisions quickly and implement them at the lowest possible
level.
Thanks to Schroeder, we can say goodbye
to the suggestion box, and hello to profits.
--Lisa Nirell
http://www.energizegrowth.com/
