Des Dearlove

This is an easy read, taking little more than a couple of hours. It carries the subtitle ’10 Secrets of the World’s Greatest Brand-Builder’.which offers the promise of answers to those who seek them, and might be why it’s taken me so long to get around to reading it.

The book begins with a potted history of Richard’s life, from schoolboy entrepreneur to rich CEO. The ‘secrets’ of this journey are outlined in ten chapters which each refer back to examples from Branson’s career.

They each make interesting reading and offer insights and ideas to explore. In a nutshell the secrets are
- Pick on someone bigger than you
- Avoid sticking with convention
- Negotiate everything
- Make work fun
- Protect your brand
- Exploit publicity
- Don’t lead sheep, herd cats
- Move quickly
- Think big, but keep it simple
- Keep the common touch

Though promising secrets no doubt helps sell the book, perhaps the real secret is left to the ‘Last Words’ where it is stated that Richard Branson’s motto should be ars est celare artem – ‘The art lies in concealing the art’.

Here the book succinctly highlights the problem of almost all best practice adoption. You can copy what he does, but that’s not where the real secret is. The real secret is to understand who he is being.

Rudyard Kipling nicely captured this,
“They copied all they could follow but they couldn't copy my mind
so I left them sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.”

An interesting outline of Branson’s journey, and if you’re not looking for answers, the potential source of some interesting lines of thought.… (altro)

For those dealing with change or working with people facing change this is an invaluable reference book. It’s subtitled ‘Harnessing the Power of the World’s Greatest Business Ideas’ which I think over eggs the pudding a little, but in its around 300 pages it does a pretty good job of introducing most of the improvement initiatives you are likely to come across.

It is structured in alphabetical order by name of initiative and covers around 50 business ideas, tools or techniques from Action Learning to The Virtual Organisation. A quick calculation reveals that there are 5-6 pages for each topic but this is ample space to provide an overview and each is supported by a list of further reading should you wish to find out more.
What I like about the book is that it doesn’t present a purely technical summary but also includes some personal perspectives and reflections on the approach, its application and the way in which it is perceived. For example the section on downsizing identifies the major problems that this approach created in companies who shed jobs and also the failed politically correct attempts to rebadge it as ‘rightsizing’. In addition each entry has a section called ‘Ideas into Action’ which provides a brief example of the approach used in a real business environment. These sections provide some real insights into the application of the approaches.

I like the fact that the book doesn’t set out to advocate any of the approaches, but provides a very useful introduction which can form the basis for further reading. If you find yourself in the sea of acronyms applied to the current fashions of business improvement this will help you unscramble your JIT from your BPR and your Emotional Intelligence from your Strategic Inflection Point.

Here for information is the list of business ideas covered.
Action Learning - Activity-based Costing - Adhocracy - Agility - The Balanced Scorecard - Benchmarking - Boston Matrix - Broadbanding - Channel Management - Core Competencies - Core Values - Crisis Management - Decision Theory (including Kepner-Tregoe and Ringi) - Discounted Cash Flow - Downsizing - E-Commerce (including Customer Relationship Management) - Emotional Intelligence - Employability - Empowerment - Four Ps of Marketing - Game Theory - Intellectual Capital - Interim Management - Just in Time (JIT) (Kanban) - Kaizen (Quality Circles) - Knowledge Management - Leadership - Lean Production - The Learning Organisation - The Managerial Grid (Blake Mouton) - Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - Matrix Model - Outsourcing - Porter’s Five Competitive Forces - The Psychological Contract - Re-engineering (BPR) - Relationship Marketing - Scenario Planning - Scientific Management - Seven S Framework - The Shamrock Organisation - Shareholder Value - Strategic Inflection Point - Strategic Management - Succession Planning - Supply Chain Management - Theories X and Y (and Z) - Thought Leadership - 360-degree Feedback - Time-based Competition - TQM and the Quality Movement - The Transnational Organisation - Value Innovation - The Virtual Organisation… (altro)

"Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. His company, Microsoft, which he has headed since he was 20, is the world's biggest company. Worth something in the region of $50 billion, his wealth is beyond the comprehension of most people. For this he attracts both our envy and our curiosity.
Gates is a 20th century phenomenon; the greatest of the cyber-tycoons. His is not simply a story of technical brilliance and enormous wealth, it is one of remarkable business vision and an obsessive desire to win. It is also about a leadership style that is radically different to anything the business world has see before.
How does he do it? Business the Bill Gates Way not only reveals the secrets of Gates' remarkable success but also draws out the universal lessons and identifies strategies that can be applied to any business or career. From hiring very smart people to loving what you make, and from crushing your competitors to never, ever, ever taking your eye off the ball, you have in your hands the secrets of phenomenal success."… (altro)