"How to Succeed in 2007" is the title of a feature article in Business 2.0.
The article has brief snipettes from a number of leaders and managers with their ideas of what it will take.
Here are a few:
Howard Schultz - Starbuck's "Dare to Be a Social Entrepreneur"
Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt - GOOGLE "Simplicity"
Michael Dell - Dell "Think Big"
Stephan Covey - FranklinCovey "Strive for Moral Authority" Character and Contribution
Rachael Ray - Chef and Author "Turn your Passion into an Empire"
Richard Branson - Virgin Group "Learn How to say No"
And many More.....
Which one did you like the best? Why?
Gene A. Wright
6 comments:
Most of the contributions had a central message. Some of the most appealing include:
1. “You have to be open-minded when those early opportunities present themselves. Take advantage of them, whether they're going to make you a lot of money or not.”
Rachael Ray
Chef, Author, and Entrepreneur
This advice is particularly significant to me as I contemplate assuming a new role in a branch that requires significant rebuilding. No risk, no reward.
2. “We have the tiger by the tail in that we have this huge phenomenon of personalization. Now we need to make it simpler for people. We are trying to shape the innovation going forward from here and get things more integrated, make Google more integrated.”
Eric Schmidt
CEO, Google
3. “Our founder, Jim Casey, pushed this idea, which means that no matter how good a job you're doing, you can always do a little better. It's that ability to transform, to evolve, and to execute on those transformations that has made us successful.”
Mike Eskew
Chairman and CEO, UPS
4. “My four rules are: Build a great product, build demand in any way you can, make sure you have a distribution organization to fulfill the demand, and make sure your customers are happy - and that is the first rule, by the way. Those are the four elements. Is your product better than anyone else's - is it easier, more efficient, simpler? Can you explain to people how it's better? Can you position it correctly in their minds”?
Marc Benioff
Chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com
5. “To keep learning, you constantly must keep unlearning. First, this requires an effort to identify precisely those beliefs that seem most indisputable; usually that means beliefs that are the most widely held. Second, it demands a continuous search for disconfirming evidence…According to Sourceforge.net, there are currently over 1.4 million volunteers contributing to more than 130,000 open-source projects, with nary a manager in sight. Turns out you don't always need managers to aggregate human effort in productive ways - a revelation that undoubtedly came as a bit of a shock to a legion of project managers at Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and other software incumbents.”
Gary Hamel
Management consultant; author, Leading the Revolution
6. “The only way to acquire moral authority is through your character and contribution, to live in such a way as to merit the confidence and the trust of other people. Moral authority is especially important to business. This is because in order to reduce costs, increase production, and nurture a culture of innovation - all of which are important criteria in today's global economy - you've got to have high trust among your workers and partners. Why? Because everyone involved needs to sacrifice. If you don't have high trust, none of those things will happen. You can't fake high trust.”
Stephen Covey
Vice Chairman, FranklinCovey; Author, The 7 habits of Highly Effective People
-mpk
I found myself in a similar situation as the above blogger. I read through each of the entries and found certain aspects appealing. A few hung with me a little longer. These are some of the comments as well as my personal interpretation of them…
Richard Branson – Founder and Chairman – Virgin Group
“I suspect that anything that is morally wrong is ultimately bad for business.” Business ethics are increasingly important in today’s world, as brought about by recent corporate actions (i.e. Enron). Richard Branson takes an interesting view on the effects of morality within business.
Howard Schultz – Chairman – Starbucks
“Consumers now seek an enduring emotional connection with the companies they patronize.” “Trust with your people and with your customers.” Loyalty is becoming an integral part of business. It can be seen through efforts of companies everywhere, those that are willing to provide the higher order needs usually achieve much higher customer satisfaction and higher dividends for the services they provide.
Alan Hassenfeld – Chairman – Hasbro
“Every product and every brand has a core essence. Don't sacrifice that core essence as you update the product. We always want to move on to the new. It's the old, though, that keeps selling year after year - as long as it looks new.” Take a look at what has gotten you this far and continue to involve that in your business plan. You see the retro style coming back in a number of industries. Traditional or throwbacks are evident in all sorts of industries, just look at how well re-introduced car models have made resurgence in the automobile industry.
Brad Anderson – CEO – Best Buy
“Most businesses underutilize the perspectives of employees who are dying to be heard and hungry to make the business better.” Employees, no matter what the position, are the individuals seeing the tangible aspects of the everyday business. They know what works and what does not, they often just don’t get the opportunity to voice their opinions. Their knowledge is a vast untapped resource that can significantly influence all industries.
I think for me the best comment was by Google co founder Sergin Brin. Make your product simple. That is very important and powerful statement according to me.Today with all the new technology the only way one is going to compete is by making it as much as User Interface friendly as possible. For example iPod has set an example where just with one clicker it has changed consumers perception
Choosing a favorite out of these is a tough decision. I must admit that the comments of Michael Scott gave me the greatest laugh...and I made a copy of that one to post in my office. My co-workers and I discussed it, and determined that Scott's theories would not work in our office environment, considering that one of our vital team members is not a fan of chocolate or any kind of sweets.
However, I did enjoy Richard Branson's advice on how to say "No" in the most positive manner possible. Saying "no" is a major obstacle that I am trying to overcome myself, and Branson's advice gave me some ideas on how to overcome fears when I find myself in a similar situation as a manager.
~ Emily
I believe Ram Shriram’s three step philosophy is powerful: “hire smart, define the market, and simplify the solution.” He uses my favorite business term; “Passion”. While there are a lot of common threads to the different business plans and approaches for each of these leaders, a passion to make the business plan successful is crucial. Mr. Shriram three steps can be reworded as: 1) clearly define the problem, 2) hire those passionate to help you solve it, and 3) simplify the problems so it is manageable.
Comments on “How to succeed in 2007” articles
After reading most of the articles, the one I like the best was actually Donald Trumps, I am not a huge fan of his, but his philosophies are “obsess about solutions not problems” and “success breeds success” thinking positive helps motivate people that are around you and encourages team effort.
Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group had some good advice that probably explains some of his success, he finds it “extremely important to respond to people and give them encouragement if you are a leader” That mean answering their calls in person, give of yourself and mentoring younger people.
Stephen Covey, makes the important point that “moral character” is critical to achieving trust among business partners and workers. “You can’t fake high trust” and in order to get people to make the necessary sacrifices you need that level of trust.
Chad Hurley, Co-Founder YouTube makes two good points about success. 1.“Seek outside feedback” listen to the community and adapt. 2. “Give partners what they want” try to respond to your partners needs.
Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank, winner of the 2006 Nobel Piece Prize. Offers some very practical advice “Business is about problem-solving” he indicates that most problems sound very complicated, but they aren’t. They’re simple, and complications actually hide solutions. He suggests that when faced with a problem; always break it down into its simplest formulation.
Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy. “Women are redefining the consumer electronics business, they spend 55 billion dollars a year and influence 90 percent of all purchases” how can any one say that’s not interesting. You would need to be crazy not to pay attention to that.
These are good short view point articles that are easy to read and remember. They give you a pretty good idea about the philosophies behind these undeniably successful people.
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