The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 05 Aug 2011 05:37 PM PDT Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done Authors: Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan with Charles Burck Publisher: Random House Business Books WHEN Execution was published in 2002, it changed the way people worked. This updated version reframes the message given by the two authors in light of the current global situation based on several radical changes expected in the foreseeable future. Growth will be slower, competition will be more fierce, governments will take on new roles in their national economies and risk management will become a top priority for every leader. Rework: Change the way you work forever Authors: Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson Publisher: Vermillion THIS is a different kind of business book; it is more inspirational and motivational with a big business element from start to finish. Much of it is based on the experience of three friends, who started their company making software products. They are writing for those who have never dreamed of starting a business and who would like to. Chapters are short and anecdotes are scattered in abundance to give readers that quick fix. Fairly easy to read. The Corner Office: Lessons from CEOs on how to lead and succeed Author: Adam Bryant Publisher: Times Books THIS book draws lessons from top executives that reveal the keys to success in the business world. Divided into three parts, succeeding, leading and managing, the author looks at essential personality traits that CEOs value most and how these qualities separate rising stars from their colleagues. These include curiousity, team spirit, confidence, a sense of mission among others. Adam Bryant is the lead editor for the team that won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and is a former business editor at Newsweek. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Toasting those who seek genuine solutions Posted: 05 Aug 2011 05:37 PM PDT Title: Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure I have to concur with Steven Dubner of Freakonomics fame when he says Tim Harford, author of Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure and widely known as "the Undercover Economist" is "one of the best writers who also happens to be an economist". Harford, a columnist for the Financial Times whose writing has also appeared in Esquire, Forbes, New York magazine, Wired, The Washington Post and The New York Times, presents impressive and inspiring research to shore up his suggested approach for solving the most pressing problems in our lives. He notes that "when faced with complex situations, we have all become accustomed to looking to our leaders to set out a plan of action and blaze a path to success." Harford argues that "today's challenges simply cannot be tackled with ready-made solutions and expert opinion; the world has become far too unpredictable, and profoundly complex. Instead, we must learn to adapt." The insightful and interesting book captures your attention from the start by calling our attention to the case of a simple toaster to illustrate this key point. The humble electric toaster was invented in 1893, roughly halfway between the appearance of the light bulb and that of the aeroplane. Whilst it is now a highly affordable household appliance, it is a still an "astonishing achievement" – something Thomas Thwaites, a postgraduate design student at the Royal College of Art in London discovered as he embarked on his "Toaster Project" to build one from scratch. Thwaites found that even a simple toaster contained over four hundred components and sub-components. Even the most primitive model called for "copper to make the pins of the electric plug, the cord and internal wires; iron to make the steel grilling apparatus, and the spring to pop up the toast; nickel to make the heating element; mica (a mineral like slate) around which the heating element is wound; and of course, plastic for the plus, cord insulation and the all important sleek looking casing." Thwaites tried with limited success to recreate the seemingly simple device using twentieth-century approximations of fifteenth-century technology. Despite his Herculean efforts to duplicate the technology, his approximation looked more like "a toaster-shaped birthday cake than a real toaster, its coating dripping and oozing like an icing job gone wrong." The resultant contraption warmed bread when plugged into a battery but became the proverbial toast when plugged into the mains. Harford notes that "far simpler objects than a toaster involve global supply chains and the coordinated efforts of many individuals, scattered across the world. Many do not even know the final destination of their efforts." The range of products that are available today are also astounding. The toaster can be seen as a "symbol of the sophistication of our world" as well as the "obstacles that lie in wait for those who want to change it". In essence, Adapt is partly a book about these problems but "more fundamentally, it is a book that aims to understand how any problem – big or small – really gets solved in a world where even a toaster is beyond one main's comprehension". Harford draws parallels between economic progress and evolution in the natural world. He points out that biological evolution usually moves in small steps, but occasionally takes wild leaps. This process of evolution strikes a balance between discovering the new and exploiting the familiar. He argues that the evolutionary approach i.e. the mix of baby steps and occasional giant gambles is not just another way of solving complex problems; the approach is perhaps the best possible way to search for sustainable solutions. Harford shows us how the key elements of variation, selection, survivability and decoupling combine to allow organisations and individuals to adapt to meet the complex challenges of daily living. Variation relates to seeking out ideas and trying new things; selection involves seeking out feedback and learning from mistakes whilst survivability refers to doing these on a scale where failure is survivable. Decoupling enhances survivability and can be applied at two levels. The first involves making experiments small enough so that if they fail, they can be terminated at minimal cost. At another level, decoupling is about designing systems whose parts are independent enough to prevent small collapses from cascading into major catastrophes. Variation can be inherently difficult to push from the onset because of two natural tendencies in organisations. The first being "grandiosity as politicians and corporate bosses like large projects – anything from the reorganisation of a country's entire healthcare system to a gigantic merger – because they win attention and show that the leader is a person who gets things done". The other tendency relates to the fact that "we rarely like the idea of standards that are inconsistent and uneven from place to place". Harford contends that standardisation tends to come at a price in charm, flexibility and quality and should be viewed as an undesirable trait. He emphasises that when a problem is unsolved or continually changing, the best way to tackle it is to experiment with many different approaches. However, if we are to accept variation, we must also accept that some of these new approaches will not work well – a proposition that would not be very popular with politicians or corporate chieftains. Things would of course be different, if we as members of the electorate should tolerate and even celebrate any politicians who seek genuine solutions and who in doing so, test many ideas robustly enough to prove that some of them do not work. But of course, we do not. Harford goes on to provide many absorbing and current case studies in the areas of planned economies, developmental aid, research and development, climate change, oil spills and the financial crisis. Not the biggest fan of military strategy, I found myself fascinated by Harford's informative comparisons of the US strategies applied in Iraq. What I liked best about this well structured book that applies everyday language very effectively are the last two chapters which showcase how institutions and individuals can actually apply the ideas presented. I highly recommend this read. Who knows? Failure may just become fashionable. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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