Thought of the Day - Right Brained Computing

First it was widley belived that machines couldn't replace people at making things (pottery, textiles etc), then the industrial revolution happened. While the machines would never be quite as good at making some things (hand-crafted is still seen as a good thing) they do most of the making in the world today.

More recently it was thought that machines couldn't replace people doing knowledge based tasks that required left brain thinking and again they have been proved wrong again. If a computer can win at chess, properly programed it can probably replace a person doing anthing relying on procedure, decisions and memory. This is still progressing and there is still a gap where people are required.


Is the way forward to leap-frog people working on automating the left brained activites and start trying to automate more right brained work?

I suppose this is where researchers in artificial intelligence are going but is there a simpler approach? Does a computer have to be able to think and be self-aware to create? If a million monkey's at a million type writers will eventually come up with the works of shakespeare and a computer can do the same work in a considerably shorter period of time, is it not just a matter of selecting the best version. As the old saying goes; "ideas are like a**holes, everyone has one", surely this means that creativity is simply selecting the good ideas from the bad.

Thought of the Day - Career In Reverse

I just had an epiphany, my career so far has been in reverse. Not reverse in the normal meaning; going backwards in terms of money or responsibility, but reverse in the progression of job titles.

For most people: Engineering Degree > Mechanical Engineer > Process Improvement Specialist > Leadership Development Program > Project Manager, would be a logical progression of jobs. And yet somehow i have gone in completely the opposite direction. I don't know whether this is a bad thing or a good thing or in fact what it means, it just struck me as an interesting observation.

I suppose my next job either needs to be an internship or back to university ...

Book Notes - The Adventures of Johnny Bunko

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko by Daniel Pink [2008]

Summary:

1) There is no plan
There are two types of decision; instrumental and fundamental. You make a decision for instrumental reasons if you are prepared to put up with the present because you think it will lead somewhere. You make a decision for fundamental reasons when your not sure where it will lead but it seems interesting. The former rarely work out and the latter may not get you where you thought you wanted to go but normally lead somewhere interesting.

2) Think strengths, not weaknesses
Steer around your weaknesses and focus on your strengths. You will be more motivated, more enthusiastic and more successful if you do what you are good at.
See: Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham

3) Its not about you
Focus your energy outward not inward. Unless you are a starving artist it isn't about what you want, you have a client, a customer or someone else who you need to satisfy so apply your strengths to that.

4) Persistence trumps talent
"The people who achieve the most are often the ones who stick with it when others don't"
You need to show up, practice, practice and practice some more, perfect your art whether that art be painting, music or engineering. Talent only gets you so far, sticking with it and persisting make you successful.

5) Make excellent mistakes
If you aren't making mistakes you aren't trying hard enough. Make mistakes for the right reasons, pushing the boundaries, trying something new, trying to make a difference. If it does all blow up then you need to learn from those mistakes so you don't make the same mistake again. Try to: "Make a mistake from which the benefits of what you've learned exceed the costs of the screwup."

6) Leave an imprint
Try to make a difference, leave things better than they were and be proud of what you do.


Quotes:
"Is this mind-numbingly repetitive? or repetitive mind-numbing?"

Thought of the Day - Mismatch Problems

Anyone who has felt like they had to jump through pointless hoops at an assessment centre for a job (i would imagine just about everyone these days), can now rest assured that they are infact a complete waste of time. At least according to best selling author Malcolm Gladwell.

In the video of a presentation he made, he argues that most assessments used to determine peoples suitability for jobs are fundamentally flawed. That the entry to careers ranging from ice hockey player to lawyer, are based on tests that have no bearing on actual ability to perform the duties of a job. Moreover he argues that they only thing that indicates if someone will perform well at a job is if they actually do the job.

I suppose the question is how can you tell if someone can do a job without incurring large costs in terms of time or money?

The mismatch problem is only a concern to you and me if people believe that tests and interview questions are doing anything more than weeding out the blatantly unsuitable candidates. And more to the point, accept that the candidates that do well at the tests may be useless at the job.

Idea From: http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2008/gladwell

Thought of the Day - Timing

Well the timing for my first 30-day trial sucks, the first 4 days i have been too tired, bored and apathetic to do anything. For the next 4 days i am up in Scotland for my cousins wedding so other than maybe a bit of planning i'm not likely to get anything done.

Most people will agree there is never a perfect time to start something and rarely a good time, so you might as well just get on with it. I suspect when i get back from Scotland i will have to get my butt in gear and start actually doing something.

Thought of the Day - Spit Shining Shoes

According to a body language book i read, two things that almost everyone judges you on at a job interview are; how shiny your shoes are and how big your watch is.

The latter is to do with a big watch being associated with power and class, the shoes i'm not so sure about. Fortunately it isn't something i've ever had to worry about, i don't remember how old i was but my granda taught me to spit-shine shoes and it has stood me in good stead ever since. My granda was in the police for a long time so i guess he picked up some good tips. So today i am going to share with you the best way to spit-shine your shoes (and secure any job you interview for):

1. Put your index finger in clingfilm or a plastic bag and take a fair dollop of shoe polish (i would recommend Kiwi Parade Gloss) and apply it liberally to your shoe, massaging it in. There should be enough polish that you are really just spreading it around.
2. Leave for 5 minutes (normally the amount of time it takes you to do the second shoe) and then remove most of the polish with a dry cloth or soft brush.
3. Take a fresh cloth (i recommend a yellow duster), wrap it tightly around a finger tip, dampen the tip and apply a tiny amount of shoe polish to it.
4. Gently apply the polish in small circles to the shoe, you are aiming for a light haze. Then repeat on the other shoe.
5. Move to a fresh part of the cloth and dampen the tip again (or spit on the shoe) and gently rub small circles to shine the haze but don't remove much of the polish.
6. Apply a little polish to the tip and rub gently onto the shoe again aiming for a light haze. Then repeat on the other shoe.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 moving from shoe to shoe until the surface is smooth. This can take a long time, particularly if this is the first time they have been polished but you want to build up lots of very thin layers of polish to smooth the leather and allow a really deep mirror shine.
8. Once the surface is smooth, take a dry section of cloth and rub the shoes more vigorously (not too hard) to create the shine. If they are shiny enough great! If not go back to step 5 and repeat until they are.

While very repetitive i find it strangely relaxing in a zen-like way, it is also quite satisfying when you get a really deep mirror finish.

Thought of the Day - Tasks I Achieve Flow In

This morning i read an article on how to achieve flow (link at bottom of post) and i realised that i really don't experience it in work a lot.

Some things in life i find it easy to achieve flow in, most notably; reading (both books and articles), researching a topic online and coding websites. At work it is much more rare, if i get some peace and quiet i can achieve it doing data analysis or creating a presentation. Unfortunately to achieve flow i normally need music on in the background, so it doesn't help that we aren't allowed to use headphones. One other area i think i might achieve flow in is delivering training, i must admit i haven't really thought about it but when i get going it does feel effortless, maybe something to look at in the future.

So if flow is an optimal state of working and i don't experience it in my job very often then am i in the right job?


Idea from: http://zenhabits.net/2008/06/guide-to-achieving-flow-and-happiness-in-your-work/

Thought of the Day - Results-Only Work Environment

99% of people are paid for their time and not their results. Which do you think is better for the company and the individual? Unsurprisingly for anyone with half a brain, the results method is better for both.

I really should have posted this when i came across the concept on Tuesday but i wanted to read the book (Why Work Sucks) first to make sure i really understood what i was talking about. The books notes will be up very shortly after this post but i wanted to offer some comentary that wouldn't have been appropriate in the notes.


Having just read the book it feels like the culmination of thoughts that i have been having in my career up until now. It really ties together; behavioural management, self-directed companies (Maverick, Open Minds etc), process improvement (Six Sigma, metrics etc) and even the more recent lifestyle design (4-Hour Work Week).

It also finally puts a name to something i have expereinced first hand, i am a morning person when it comes to work, i like getting up early and making a start on work. I tend to be in the office before everyone else (~7am), i don't take lunch or breaks and i know that after 3pm i'm not really at my best but i have to hang around until at least 5pm because it is expected, because people will call me a slacker if i don't. It doesn't matter if i don't accomplish anything in those 2 hours, as long as i am at my desk people assume i am being productive.
In my first job after grduating from university i took the approach of doing my contacted hours, i'd start early and finish early. The hour before my colleages arrived tended to be my most productive, so i thought logically it was good for the company. However it wasn't long before my boss took me aside and said that he didn't care if i was in early, he wasn't there so he didn't know if i was working or not and leaving before 5pm was showing a lack of comitment. Which sent the clear message to me that he didn't care if i worked or not, just that i was at my desk. It also prompted me to start recording my hours so that if he ever said i wasn't comitted again i could throw my regular >50 hour weeks in his face.
That conversation has stuck with me for the last 4 years and i still record my hours for the same reason. After reading the book it strikes me that it is a huge waste of time. A waste of the companies time because i do it in work time. A waste of my energy because i worry about how it might be perceived if my average hours drop below 45 despite the fact i am only contracted for 38. It also provides zero incentive to improve, if i know i have 2 hours of reduced productivity why not stretch things out to fill them time, the only outcome of working faster is getting more work to do in my least productive time.

I suspect this will be a recurring theme in this blog, so i have given it a tag "ROWE" if you want to group all of the posts together.


Idea from: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/05/21/no-schedules-no-meetings-enter-best-buys-rowe-part-1/

Thought of the Day - Job Acceptance

Something that I noted down from Go Put Your Strengths To Work by Marcus Buckingham:

Before accepting a job ask yourself 3 things:
Purpose - What is the purpose of the job? Does it fit with your values?
People - Who will you be working with? Do you think you will get on with them?
Activities - What will you actually be doing? Does it fit with your strengths?

He suggests that the the top is the least important, getting more important as you go down. I would agree, if you don't like what you are doing day to day you would have to be working with some very special people or have a very strong purpose before it would be bearable. On the other hand if you love what you are actually doing the other two are easy to put up with if they aren't right.

Thought of The Day - Heroes and Planners

As has been pointed out by many people, everyone loves a hero and no-one notices a planner. By definition if you avoid a bad event happening no-one notices, the bad event didn't happen and because it didn't happen then maybe it wasn't possible for it to happen.

To borrow from The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; imagine if in 2000 someone had made locked bulletproof doors on airlines mandatory, 9/11 would have never happened. Would that person have been given awards, recognition and admiration? No, instead he probably would have, at best been ignored, at worst been reviled by pilots and airlines for implementing a 'pointless' security feature.

This leaves me in an interesting quandary, i know it is better for the companies i work for to be a planner, however the incentives at work are all set up for hero's. Is the way forward to identify catastrophes before they happen, plan for what you can do when they do happen and then let them happen? I suppose the problem, even with delayed planning, is the full magnitude of the fuck-up is never realised so no-one knows how bad it could have been.

Thinking about it from the other side, how could you incentivise planning? How do you quantify what could have been and how likely it was to occur, even if it doesn't?

Book Notes - The Art Of War For Managers

The Art Of War For Managers by Gerald A Michaelson [2001]

Summary:
“Know the enemy and know yourself and you will never be defeated.”
Interplay of strategy and tactics; strategy is the plan, tactics are the implementation.
Information and speed are the key to winning.
Attacking head-on is rarely the best approach, find your niche and expand from there.

Notes:
Page 3: A plan that is not written down is no plan at all, a simple written plan is best.
Page 4: Unlike Tzu’s constant factors for the battlefield in business they are much simpler, you must study:
1. The ‘mission’ of the company.
2. The outside factors (industry/economic trends etc).
3. The marketplace.
4. The leaders.
5. The guiding principles.
Page 13: It is important to for start-ups to have sufficient reserves to ride-out downturns and to tide them over between launch and profitability. As they say; “Profit is king, but cash rules” you can survive without profit but you can’t survive without cash.
Page 27: Have two types of edict; instructions and orders. Instructions are issued as guidelines, to be followed if practical. Orders are to be followed immediately and to the letter but can only be given by someone on the ground in the situation. This prevents stupid decisions being made above.
Page 29: Fundamental principles of business:
1. Organize Intelligence
2. Maintain Objectives
3. Establish A Secure Position
4. Keep On The Offensive
5. Plan Surprise
6. Think Manoeuvre
7. Concentrate Resources
8. Practice Economy Of Force
9. Keep It Simple
Page 31: Strategy always comes before tactics, while a good strategy might succeed even with poor tactical execution, a poor strategy even with superlative tactics will almost never succeed. It is therefore important to make sure that you are heading in the right strategic direction before you determine tactics.
Page 32: “Boil the ocean” appears to be a reference to one strategist’s suggestion for how to get rid of German u-boats in the second world war.
Page 38: Customer input is a vital operational measure, it is key to improved performance and winning. Use of balanced scorecard suggested to keep track of financial and non-financial, lagging and leading measures.
Page 44: The use of extraordinary force to ensure victory, this can be applied on a macro level; a company focusing all efforts to ensure that they take a market or on the micro level; a person focusing all of their effort on a particular task.
Page 51: Keep your products secret until the last minute, it removes the ability of your competitors to plan a response. Apple does this particularly well.
Page 63: Reference to Tyco going from $2b to $30b in 6 years, ironically it was under the CEO who ended up in jail. Book probably written before those events.
Page 67: The rule of three: never make more than 3 points in any one communication, if you make more some of the points are likely to be forgotten. Keep it simple and direct.
Page 77: 5 faults of leadership:
1. Recklessness, which leads to destruction,
2. Cowardice, which leads to capture,
3. A hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults,
4. A delicacy of honour, which is sensitive to shame,
5. Over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble.
Page 91: Acknowledging the role of known standards of performance so that the leader can be perceived as impartial and can set discipline to achieve standards.
Page 93: The importance of going to the gemba for managers to inform their intuition and knowledge of the real situation.
Page 95: It is important to have direct communication with the people on the ground, often information is filtered as it goes up the chain which means you might not be getting all pertinent information. Create relationships with a select few people further down the chain so that you can get direct information.
Page 110: Information on personal survival and career paths.
Page 169: Summary of key concepts.

Quotes:
Page 6: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything will look like a nail.”
Page 14: “While we have heard of stupid haste in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged.”
Page 22: “To subdue the enemy without fighting is supreme excellence.”
Page 39: “Where everyone decides everything, no one decides anything.”
Page 65: “Do not do what your enemy wants, if for no other reason than he wants it.”
Page 72: “The key to success is what the customer wants, not what you can do.”
Page 78: “When was the last time anyone said; ‘I wish I had waited 6 months longer to fire that guy’” – Jack Welch
Page 81: “Logic sounds most convincing to the presenter; it is in the emotions of the receiver that positions are changed.”
Page 101: “Know the enemy and know yourself and you will never be defeated.”
Page 112: “Too often, the absence of conflict is not harmony, it’s apathy.”
Page 116: “When you can win and retain good relationships, only then can you become strong.”

Thought of the Day - Idea Execution

My idea execution sucks. As with just about everything else i try, whenever i put an idea into practice i am kind of ok at it but not great. Hmmm not terribly clear, an example might help.

When i was a bit of an audiophile i took it into my head to build a headphone amp. There aren't many sensibly priced commercially available ones and you can build a pretty decent one really cheaply. So i bought some soldering equipment, some parts and set set about trying to learn to solder and build electronics. Only it turned out that while i could solder and get a working headphone amp it was never going to be elegant.

What i am wondering is whether i just suck at execution and am desitned to live in my mind or whether i just don't give each skill required enough time to develop.

Thought of the Day - Customer Focus

What my jobs have been missing is customer focus. Sure i have had internal customers but its not the same as engaging with a real end user, someone who chooses to pay for the product, who uses it directly for its intended purpose and who's life you could make better.

Sure i may have bitched and moaned about customers and the public in the past and there are certain aspects of customer service that would drive me insane. But talking to the customer to understand their needs and coming up with solutions that exceed the customers expectations really appeals to me. Alas while my job in LifeScan somewhat involved that, i was never allowed to talk to real customers, heck i wasn't even supposed to talk to marketing. In my current job i couldn't be more isolated from the real customers if i tried, there is zero customer focus and it frustrates the hell out of me.

Maybe my next job needs to be in sales and marketing or in a company so small and directly linked to the customer that i can't help but get involved.

Thought of the Day - Actions Vs Ideas

I was only yesterday cursing that Steve Pavlina had forsaken me, his blog hadn't been updated in over a week and then he made a great post (see link at bottom). Unfortunately this post was about something that profoundly troubles me, the balance between ideas and actions. His argument is that an idea that is not implemented is worth almost nothing. While i completely agree with him, it troubles me because i have great ideas and i am ok at starting to implement them (though sometimes even that doesn't happen) but where i really fall down is sticking with the implementation. I get bored and move on to the next idea.

Coming back to my Strengths Finder Results, none of my strengths relate to action, they are all about coming up with ideas, thinking, analysing and planning. My concern is that i excel at the easy part - having the ideas - granted they are good ideas, but my strengths do not allow me to (nor do i particularly care if i) actually implement those ideas.

I have two questions; 1) Is there a way to be successful just with ideas and not necessarily the implementation? and maybe somewhat related 2) How could i avoid implementation or at least become more effective at implementation?


Idea from: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/05/the-value-of-ideas/

Thought of the Day - Benefits of Persistence

Just watched The Pursuit of Happyness and it got me thinking about the value of persistence. In the film the guy decides he wants to do something and in spite of many and varied setbacks he reaches his goal.

My calendar at work says; "Give Up: At some point, hanging in there just makes you look like an even bigger loser." and while in films the plucky hero who keeps trying always wins, in real life i wonder what the percentage is?

There is a certain level of persistence that is required to achieve your goals but how do you know when you have crossed the line from persistence to stupidity, or is stupidly pursing BHAG's (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) the only way to really succeed?


It also made me realise i have never really been strapped for cash. Sure i've lived on pasta and baked beans for a few months at uni but there was never any danger of me starving or ending up on the street. As with many 'extreme' circumstances portrayed in film and on TV you have to wonder how you would cope. But it wouldn't be a true representation, the consequences wouldn't be there and if they were, would you really want to risk not being able to cope?

Thought of the Day - Time Constraints

Today i happened across an advert for possibly my ideal job - Business Design Consultant with IDEO, the daddy of all creative consultancies. There was only one slight problem, the closing date was the 25th of April ... today.

It was 20:30 and my first reaction was; "stuff it, not enough time, why bother". Then it occurred to me that my CV would probably only need minor tweaks and really 3.5 hours should really be plenty to draft a cover letter and project report. So i whipped up a plan with some tight deadlines and set to it. Turns out i didn't even need until midnight, i finished 30minutes early!

About half way through the work i realised that if i had found the advert earlier i would have procrastinated or forgotten or not really worked on it until now. So really having a very challenging time scale was probably beneficial to me. Unfortunately we can't rely on serendipity to bring tasks to us at exactly the right time but it has convinced me that Goldratt is right in Critical Chain. What i really need to do is work out how to manufacture that tight deadline, that stress, so there is a cut-off to each task and i don't continue tweaking for longer than is required.


Ok so the chances of me getting the job are virtually zero, but i would have always wondered 'what if?' if i hadn't applied. The worst that can happen is i don't hear back from them, anything above that is gravy. If they call me i can ask what i could do to develop more, if they interview me i get a free trip to London to the meca of creative consultancies and while it is a million to one shot, i might even get a job out of it.

Thought of the Day - Layoffs

Two tips if you are involved in layoffs:
1. Do as much pre-work before the day of the layoffs so the inevitable loss of productivity doesn't impact performance.
2. Communicate the date when the layoffs will occur or when the decision will be made and then DON'T change it. It minimises disruption and uncertainty.

Tips brought to you today from Tristan.

Thought of the Day - Power

In a relationship who has the most power? It has been suggested that the person with the most options or the least to loose has the power. I am more inclined to agree with the former.

Whether it be a personal relationship, your relationship with a shop, your relationship with your employer, the side with the most options has the power. But how do you define the most options, more accurately it should be the most good options. If you have more good options than the other side you should always end up better off, even if they don't relaise you have the upper hand.

Book Notes - The 4-Hour Work Week

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris [2007]

Summary:
Alas not many notes from this book, it is just so different from anything I’ve ever read before I’m not quite sure what to write down. I suspect that some reflection and re-reading will be required before I have full notes.

I kind of feel like I’m being exploited by the book, that the lifestyle it espouses requires you to exploit other people (in this case me), the author highlights an adware pioneer as someone to aspire to after all. But at the same time there is definitely some gold in there and it is thought provoking and eminently quotable.

I think the concepts in this book could help you run any business. While a more morally acceptable product would not be as profitable or easy as the products the author suggests, the methods are applicable.

With all of the above said I think Timothy Ferris is very astute, he is giving away his secrets because he knows people will pay good money for the dream it sells but very few have the courage and determination to see it through. For other examples see Toyota or Eli Goldratt.

Notes:
Page 4: People don’t want to be millionaires, they want the millionaire lifestyle.
Page 77: Three times a day (at set times ask yourself; “Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?”
Page 101: The author suggests batching things (E-mail, phone calls, bills payments), it sounds rather un-lean to me, maybe an alternative self-help book would be how to lean your life. It is a bit strange because a lot of the other things in the book sound very like Theory of Constraints and Lean ...
Page 120: By outsourcing things to other people you will be surprised how many tasks don’t need done if you have to pay for them directly.
Page 192: Offer limited options, while you can charge heftier premiums for customisation it can create more problems than it is worth. Firstly options attract pedantic picky people who are more likely to complain if it is not exactly what they want. Secondly too many options can make customers more indecisive and hence less likely to buy, they worry about the benefits of one product over another etc.
Page 193: Try to avoid high maintenance low profit customers, they will waste the majority of your time and provide the lowest income.

Quotes:
Page 13: “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” – Niels Bohr
Page 46: “What we fear doing most is normally what we most need to do.”
Page 74: “Parkinson’s law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.”
Page 168: “To get an accurate indicator of commercial validity, don’t ask people if they would buy, ask them to buy.”
Page 220: All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it is impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Develop strength to do bold things not the strength to suffer.” – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Book Notes - The Empty Raincoat

The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy [1988]

Summary:
Alas typing this up 2 months after I took the notes so can’t really remember an overarching narrative or point to the book. Note to self: If I read it again think about a synopsis.

Notes:
Page 23: Handy sees intelligence as an assets, at least as important as owning a home.
Page 25: We should pursue increasing our intelligence quotient as avidly as we pursue owning a home. In fact the more intelligent the society the less home ownership there is.
Page 33: You should be able to build up a “time bank” annual leave over years.
Page 36: Time is Money. Small businesses trade their time for busy people’s money.
Page 50: Concept of a sigmoid or s-curve, (see TRIZ theories of evolution). This may explain the companies I have worked for, they have all been at the top of the s-curve when I started with them and only those that have found the next curve have prospered.
Page 50: When things are going well it is time to change.
Page 53: You can see s-curves everywhere from personal relationships to empires.
Page 59: The past is a poor predictor of the future.
Page 68: You should strive for a balanced donut in your life: The centre represents your core responsibilities and the outside is discretionary things that you can do. If the centre is too large you get bored, if the outside is too large you never reach a target. There should be a balance of freedom and responsibility.
Page 69: A Type 1 Error in business is getting something wrong and a Type 2 error is missing an opportunity. Think of a way to relate to Goldratt’s DollarDay metric in Beyond the Goal.
Page 76: Ricardo Semler used a donut structure for Semco.
Page 79: The core of the donut is what people rebel against. E.g. Non-smoking offices.
Page 104: “The £5 Note Auction” to illustrate the importance of communication in generating win-win solutions. Pick two people at random from opposite sides of the room and make them bid on 3x £5 notes, they will both end up bidding to around £5 and possibly more on the last of the 3. Exhaust all possible permutations of this to prove that people are stupid. Then pick two people sitting next to each other (preferably who have been talking) and repeat. They should have an agreement that is mutually beneficial to both of them and they will fleece you.
Page 115: Subsidiarity – Reverse delegation, leaving all decisions that can be made locally local. Handy suggests that people have a moral right not to be interfered with.
Page 146: Highlights the J&J Credo as a good model; primary responsibility to customers, then employees, then environment and finally to shareholders. Makes mention of the Tylenol crisis.
Page 172: Head of Nissan UK comparing the different management styles of western and Japanese companies. Western companies have rigid interfaces and departments like facets of a crystal, Japanese companies are more like mud, fluid flowing able to respond.
Page 205: Different types of intelligence: Factual, Analytic, Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Practical, Physical, Intuitive, Interpersonal.
Page 261: Chapter on “A Sense of Direction”.
Page 262: People want entertainment, too little and they get bored but they also don’t want too much as it becomes harrowing. There is a suggestion that the first world war was caused because the middle classes in Europe were bored but they got more excitement than they really wanted. We have the same problem now, there are no ‘great causes’ that universally inspire a country, most people are content to live their lives amass wealth and possessions and not rock the boat. This is not enough.

Quotes:
Page 19: “There are kings and prophets, I was always told, the kings have the power and the prophets have the principles.” – Tony Benn
Page 26: “If work were so great the rich would have hogged it all long ago” – Mark Twain
Page 27: “Slack always costs money. It is just a matter of who pays for it”
Page 38: “When intelligence is the primary asset, the organisation becomes more like a collection of project groups.”
Page 43: “No-one can do much about the brilliant, they will be miserable anyway.” – Michael Young
Page 59: “The world belongs to the discontented.” – Robert Woodruff [Coca Cola]