The one-sentence summary

We will not survive unless we actively respond to the radical way our world is changing.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• The world is changing fast, and we need to change with it. The numbers prove it, and companies and governments need to acknowledge this and think differently.
• Words are heralds of social change –by watching the way language changes, we can spot the linguistic signposts of change.
• We work for 100,000 hours in our lives, but there are many different ways to divide this up.
• Negative capability is the ability to make mistakes and learn from them.
• Upside down thinking can make you view work as the best of the four-letter words. It doesn’t have to be as it currently is.
• Portfolio man has five types of work:

1.     Wage work: money paid for time given

2.    Fee work: money paid for results delivered

3.    Homework: all the tasks that make a home function

4.    Gift work: work done for free outside home, such as charity work

5.     Study work: training and reading

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

“Work is much more fun than fun.” Noel Coward

• Upside down thinking forces the reader to look at things differently.
• There are many different types of intelligence, and all have value:

~ Analytical: the sort we measure in IQ tests

~ Pattern: musicians, mathematicians and computer programmers see these

~ Musical: can earn more money than conventional office skills

~ Physical: sportsmen

~ Practical: able to dismantle a television without naming the parts

~ Intra-personal: people who are in tune with others’ feelings

~ Inter-personal: the ability to get on with others

• He pushes hard against “endemic group-think”, where everyone agrees with each other without thinking properly.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• The book is now 20 years old so certain ideas have been overtaken by events.

The one-sentence summary

Making it happen is the most important part of any idea, and the prime management problem in any company.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• Management is ultimately about people. It is an art, not a science. The artistry lies in the combination of skills, perceptions, intuitions, and combined experiences which are continually different and almost invariably unique. There are two types of manager:
• The Thoughtful Manager, who is continually adding to skills and considering changes in the art form
• The Closed Mind Manager, who attempts continuously to replicate successful solutions in situations which are, almost invariably, totally different.
• There is no area of activity in the UK that does not badly need an improvement in managerial skill.
• Tasks don’t get done without the commitment of those who have to execute it. Making it happen is the most important part of any idea, and the prime management problem in any company.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• The author worked for ICI for thirty years, and became one of the great management gurus. The book is not a manual or a prescriptive description of the only ways in which things can be done. It is based on personal experience.
• Setting the direction is important, but how it is going to get done matters more. The people need to be ‘switched on’, and ownership of the strategic objective must be transferred to those who are to enact it – the power of good delegation. Ordering people around doesn’t work well.
• Management is about change, and maintaining a high rate of change. Without change nothing is possible. Whether comfortable or not, it is inevitable. The UK has a particular love of the old and a seeming contempt for the new.
• Values and beliefs in a company cannot be created out of thin air. Unless they are real, and permeate everything that is done, they will not have any effect. If they cease to be relevant they must either be abandoned or adapted to be applicable to the future.
• He predicted that the future of the organisation would have to adapt to the needs of the individual, rather than the other way round. This would release energies, creativity and imagination of a different order from before. This prediction appears to be right.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• Being over twenty years old, a lot has happened since. There are no sections, charts or diagrams, so this more like reading a novel.

The one-sentence summary

Ignore charismatic leaders, complex strategies and the competition – if you want enduring success, concentrate on having a common sense of purpose.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• It is the sequel to the 1994 classic about the successful habits of companies.
• It uses a 5-year research study to work out how companies can migrate from being merely good to being great. By the time the author had finished, he wondered whether it should in fact have been the prequel.
• Level 5 leaders build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
• Of particular note are the ‘dogs that didn’t bark’, factors that do not play a role in taking a company from good to great, including:

  ~ Larger than life celebrity leaders

  ~ High executive pay

  ~ Strategy (all companies claim to have one)

  ~ Technology (it can only accelerate change, not instigate it)

  ~ Mergers and acquisitions

  ~ Transformation programmes or themes

  ~ Sexy sectors or industries

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• Although this book has taken on revered status, much of it remains helpful and relevant. You can try to apply the principles:

  ~ First who…then what. Get the right people on the bus, then decide where to drive it

  ~ Confront the brutal facts (yet never lose faith). Work out what you are good at, and do that. Work out what you are bad at, and don’t do that.

  ~ The hedgehog concept. The hedgehog does one thing well (curling into a ball) whilst the fox rushes around, creating the impression of speed

  ~ Culture of discipline. When you have one, you don’t need hierarchy

  ~ Technology accelerators. These are never the origin of greatness, merely enhancers of it

  ~ The flywheel and the doomloop. Moves to greatness all happen gradually – there is no miracle moment

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• The evidence per company is highly detailed, so if you do not know the company (they are all American) or are not interested in it, then you have to wade through for the bits you want
• If you read The Halo Effect, you may think the whole study is rubbish

The one-sentence summary

A simultaneous blend of loose and tight properties is the perfect blend for running a successful business.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

There are eight basic principles of how to run a successful business and stay ahead of the competition. These are:

• A bias for action – get out there and try something
• Close to the customer – don’t be distracted by the internal stuff
• Autonomy and entrepreneurship – even if you’re big, act small
• Productivity through people – that’s all companies are made of
• Hands-on, value-driven – top companies make meaning, not just money
• Stick to the knitting – business diversity almost never works
• Simple form, lean staff – have a simple structure and outsource a lot
• Simultaneous loose-tight properties – a combination of centralised and decentralised gives the best blend

Communication works best when systems are informal, intensity is extraordinary, it is given physical supports, there are forcing devices, and it acts as a tight control system.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• There is a lot of material to work on. When they turned up the lights at Western Electric’s Hawthorne plant, productivity went up. It went up again when they turned them down. In many companies management is no more than an endless stream of Hawthorne effects.
• Chronic use of the military metaphor leads people repeatedly to overlook a different kind of organisation.
• The McKinsey 7-S Framework shows shared values surrounded by structure, systems, style, staff, skills and strategy.
• The exclusively analytical approach run wild leads to an abstract, heartless philosophy.
• Analysing a dead fish does not tell you everything about the live fish.
• Positive reinforcement nudges good things onto the agenda rather than off.
• Adhocracy is needed to offset bureaucracy (Alvin Toffler)
• Small groups are great chunking devices for getting things done.
• Do it, fix it, try it is the mantra of experimenting organisations:bootlegging
• We don’t kill ideas but we do deflect them

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• At the very least people should be aware of what the book proposes
• The biggest criticism of it is that many of the featured companies have since disappeared. The authors’ response is that there weren’t writing Forever excellent and one can still be inspired by the good things
• The halo effect claims that books such as this are little more than story telling – if it were that easy to follow eight basic principles then all companies would have done so and been a roaring success – which clearly they have not.

In addition to this week’s book summary, here is my podcast overview of The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig.

Download The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig