Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.

Monday through Thursday we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.  On Friday, I share something we are doing at PCI in our quest to earn a spot of Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. 

There is freedom within structure.  Structure provides a framework within which we can be creative.

At PCI, we use the … continue reading

New York state began requiring hospitals to post death rates from coronary artery bypass surgeries.  

Over the next four years, deaths from heart surgery fell 41%, Laszlo Bock recounts in his book Work Rules! about his time as Google’s Chief People Operations Officer.

Making performance transparent transformed patient outcomes.  

Transparency also transforms business outcomes.  At Google, the “default setting” is sharing all information with all Googlers.  That’s the starting point.  … continue reading

Question: If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many pictures is a video worth?

A lot.  We live in a video world.  More than 1.3 billion people use YouTube.  Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day.  The total number of hours of video watched every month?  3.25 billion.  

And video isn’t just for personal use.  More than 9% of U.S. small businesses use YouTube.  “Business leaders are increasingly … continue reading

Mark Burnett arrived in Los Angeles on October 18, 1982 with no job, no place to live, and less than $300.  

“A working-class kid from London’s East End with no return ticket,” writes Carmine Gallo in The Storyteller’s Secret.  Mark’s friend Nick picked him up at LAX and brought some good news: a family in Beverly Hills was looking for a nanny.  Mark had an interview that night.

The … continue reading

1: Every time Sara Blakely put on white pants that hung in her closet, she didn’t like what she saw in the mirror.  
Traditional women’s undergarments didn’t help.  They felt “uncomfortable and unsightly,” Carmine Gallo writes in The Storyteller’s Secret.

Then, inspiration struck.  Sara got out a pair of scissors and cut the feet from a pair of pantyhose.  

Voila.  Problem solved.

Sara was selling fax machines door-to-door at … continue reading

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.  Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger.  Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.  Michael Eisner and Frank Wells.  Many uber-successful organizations have been led by two leaders whose skill sets and talents strengthen and complement each other. 

This “ying and yang” approach to organizational leadership is at the heart of the Entrepreneurial Operating System or EOS, a framework for building and operating a business.  

Getting better at getting better … continue reading

1: This week we’ve been exploring the incredible medical advances against infectious diseases and the incredible increase in human health. Yesterday we looked at diseases which have been eradicated or are on the verge of eradication, including small pox, rinderpest, polio, elephantiasis, river blindness, and blinding trachoma.

But there’s more good news.

“Even diseases that are not obliterated are being decimated,” writes Steven Pinker in Enlightenment Now. “Between 2000 … continue reading

1: From Wikipedia: “Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor.”

Yes, “smallpox was.”

“The disease that got its name from the painful pustules that cover the victim’s skin, mouth, and eyes and that killed more than 300 million people in the 20th century has ceased to exist,” writes Steven Pinker in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, … continue reading

1: On April 12, 1955, a team of scientists declared Jonas Salk’s vaccine against polio, a disease which killed thousands each year, paralyzed President Franklin Roosevelt, and sent many children into iron lungs, had been proven safe.  

“People observed moments of silence, rang bells, honked horns, blew factory whistles, fired salutes, . . . took the rest of the day off, closed their schools or convoked fervid assemblies … continue reading

1: Many people believe we live in the “worst of times.”  The data shows otherwise.  

Today we continue our exploration of the many and momentous ways life has improved over the past 200 years by looking at our health.  

“For most of human history, the strongest force of death was infectious disease, the nasty feature of evolution in which small, rapidly reproducing organisms make their living at our expense and hitch … continue reading