1: “There’s wind and then there’s a typhoon, there are waves and then there’s a tsunami,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.
The same is true in business.
“There are competitive forces and then there are supercompetitive forces,” he notes.
Andy calls it a “10X” change.
2: Harvard Professor Michael Porter identified the various forces that determine … continue reading
1: “We managers like to talk about change, so much that embracing change has become a cliché of management,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.
But not all changes are the same.
What Andy calls “a strategic inflection point is not just any change,” he notes. “It compares to change the way Class VI rapids on a … continue reading
1: “We had lost our bearings. We were wandering in the valley of death,” Andy Grove writes in his book Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.
The year was 1984, a pivotal moment for Intel.
The company had been founded 16 years earlier. “Every start-up has some kind of a core idea,” Andy notes.
“Ours was simple. Semiconductor technology had … continue reading
1: “Imagine we’re floating in a clear blue ocean—somewhere warm like Hawaii or Mexico,” Ron Shaich writes in his terrific book Know What Matters: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations.
“Waves are breaking and rolling toward the white, sandy beach,” Ron notes. “We know that’s where we are headed, so our ultimate destination is clear. And we know that any wave will take you to shore.
“But not just … continue reading
1: “I got sober the first time when I was around thirty,” the friend said. “After two years of sobriety I had a slip. I took a sip of white wine at a party.”
The man continued: “I could have gone to a meeting, confessed my slip, and recommitted, but instead I thought to myself, ‘Since I took one sip, I might as well just finish the glass—it would be … continue reading
1: “We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience,” said the educational reformer John Dewey.
Our ability to think, to reflect, to “think about our thinking” is integral to our ability to learn.
The term used to describe our ability to be aware of our thinking is called metacognition.
Which author Anne-Laure Le Cunff calls “the forgotten secret to success” in her book Tiny Experiments… continue reading
1: “It’s ten years out, and Netflix is a failed firm. Estimate the probabilities of the different causes.”
That’s the exercise Netflix CEO Reed Hastings poses to his leadership team.
“Let’s say one cause is that a plane crash takes out Netflix’s headquarters,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in their book CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.… continue reading
“Design is intelligence made visible.” —Alina Wheeler
1: Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath wanted to know the key difference between high- and low-growth large organizations.
Her research suggests two factors. Which seem to be in opposition to one another.
“On the one hand, they [high-growth large companies] are built for innovation, are good at experimentation, and can move on a dime,” she writes.
The second factor?
“On the … continue reading
1: It was March of 2011. SEAL Team Six Commander Master Chief Dave Cooper and another Team Six leader were summoned to CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia.
“We think we’ve found Osama bin Laden,” Admiral William McRaven, commander of Joint Special Operations Command, told them bluntly.
Admiral McRaven then outlined the plan: “Team Six operators would fly into Pakistan in stealth helicopters, fast-rope onto the the compound’s roof, … continue reading
1: There is a big difference between perfectionism and optimization.
Perfection is the distant star we can never reach.
Philosopher Brian Johnson has a year-long Heroic Coach program that focuses on Optimizing.
The person who is mistake-free is sitting around doing nothing, Brian tells us.
As professional optimizers, we accept our imperfections. We have high standards. But we accept ourselves, and we accept reality.
Our commitment? To do our absolute … continue reading
