Book Summary Preview : LEADING ON THE EDGE OF CHAOS

The Big Idea
A timely book for today’s chaotic economy, the Murphy’s suggest 10 key strategies for business leaders. If you fail to deliver, a volatile market can be terribly unforgiving. How you handle uncertainty will determine your company’s success. time.


Chapter 1 MAKE HASTE SLOWLY

Rule 1: Resist the lure of “ready, fire, aim”

Managers may feel the need to spring into action and hit targets before properly thinking about the direction the company is taking.

Some practical strategies for making haste slowly would be to watch the clock. This means you must treat time as a resource and performance metric just like money is. IBM accelerated the way it did business by way of using a “speed team” which comprised of 21 innovative thinkers and leaders within the company who completed projects unusually fast. Their assignment: Get IBM’s IT team to develop more Web-based applications. They moved fast in the right direction. It’s not about doing the same thing. It’s about changing the way you do things.

Rule 2: Aim at multiple targets –now.

Prepare your team for all possible scenarios, not just one likely scenario. In a volatile and chaotic economy, nothing is certain; therefore high-performing leaders must take aim at a variety of possibilities and hit the ones that bring more profit.

Rule 3: Pace yourself

Just like runners have techniques at running a long race, pacing themselves in the beginning so they have energy for the final 100 meters, a company must find the right goal. Without the right goal working more hours and hiring more people would be futile.

Rule 4: Find a center that can hold.

Focus. Focus. Focus. Companies that enjoy long-term success are those with a strong sense of purpose. Many companies only pay lip service to their mission and vision statements. Take Enron. There was no real sense of values in that company. Individual gratification and greed brought the company down and in the end there was absolutely no credibility left to hold it together.

Chapter 2 PARTNER WITH CUSTOMERS

What exactly does partnering with customers mean? There are 3 models of customer partnership: the egoist, bureaucrat, and CAP or customer-as-partner model. The egoist only thinks of business in terms of a one-way communication. The bureaucracy has so much going on internally to the point it excludes (and frustrates) its own customers. The Customer-as-partner model allows for a two-way dialogue. Customer partnership is a shared journey to create a future for both parties that is better than either could have developed alone.

It is important to note that acquiring new customers is costlier than retaining current ones. Customer retention and satisfaction drives profits.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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