Book Summary Preview : Small Giants

The Big Idea

Everybody has virtually dreamt of becoming big. People have literally romanticized expanding their turfs, intensifying their aims, and ultimately multiplying their chocks of cash, thinking that they will get better when they’re “bigger.” In the realm of business, the same circumstances are witnessed. Companies (or their proprietors, for that matter) are beguiled by the purported wonders that go with their impulsive—but most of the time miscalculated—sizing up. In this light and poignant volume, Bo Burlingham demonstrates that this is not always the case: being big does not automatically entail being great.

Bo Burlingham brings to fore companies which have opted to stay relatively small yet in their modest niches staggeringly became even more lucrative and remarkable compared to others in their industry. These Small Giants, as what he dubbed them, are the author’s pragmatic way of convincing and inspiring the rather peewee firms that excellence must not be dictated merely by size. It is about touching lives and making a difference, no matter how far, no matter how small, no matter how little.

Since When Did Giants Become Small?

Yes, this may be extremely antithetical. Champions of logic would probably snuff us right off the bat for our seemingly unsound coinage of the term, small giants. Quite interestingly, though, the term is replete with a more profound meaning that only an earnest reader could grasp. It is actually read more with and from the heart instead of the quizzical mind.

Small giants are firms or establishments who do business disinterestedly, without an exaggerated desire for revenue growth or locational expansion. What they do may not even be called a business, in the deeper sense of the word. It was a lifestyle. A mindset. A dream breathed into reality by sincere struggle.  Their paramount goal is not only to amass earnings and obtain a good return on their investments. Theirs is the more noble cause of maintaining first-rate customer service, establishing rapport with their suppliers, creating a workplace where people feel safe and appreciated and where the Work Ethic is imbibed, and lastly, building communities through their corporate social responsibility.

With these, small giants have intrepidly defied the denotation of size. They are labeled “small” for the sole reason that they managed to ward off excessive expansion and are “undersized” in terms of the number of employees, yet they are real giants in their own right. For they soared higher and achieved far more than what other corporate Goliaths have.

Pointing Out the Difference

Perhaps the first few questions that would come to the readers’ minds are, “How are these so-called small giants set apart from common businesses? Is there anything extraordinary or unique to the way they operate?” The author answers these positively by providing concrete examples of firms who have simply moved beyond the itch for going public and becoming big, and instead focused on how they could superbly manage the business under their noses and the communities right at their fingertips. These are firms that flouted the long-entrenched corporate mantra that chronically possesses the tag, “Be bold. Be big. Be the best.”

To exemplify his case, the author enumerated fourteen (14) companies, which, by now, have proven their stints as small giants. These include:

• Anchor Brewing, San Francisco, the original American microbrewery
• CitiStorage Inc., Brooklyn, New York, the premier independent records-storage business in the US
• Clif Bar & Co., Berkeley, California, which popularized natural and organic energy bars
• ECCO, Boise, Idaho, the leading manufacturer of backup alarms and amber warning lights for commercial vehicles
• Hammerhead Productions, Studio City, California, a supplier of computer-generated special effects to the motion picture industry which slotted in an academy award for the movie, Babe
• O.C. Tanner Co., Salt Lake City, Utah, the preeminent employee recognition and service awards company
• Reell Precision Manufacturing, St. Paul, Minnesota, designer and manufacturer of motion-controlled products
• Rhythm and Hues Studios, Los Angeles, a producer of computer-generated animation and visual effects
• Righteous Babe Records, Buffalo, New York, the fêted records company established by singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco
• Selima, Inc., Miami Beach, Florida, taking pride in fashion design and dressmaking for a select clientele
• The Goltz Group, Chicago, Illinois, including Artists’ Frame service, probably the country’s best-known autonomously owned framing business
• Union Square Hospitality Group, New York, New York, the restaurant chain of the acclaimed restaurateur, Danny Meyer
• W.L. Butler Construction, Inc., Redwood City, California, a general contracting firm specializing in commercial projects
• Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, Ann Arbor, Michigan, from where the world-renowned Zingerman’s Delicatessen hails and 7 other food-related establishments

 Though by no means an exhaustive list, the author selected these firms based on three most important decisive factors:

• Their ability to remain robustly private or managed by a single or relatively few number of people despite the pressures of growth (go public) and geographical expansion;

• Their exceptional craft and inimitable know-how, their own trademark or personal signature, their distinctive way of conducting business that is feverishly lauded, emulated (and envied) by other firms in their industry; and lastly

• Their corporate social responsibility that enabled them to pursue non-financial priorities and rather engage in building communities through symbiotic relationships with their clients, suppliers, and their own personnel.

Naissance: The Making of Potential Davids

The feisty encounter between the stalwart and hefty Goliath and the almost pocket-sized David has never failed to amaze us and prompt us to ask, “How did the little one prevail?” David is the spanking metaphor for our small giants and the magnificent possibilities they continue to hatch. In today’s business, a good number of Davids have started figuring in so well and changing the face of industry leadership. Some have begun fruitfully, tripped in the middle, and finally got back on their feet. Some have been on the verge of extinction, then completely metamorphosed and witnessed another heyday. Some have probably kept their clover leafs and taken the industry by storm just as easily.

Whichever way, emerging as a small giant in the presence of gung-ho rivals is neither a plain streak of luck nor an overnight phenomenon. It is an arduous process; a personal experience wrought with a bulk of sacrifice, a handful of knotty options, a mound of decent character, and a stack of guts the size of Jupiter. Thus, the author’s approach does not simply confirm what a small giant does: it is actually about becoming one.

In this account, the author traces the varied trajectories that each company embarked on before being conferred the title, small giant. Through the pages of the book, the author packed in each company’s genuine experience—from being in the fringes to being in the core—as if he were bringing them to life. Indeed, the small giants have recently introduced an upturn in corporate thinking, which, even in the days to come, is certainly far from tapering off…

 

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