“What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture. At Zappos, our belief is that if you get your culture right, most of the other stuff–like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers–will happen naturally on its own (p. 152, Delivering Happiness).”
I know I’ve already mentioned this, but Delivering Happiness is a great read. Whether you already have a great organization or you’re building it right now…you don’t want to miss the thinking in this book. It really is the kind of book that makes you want to schedule a tour of the home office next time you’re in Vegas. Already planning it, believe me!
Picked up my copy of Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh today. Don’t know if you know the story of Zappos.com but this is a great read! I really only knew two things about Zappos when I opened up the book. First, they are well known for their practice of offering new employees a lot of money to quit. Second, they are known for offering “superior customer service.”
Delivering Happiness is more than the story of Zappos though. It’s really a look at “the highlights of the path that [Hsieh] took in [his] journey toward discovering how to find happiness in business and life (p. xii, Delivering Happiness).”
You need to know that this is a really fun read! Some books are packed with helpful takeaways but a pain to work through. Others are just plain engaging, page turners, that end up being very impactful. An hour on the front porch and I found myself on page 76 and reluctantly setting it aside for the night.
I’ve got to say there are not many books that I trip across that are as fun to read as this one. Probably not since Chip Conley’s Peak have I been this captivated by the story itself. Interesting to me that Peak was also really the story of a superior customer service organization.
Like many of us, I am a student of the language of ideas. How to say it in just the right way is the essence of great communication. Without the right language it can never be more than directional. For anything to be inspirational…language is an essential element.
Need an example? Take a moment to read this manifesto. It was developed by GWP as part of their pitch to secure the ING Direct account as they prepared to launch in the United States. This kind of pitch must show that the branding company absolutely gets the core idea. As you read it, listen for how it might apply to your organization:
We are new here. There has never been a time like this before. Our name is ING Direct. Our mission is to help people take care of the wealth they make for themselves in ways that fit this new time.
We will be fair. We will constantly learn. We will change and adapt and dwell only in the present and in the future.
We will listen. We will invent. We will simplify. We will never stop asking why, or why not. We will create wealth for ourselves, too. But we will do this by creating value.
We will tell the truth. We will be for everyone, except those who are truly served by the old way (I love that line!)
Because we aren’t conquerors. We are pioneers. We are not here to destroy. We are here to create.
We will never be finished.
We are not a bank. We will never be a bank. But we will be what a bank would be if it began tomorrow and asked simply, “What if we started over?” (I really love that line) (p. 77, The Orange Code)
I can’t speak for you. I don’t know about your organization. But I do know this…there is an aspirational element in this that’s at the heart of what needs to be rediscovered in many, many organizations.
“We will be what a ________ would be if it began tomorrow and asked simply, “What if we started over?”
By the way, this concept is related to the Andy Grove idea referred to here, here, and here. And if you’re new to StrategyCentral…you can sign up to get my updates right here.
I picked up The Orange Code: How ING Direct Succeeded by Being a Rebel with a Cause off my stack this week. I can already see why so many have been raving about it. Written by ING Direct founder and CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann and Bruce Philp, founder of GWP Brand Engineering*, this is a really well-written story. Even better, it’s the story of how ING Direct succeeded in dramatic fashion led by a leader with a cause.
The first few pages captivated me as an analysis of “what it takes to be the leader of an organization with a cause:
It takes a calling. Sound familiar? It ought to. This is already at the very center of how so many of us operate.
It take the guts to make it personal. Again, isn’t that the way it really is?
I am a big fan of creativity and this video is sheer creativity. This video won best music video at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. You can check out the other award winners right here. (Thanks to Brad Lomenick for sharing this earlier in the week)
Look what you can do with a little spare time and a huge helping of creative energy:
A couple years ago Dan Roam published a book called The Back of the Napkin. Loved it! I wrote a review on it and have used the ideas extensively in my consulting work.
I got my copy of Roam’s follow-up, Unfolding the Napkin earlier this week. Let me tell you right now, if you didn’t pick up the earlier book, you need this one! If you lead any kind of meeting that involves brain-storming, if you lead a team or are part of a team that looks for solutions, if you’re a consultant…you need Unfolding the Napkin.
I love the way it’s set up! Designed as a do-it-at-home version of one of Roam’s Back of the Napkin workshops, the book gives you the tools you need to become a proficient visual thinker. Better yet? Maybe you move in the direction of making your whole team better!
One of my proudest moments was when Tim Sutherland called me a mad scientist. Seriously. The commitment to try and to try again, to fail and fail again, in the hopes that next time will be the time…is the essence of who I am. That’s one of the reasons that the tagline over at MarkHowellLive.com is “pushing boundary-free.” It’s also one of the reasons that I love this video. I hope you love it too.
Good times in Moena…72°F 61% humidity…just before 5:30 p.m. CDT. Jimmy Buffet’s Take The Weather with You in the background. Shish-Kebabs tonight weather permitting.
Been a great couple days here in Chicagoland…we saw our first lightning bugs last night (very cool)…watched as our 15 year old son moved his valuables to the basement as we had a tornado watch in effect (very funny to tell him that this is actually a lifestyle thing here in the midwest.
Reading a fantastic book, Different by Harvard Business School’s Youngme Moon. Easily one of the best books I’ve read in the last several years. Here’s my review. Will definitely have an immediate influence on my consulting. Also just finished another great book. Exponential by Dave and Jon Ferguson from nearby Community Christian Church in Naperville. You’ll find my review over at MarkHowellLive.com.
Lakers on tonight. Interesting times being a Laker fan in Chicago. The esteemed Tim Cullnan (part of my team here at ParkviewChurch.com) told me it was okay…the Lakers had never beaten the Bulls in the finals. I told him, “that’s because you haven’t been to the finals that many times!
Be sure you’re following me on Twitter. That way you can keep up with what’s happening and find out how the kebobs turned out!
Sometimes you trip across a book and you know right away that this is a book that will influence your conversations for a long time. Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by award winning Harvard Business School professor Youngme Moon is that kind of book and a very intriguing read.
Well written in a style that is equal parts Malcolm Gladwell (full of surprising anecdotes that make her point) and Jim Collins (memorable insights into the underlying truths), it is easy to see why her course is one of the most popular in the school’s curriculum.
Different first sets the table in part 1 with an eye-opening look at how best practices and hyper-competition have produced “heterogeneous homogeneity” and “masters of a particular form of imitation. Not differentiation, but imitation (p. 13, Different).”
Moon continues in part 2 with a careful examination of the most compelling stories of the past two decades (think IKEA, Google, JetBlue, In-N-Out, Cirque du Soleil and Apple) and finds that “a disproportionate number of those stories, in category after category, could best be described as exceptions to the rule (p. 13, Different).” I’m certain you’re going to be fascinated and love insights like this one: “Google is a ‘reverse-positioned brand’ that ‘says no where others say yes. And they do so openly. Without apology (p. 110, ).’”
Moon introduces and develops three heuristics as she writes about reverse-positioned brands (like Google and IKEA), breakaway brands (like HBO and Cirque du Soleil), hostile brands (like the MINI Cooper and Red Bull). All three heuristics come into play as she uses them to describe what she calls an idea brand (Apple or Harley Davidson).
Part 3 “begins a conversation about a new way of thinking about competition generally, and competitive differentiation specifically (p. 15, Different).”
I think this is an important book for all of us. If you’re working to make a difference, you’ve got to keep in mind that “if you want to reach people no one else is reaching, you’ll need to do things no one else is doing (Craig Groeschel).” Step one might be to learn how to be different.
Picked up a new book this week in my ongoing search for innovation ideas and strategies. Innovation X, by Adam Richardson came to the top of the stack. 30 pages in, this is going to be a great addition to my thinking.
A creative director at frog design, Richardson has worked with companies like HP, Intel, Yahoo, Motorola, and Logitech. In describing his work, he points out that much of his time is focused on “strategic issues and sitting down with executives and product managers whose fundamental question is, ‘What should we make?’
Sound familiar? Aren’t many of us asking that same question? What should we make? After all, if we’re mindlessly making the same product we’ve been making for years or generations…you probably have already lost the market. So you’ve more than likely been tweaking the product, trying to stay relevant.
And yet…in many, many cases…tweaking the product has not worked. It’s like we have missed the moment.
“But often,” he continues, “they do not even know exactly what the problem is they are trying to solve.” That sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Don’t many of us feel like we know things aren’t right…but we’re not sure why.
This feels like a great book right at the outset. Want to come along? You can pick up your copy right here.
