STRATEGY CENTRAL

Just checked out the new single by The Fray.  Very Cool.  You can get it right here:

Who are the management experts who are changing the way we think about business gets done?  You can get a taste of what's next over at Fortune right here.  Pretty interesting.  I've added a couple to my list to check out.  What do you think?

Sunday afternoon.  2:30 p.m.  65 degrees here in Rocklin.  Not a cloud in the sky.  Listening to a little Christmas playlist that includes some new and old stuff.  Especially diggin a few of the Louis Armstrong tunes I've added. 

I mentioned Outliers in Friday's post.  You can watch Malcolm Gladwell give a very interesting (and short) talk over at Pop!Casts on the topic that drives his newest book.  You can check it out right here.

Thanks to Mike Wagner over at Own Your Brand for the link!

Sunday afternoon.  4:15 p.m. 63°F.  Not bad really for November 23rd in Rocklin.  Got a little Dire Straits playing.  Got the good word a few minutes ago that USC moved up to #5 keeping their dim national title hopes alive.

Later?  Leftover palooza here.  Some good selections though.  Sometimes a good low-key Sunday evening is a really good thing.  Wish you were here.

P.S. Got a fun email from my friend Kevin in Michigan last Tuesday.  Check it out:

"Tuesday morning – 9:28a EST – 23 degrees –
in my office by myself – great times – NutriGrain bar – really great times.  Listing to Lincoln Brewster in advance of
back to back to back meetings.  You know … it just doesn’t have the same “ring”
as your posting?!?!

How connected are your senior leaders with what is happening in the culture around them?  How often do their statements and actions ring "out-of-touch?"

In response to the big three automakers' visit to Washington D.C. this week, Bob Sutton had a great post about how they were  clueless to what matters most and suffer from a "no we can't" mindset.  Citing their arrival by private jet as evidence that they are out of touch, Sutton writes that, "The
culture and work practices at  GM almost seem designed to create executives who are
clueless about what kinds of cars people want to buy and what kind of
experiences that car owners want to have — and about a lot of other important things as well."

Sound familiar?  If you think about your own organization, how in touch are you really?

If you’ve been listening in the last few years you’ve been influenced by Malcolm Gladwell.  His first book, The Tipping Point, gave new insights into the way we understand and talk about movements.  His next book, Blink, changed the way we think about thinking.  His new book, Outliers: The Story of Success will probably give us a new way of thinking about why things succeed.

The introduction leads with a fascinating story of a Pennsylvania town with a significantly lower incidence of heart problems.  The first chapter tells the eye opening story of chance occurrences that make or break the career of Canadian hockey players.  In typical Gladwell fashion, Outliers is a book that will influence conversations.

You can pick up your copy right here.

Sunday afternoon.  3:30 p.m.  75 degrees.  On the patio with Debbie and Max.  Good times.  Steak and baked potato later.  Really good times.

Listening to a little David Cook in advance of his premier album due out on Tuesday, November 18th. 

How do you determine what you need to do in order to improve?  Do you go for efficiency?  Or effectiveness?  Maybe you are shooting for both efficiency and effectiveness?  Have you figured out that you can be very efficient at the wrong thing?  When is it the wrong thing?  When you work harder to get better at something that doesn't produce what you really need to produce.

Working hard to get better at something that doesn't even really matter. 

Is that a real problem?  Does that really happen?

Think about the way you're spending your energy (or your team's energy).  Are you really working on getting better at the things that will make the greatest difference?  Or are you spending a chunk of time polishing what improves the quality of a product begging for systematic abandonment?

Tripped across this great line from Peter Drucker this morning:

Ouch. 

Overheard on twitter today:

Let's be honest…you may not like the GoDaddy advertising strategy.  Guess what?  You're not who they're trying to attract.  Bottom line?  In the world of marketing the point is being noticed by the segment you're trying to reach.

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