#ReadThis #ANewWaytoThink by #RogerLMartin @RogerLMartin @HBPCorpLearning
It's not who you know, it's WHOM YOU KNOW and now we are pleased to know Roger L. Martin and his way of thinking. Follow him on Twitter! Not only is this book published by Harvard, but also according to his bio he is a Harvard graduate of both their undergraduate (economics) and business school. Can you feel the brilliance before you even open the book?! (But we shall contend BC is better in the Beanpot.) Martin's bio is a laundry list of excellence which is reason alone to READ THIS. We don't know what took us so long to start reading him!
Sometimes we crack open a meretricious business book and find it to be quite a lot of fluff: pomp and circumstance with no substance. This is not at all the case here and is quite the opposite. This is one of the most worthwhile non-fiction books we've read this year. We wonder if he is also an ENTJ like we are along with Mover and Shaker Mitzi Perdue. (So was Frank.) And when he says "Become Popular Early" we wonder if he was firstborn!
Aptly named, the full title is A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness.
Roger makes sense starting on page one where he eloquently states how doing the same thing over and over again and again and expecting different results is in fact the definition of insanity. Don't keep walking into the same wall. Read This.
Martin presents fourteen stellar chapters stocked with for what many people is a new way of thinking. He believes strategy and execution are one and the same. The development of ideas is paramount to success, and the way you think about this development is essential to winning. Of course putting customers first is what leads to success of the whole. Common sense is actually not so common in management today.
He gives practical examples that illustrate the wisdom of his ideas as the book goes on and again if you read his bio you can see this is obviously grounded in reality where he has advised high-level brands.
We believe the quality of this book is on par with Principles by Ray Dalio, which we have read more than once but have not formally reviewed. We wonder on page 15 if he considered Warren-Tricomi products...(Edward is the best!). We like how Martin points out that consulting and Hollywood projects are always project-related (and for a fun read on one of those projects read Willie Boy and Paul's Dad's book) Most definitely both of these disciplines are knowledge work and we ought to know on both accounts!
Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Read a New Way to Think
1. Imagination is Critical (p. 8)
2. If you are a Robot-Thinker, this book has your name written all over it in bold red underline
3. Don't you want to learn terms like cumulative advantage (p. 41, and its four steps), processing fluency (p. 42), and the campaign for adult behavior (p. 106)
4. He is right: activist hedge funds and private equity firms will take advantage of opportunities! (p. 27)
5. Culture cannot be changed by mandating it (p. 9)
6. A long-term outlook is where it's at (p. 36)
7. You can think algebraically: if x, then y Specifying the Conditions for Success (p. 62)
8. Learn WHY creating great choices requires imagination more than data (p. 76). Human invention and persuasion matter.
9. Mover and Shaker Rennie McQuilkin taught Peachy sophomore year in English class what page 78 says: "Most situations involve some elements you can change and some you cannot. The critical skill is spotting the difference." Learn this now if you have not.
10. Data is not logic (p. 79)
For most of this book, he was preaching to the choir. Our ideas were confirmed, enlightened and enhanced. Thus, we sing his praises. And we look forward to more excellence from him and Harvard Business Publishing because the world can always learn more.
Why think in an ordinary fashion? Think Superiorly. Read This.
A New Way to Think is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
Over a stellar career, Roger Martin has advised the CEOs of some of the world's most successful companies. From the beginning, he noted that almost every executive he talked to had a "model"—a framework or way of thinking that guided their strategy and activities. But these models tended to become automatic, so much so that when one didn't work, the typical response was just to apply it again—with greater enthusiasm.
Martin took a fresh, critical approach to helping. When company leaders came to him with fundamental questions—How do you decide where to play and how to win? What is the key to shaping and changing corporate culture? How can you design a successful, sustainable innovation process?—his first response was to break the spell of the current model with a memo articulating a new way to think about the problem at hand and a more powerful and effective way to successfully overcome it.
Over time, these ideas worked their way into Martin's many Harvard Business Review articles. Now, for the first time, they appear together in A New Way to Think. With his trademark incisive intellect and clarity, Martin covers the entire breadth of the management landscape—illuminating the true nature of competition, explaining how company success revolves around customers, revealing how strategy and execution are really the same thing, and much more.
Reading like a series of one-on-one sessions with one of the world's leading business thinkers, A New Way to Think is an essential guide for any current or aspiring business leader.
