Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0

Companies are usually founded with a clear, vibrant sense of purpose. Yet, as companies mature, they often disintegrate into squabbling factions. Institutional self-enhancement and turf wars smother the spark and spirit of the early sense of purpose. In one company, we interviewed the top ten managers separately and asked: “What’s this company all

“Well, Jim, if you don’t love doing it, you won’t stay with it long enough to ever really get good at it.” Then he added, “Life is just too short not to enjoy what you’re doing. If we can’t make this fun, we should stop doing it! ”

Applicants should never be hired on one interview alone; they should be interviewed by at least two people before an offer is made.

The primary purpose of a well-constructed review, on the other hand, is to set next year’s goals.

I’ve come to see that sound strategic thinking (once you have clarity of vision) boils down to having insightful, empirically validated answers to three essential questions: Where to place our big bets? How to protect our flanks? How to extend our victories?

“No one is ever told to shut up, but you are asked to come up with better arguments. People are allowed to be persistent.”50 The phrase, “People are allowed to be persistent,” is perfect. It captures the notion of a “Darwinian” or free-market style environment where ideas are never killed outright, but where the fittest ideas survive.

An analogy will help clarify our solution to the paradox. Think for a moment about excellent writers. Each writer has his or her own style; William Faulkner’s style is very different from Ernest Hemingway’s, and Barbara Tuchman’s style differs from that of William Manchester. Although style is personal to each individual writer, there are certain e

Strategy is simply the basic methodology you intend to apply to attain your company’s current mission. “This is how we will achieve our mission.” That, in a nutshell, is strategy. There’s no mystery to it. It’s not a difficult concept.

To be truly SMaC involves four basic elements: Specific, replicable processes and mechanisms that create tremendous consistency Checking and cross-checking systems to prevent catastrophic mistakes Rigorous thinking to consider a wide range of contingencies and backups Continuous evolution of SMaC based on understanding the why behind SMaC processes

You must retain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time you must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. You must believe you can survive the camp and will live to see your loved ones again, and at the same time you must stoically accept