The 20 provocative learning points from "Break from the Pack"
A few learning - and talking - points from Break From the Pack
by Oren Harari
Here are just a few of the oddball things you'll learn from reading this book. But if you take these, and other unorthodox lessons in the book seriously, you'll position your organization for breakthrough success and sustained competitive advantage.
1. Forget Harvard Business School: leaders ought to study Madonna and Willie Nelson.
2. If your competitors aren't thoroughly puzzled by what you're doing, or if they're not deriding you as insane, you're probably not doing enough to break from the pack..
3. "Disciplined lunacy" (both words are important) is essential for business success today. If you can't combine them, you won't break from the pack..
4. In today's Copycat Economy, getting bigger per se won't make you successful (that's why so many big firms are dead, or dying—GM, Kodak, the old AT&T, etc.); but breaking from the pack will make you successfully bigger. .
5. If you want your company's strategy to be successful, forget conventional "strategic planning" which has plunged so many companies down the tube. Instead, make sure to ignite your strategy with the EMBER model, which will show you how to create unique and sustained value that matters to both customers and investors. .
6. When companies are in trouble, much of what they do (including cost- and price-cutting programs, quality programs, diversity programs, sales programs, etc.) will have little effect. .
7. One of the most dangerous, counterproductive strategies is the "one stop shopping" strategy where an organization offers customers "everything" they need. It doesn't work. You can't be all things to all people. .
8. If you can't dominate a market, don't enter it. If you're already in businesses that you can't dominate, dump them--even if they're currently bringing in revenues. .
9. Start figuring out which customers to keep and which to fire. .
10. Always be cannibalizing..
11. Don't ask customers what they want; become an anthropologist with them. .
12. "Customer satisfaction" is no longer a useful goal for any company that wants sustained competitive advantage. .
13. The only way to build customer loyalty is to take your customer to an impossible place. .
14. Sales and market share are two potentially dangerous metrics to aim for. .
15. It's as important to innovate on the "back end" (cost-reduction, operational efficiency, supply chains) as on the "front end" (products, services, customer care). .
16. More than half of mergers and acquisitions destroy shareholder value; the "6T" Blueprint will help you make the kinds of unconventional acquisitions that will help your organization break from the pack. .
17. "Branding" has little to do with logos, ads, or other traditional marketing. It has everything to do with consistency and credibility..
18. As a leader and as a company, you've got to do "strategy on the run.".
19. To be personally successful and build their careers, leaders ought to enroll in the "12 Step Recovery Program" described in chapter 11. The first step has to do with your business and your own personal skill set: "First, Admit You're a Commodity." .
20. At the end of the day, it's gotta be fun. No fun--no success, and on top of that the best people leave.
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