How Will You Measure Your Life?

 

Issue No. 443 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (July 18, 2020) recommends a 2012 bestseller with three profound questions. (Sorry I’m eight years late on this!) And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click on the title to read my recent review of Leighton Ford’s book, A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own.   Clayton Christensen’s 3 Big Questions While locked down here in the Pearson Bunker, we’ve been talking about writing another book. No title yet, but here’s the big idea—If I’d Only Read This Book EARLIER in My Career, I Could Have Avoided This BIG Leadership Mistake! [2026 update: the book!) But should I write about my Top-10, Top-50, or Top-100 big leadership mistakes? (Yikes. I have an abundance of examples.) Much too late, I’ve often read a book that would have given me greater clarity—and sooner. Today’s book would certainly be on the list. Had I read this book in 2013, I would have given much better counsel to younger (and some older) leaders over the last eight years. I would have given less advice and simply said, “Just read this book!” LOL! On Jan. 15, 2013, Chasz Parker, a faithful leader and reader, emailed me with this book recommendation: HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR LIFE? by Clayton M. Christensen,  James Allworth, and Karen Dillon Good News. I immediately ordered the book back in 2013 (as Chasz instructed!). Bad News. I set this gem aside and didn’t read it until this year during lockdown. Yikes. I wasted eight years! (Sorry, Chasz!) Good News. I still have the two-page email from Chasz Parker—and, yes, he was right. This New York Times bestseller is amazing. I can’t stop talking about it. And gratefully, Chasz’s 2013 email included his review! Note: On Jan. 24, 2020, an obituary in The Wall Street Journal reported that Clayton Christensen had died the day before. He had leukemia. They noted that Christensen was “a Harvard Business School professor and management guru…an authority on what he called disruptive technologies who became more widely known for offering his life as a case study.”  So here’s a summary of How Will You Measure Your Life? from Parker and Pearson. In the book and in his MBA classes, Christensen asked three big questions: “How can I be sure that... 1. I will be successful and happy in my career? 2. My relationships with my spouse, my children, and my extended family and close friends becomes an enduring source of happiness? 3. I live a life of integrity—and stay out of jail?” On the last day of class each year, Prof. Christensen discussed these three questions with his Harvard Business School students. Word got around and he was then invited to give the talk to the entire study body at the 2010 graduation ceremonies. Next, Karen Dillon, then editor of Harvard Business Review, asked him to write the article, “How Will You Measure Your Life?” for HBR. (Click here to read.) The book was released in 2012 (and yes, I finally read it in 2020!). Chasz notes that when Christensen, also a HBS grad, attended his own class reunions—it concerned him that some classmates were experiencing personal and/or work traumas. Some stopped attending reunions out of embarrassment.  I appreciate bullet point book reviews and Chasz didn’t disappoint in his 2013 email to me. He wrote: • We often find our life’s direction by following an “emergent” path. We make our plans and start out in what we believe is the way to go, but to be successful (like most businesses) we deviate from the plan to the opportunity. Christensen’s career aim was to be the editor of The Wall Street Journal! But he ended up as a prof at Harvard Business School. (And perhaps he had greater influence there. See two more books below.) • Integrity is holding the line on key commitments. Many people who cross the line naively think they will only cross it once, and will step over and come back “just this time.” But then having crossed that line (which was once a monumental decision), further line-crossing seems insignificant—and each subsequent “small” infraction eventually erodes a person’s integrity—compounding into major losses (family, career, etc.).  • Read why Christensen says, “100 Percent of the Time Is Easier Than 98 Percent of the Time.” • Must-read: Christensen’s insights on why “outsourcing” may undermine your family’s values (and your organization’s values)—and why you must keep certain competencies in-house, even if difficult. • You must pursue your life purpose by determining what it is you are going to reflect in your character (whose image will be seen in you?), then commit to what it will take for this to happen, and create a means to track how you are doing in becoming more like your desired image. Chasz suggested that this would be a great CEO book study—especially for young leaders. Interestingly, Christensen himself didn’t sense that his last-day-of-class talks to MBA students were getting much traction—until he announced he had been diagnosed with the same cancer that had taken his father. Then students engaged—and this book is the result. Christensen quotes C.S. Lewis: “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one— the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” In addition to the powerful life lessons (poke-in-rib quotes on mistake-mistaking), every leader and manager will find delightful sidebars and rabbit trails on growing people and businesses in complex environments.  Example: Noting “the problem with principal-agent, or incentives, theory…” (why some managers still think money motivates), Christensen discusses Frederick Herzberg’s work on the psychology of motivation—another topic I wish I had known about years ago. Read “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” in the January 2003 issue of HBR. (In the book, Christensen also gives a nice compliment to nonprofit managers.) Click here to view Clay Christensen on YouTube at a TEDx Boston presentation in 2012: View Clay Christensen: “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Picture this on your business card! Clayton Christensen was twice “Ranked #1 in the Thinkers50,” the global ranking of business leaders. He was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2019. You’ll appreciate his wisdom throughout the book. He writes, “There are no quick fixes for the fundamental problems of life. But I can offer you tools that I’ll call theories in this book, which will help you make good choices, appropriate to the circumstances of your life.” Christensen writes that instead of telling Intel’s Andy Grove what to think during a consultation, “I taught him how to think. He then reached a bold decision about what to do, on his own.” The co-authors add richness to this remarkable book. In the Acknowledgments section (who reads that?) I got teary-eyed reading the warmth expressed between the three authors (pages 207-221). James Allworth writes to Christensen, “Short of my parents, you have done more to change the way I think about the world than anyone.” After meeting Christensen and learning about his three questions, co-author Karen Dillon recalls, “I stood in the parking lot of HBS a few hours later and knew I didn’t like my answers to those questions. Since then, I have changed almost everything about my life with the goal of refocusing around my family.” Trust us—you will not stop talking about this book and it will cost you! I just ordered another copy for a younger leader today. To order from Amazon, click on the title for How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours, 34 minutes).     YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) When coaching and mentoring others (including family members), Christensen notes “…there is no one-size-fits-all approach that anyone can offer you. The hot water that softens a carrot will harden an egg.” What carefully selected books are you recommending this month to younger leaders (and other lifelong learners)? 2) Let’s be blunt here: How will you measure your life—and stay out of jail? Clayton Christensen on “Hiring a Milkshake to Do the Job” Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  The core competency in the Customer Bucket affirms, “We know our primary and supporting customers. We segment our customers to more effectively meet their unique needs. We listen to our customers. We are zealots for researching and understanding our markets.” Clayton Christensen’s work on “What job did you hire that product to do?” disrupted the way organizations think about their customers. Enjoy these resources: [  ] 7-MINUTE VIDEO: Clayton Christensen’s work on disruptive innovation opened doors to a wide array of businesses and organizations, including McDonald’s. Invest seven minutes and view this fascinating YouTube video, “Hiring a Milkshake to Do the Job.” (Nov. 2019)   View on YouTube: “Hiring a Milkshake to Do the Job” [  ] BOOK: The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business, by Clayton M. Christensen (2002). (Order from Amazon.)  “It is in disruptive innovations, where we know least about the market, that there are such strong first-mover advantages. This is the innovator’s dilemma.” [  ] BOOK: Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice, by Clayton M. Christensen, Karen Dillon, Taddy Hall, and David S. Duncan (2016). (Order from Amazon.) The introduction, “Why You Should Hire This Book,” notes the importance of asking the right question: “What job did you hire that product to do?” (View the milkshake video.) And how about this on co-author David Duncan? “The clients he’s worked with tell me they’ve completely changed the way they think about their business and transformed their culture to be truly focused on customer jobs. (One client even named a conference room after him!)”   [  ] CLAYTON CHRISTENSEN (1952-2020) WEBSITE. In 2011, in a poll of thousands of executives, consultants and business school professors, Christensen was named as the most influential business thinker in the world. Click here to visit his website. For more resources and books, visit the Customer Bucket.                     JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. When you ask, “What job did you hire that product to do?”—your marketing and communication plans must also align with your answers. Need someone to coach you in how to think about this?  Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).  MORE LESSONS: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! Click here to order More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Click here to follow the new blog with 40 guest bloggers. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:  Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations Podcast: What the Board Needs from the CFO Listen to CFO David Beroth interview John for the July podcast of the Christian Nonprofit CFO. The topic: “7 Critical Financial Insights the Board Needs from the CFO.” Click here to listen.  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

Non Obvious Megatrends

 

Issue No. 436 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (May 6, 2020) highlights an obvious Top-10 book for 2020, Non-Obvious Megatrends. Incredibly, the author grades himself with a “trend longevity rating” to the 135 trends he’s predicted since 2011. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath. Be Observant, Curious, Fickle, Thoughtful, and Elegant  “At least 50 percent of pundits seem wrong all the time,” wrote Dan Gardner. “It’s just hard to tell which 50 percent.” Can leaders spot trends—in advance? By page 28, the author of Non-Obvious Megatrends dramatically (dramatically!) shifted my thinking about trends. (Many books deliver pay dirt by page 25, but this was worth the extra effort.) Consider:    • “Trend spotting isn’t the same as identifying actual trends.”    • Definition: “A trend is a curated observation of the accelerating present.” Rohit Bhargava, founder and chief trend curator of the Non-Obvious Company, shares this helpful metaphor: “When you focus on spotting stories that stand out, you gravitate toward collecting interesting ideas without understanding the broader context of what they mean. Calling the multitude of ideas spotted the same thing as a trend is like calling eggs, flour, and sugar sitting on a shelf the same thing as a cake. You can see ingredients, but true trends must be curated to have meaning just as a cake must be baked.” Curated is the perfect word—and you will never, ever, read a book quite like Non-Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future. Five reasons: #1. Research Methodology Unmasked! The author gives away the store in the first 67 pages. Actually, you could stop right there—read no further—and you’d already have a ROI more than 100 times the cost of the book. Example: You’ll rarely find a needle-in-a-haystack, but follow the author’s “Haystack Method” of curating trends—and you’ll find gold. Five steps:    1. Gathering—save interesting ideas.    2. Aggregating—curate information clusters.    3. Elevating—identify broader themes.    4. Naming—create elegant descriptions.    5. Proving—validate without bias. The “Naming” step is brilliant—how to wordcraft memorable trend titles. He delivers five questions that will scorch your first five trend-naming attempts! Example: “Does it make sense without too much explanation? Could you imagine it as the title of a book?” Click here to watch a one-minute video of Rohit Bhargava’s Haystack Method. (See—he does give away the store and note that in this digital age, he’s old school.) Click here to view the one-minute video on the Haystack Method. #2. Five Mindsets Unmasked! Bhargava makes a bold claim: “Non-obvious thinking can make you the most creative person in the room, no matter what your business card says and help solve your biggest problems.” He quotes Isaac Asimov (author/editor of nearly 500 books): “I’m not a speed reader, I am a speed understander.” Bhargava summarizes “The Five Mindsets of Non-Obvious Thinkers” on page 15 (he’s an over-achiever!):    1. Be Observant. See what others miss.    2. Be Curious. Always ask why. [See also The Advice Trap.]    3. Be Fickle. Learn to move on.    4. Be Thoughtful. Take time to think.    5. Be Elegant. Craft beautiful ideas. Those five points will preach at your next weekly staff meeting. But he doesn’t stop with this well-designed page. He then summarizes the big ideas for each point (two pages per point, again, beautifully designed)—and lists three practical disciplines for each big idea. To be fickle, he suggests, “take shorter notes” and use a Sharpie marker so you note only the most useful observations. You’ll also appreciate his warning to avoid “the temptation to fixate on assigning meaning to every idea instantly.” #3. Intersection Thinking Unmasked! Chapter 3 is a must-read. “Trends might offer a signal that you should consider abandoning an existing product line or staying the course in a direction that hasn’t paid off yet. Or they could suggest that you should pivot the focus of your career to learn new skills.”  He adds, “What gives you the power to receive these signals and reach these conclusions is intersection thinking, a method for connecting disparate concepts and beliefs from unrelated industries to generate new ideas or products.” The author lists four ways to leverage intersection thinking effectively:    1. Focus on similarities.    2. Embrace serendipitous ideas.    3. Wander into the unfamiliar.    4. Be persuadable. Bhargava’s personal discipline is to read widely (off-beat magazines, A to Z industry publications, etc.). He takes a cue from the 1980s bestseller by John Naisbitt, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (14 million copies sold in 57 countries!). (See also the board retreat trend exercise, Tool #15, in ECFA Tools and Templates for Effective Board Governance: Time-Saving Solutions for Your Board, by Busby and Pearson.) And here’s a non-obvious aha! When you leverage trend insights effectively, you will strengthen your culture (one of five tips for using trends—see the graphic on page 57). How? Trends will help you “improve your employee engagement and recruiting.” Brilliant. #4. Four Tips for Running a Trend Workshop Unmasked! The author, apparently, can’t stop giving away the store! Also in Chapter 3, he elaborates on the five tips for using trends with a “Trend Action Guide” featuring five brief case studies (including one of my favorites: Zappos). He scolds us for the boring “About Us” pages on our websites (I agree!), and explains his “Lovable Unperfection” trend from 2017. (Another example of elegant wordsmithing.)  The case study for “Tip #2: Share Your Story” features the self-described “worst hotel in the world,” The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, which has been “proudly disappointing travelers for forty years, boasting levels of comfort comparable to a minimum-security prison.” (Did I mention you’ll annoy everyone in your sheltered-in-place family by your incessant reading of half-page snippets—both funny and profound—all day long?) There’s more—and this is crazy. The guy who makes his living giving keynote talks and workshops, tells you how to run a trends workshop! Tip #4: “Always Have an Unbiased Facilitator.” He writes, “It’s easy to assume that the person closest to the problem you hope to solve is the one most suited to lead the workshop. This is never the case.” Must-read (pages 64-67). By the way, on page 56—there’s a tantalizing fork-in-the-road: • Option 1: Remain here and continue reading. • Option 2: Jump to the 10 megatrends starting on page 71. Oh, my. What will you do? Hilarious and brilliant. I stayed with Option 1 and feasted on the delectable details that delineate how Bhargava and his team curate the trends. If you’re more A.D.D., you’ll likely jump to the 10 trends for 2020—all worth the read. #5. Trend Longevity Rating Unmasked! Bhargava devotes pages 187 to 230 for “Part III: Previous Trend Reports (2011-2019).” Yes, he’s been publishing non-obvious trends since 2011. (How did I miss them?) But who does this? He rates his own track record for every non-obvious trend he’s identified since 2011. Honest. I counted 135 trends, and humbly, he gave himself some D’s and C’s, but (in his view) scored dozens of A’s and B’s. You gotta love the honesty—and this models something to all of us. This week, I ran across Leadership Gold, John Maxwell’s “lessons I’ve learned” book (which he didn’t write until age 60!). My favorite chapter: “The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting” (read my review). But I also reread this pithy pointer (just $1.99 on Kindle): “Your Biggest Mistake Is Not Asking What Mistake You’re Making.” So high fives to Rohit Bhargava for his well-documented process for soliciting feedback on his trend-naming—and the guts to publish his “Trend Longevity Ratings.” OOPS! My mistake—I ran out of room and I didn’t give you my color commentary on the 10 trends for 2020. You’ll have to buy the book to learn more about Amplified Identity, Ungendering, Instant Knowledge, Revivalism, Human Mode, Attention Wealth, Purposeful Profit, Data Abundance, Protective Tech, and Flux Commerce. To order from Amazon, click on the title for Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future, by Rohit Bhargava. YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Does your organization’s uniqueness stand out? In his book, Rohit Bhargava highlights the worst hotel in the world, the world’s best umbrella, and the world’s smartest building. What are we famous for? 2) The author writes, “By some expert estimates, a whopping 90 percent of the data that currently exists in the world was created in the past two years and it will continue to multiply exponentially.” The 2020 trend, “Data Abundance,” addresses “how to make it useful, who owns the data, and who should stand to profit from it.” The author asks us, do we have a data strategy? And the answer is…?     The Secret to a Good [Zoom] Meeting Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  One of the big ideas in the Meetings Bucket is to “design meetings like an architect designs buildings.” Are you as intentional about designing Zoom meetings as you are in face-to-face (mask-to-mask) settings? Download (just $1.99 on Kindle), John Maxwell’s short chapter, “The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting,” from his book, Leadership Gold. In 16 quick-reading pages, Maxwell builds the case for turning routine meetings into productive action-oriented gatherings. Following the counsel of Olan Hendrix, he writes that the meeting before the meeting: 1) helps you receive buy-in, 2) helps followers to gain perspective, 3) increases your influence, 4) helps you develop trust, and 5) avoids your being blindsided. The “no surprises” rule is critical for the key people in each meeting—and typically that means you must meet with them in advance. Maxwell preaches:     • “If you can’t have the meeting before the meeting, don’t have the meeting.     • If you do have the meeting before the meeting, but it doesn’t go well, don’t have the meeting.     • If you have the meeting before the meeting and it goes as well as you hoped, then have the meeting!” For more resources for more effective meetings, visit the Meetings Bucket.                    JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Is your organization the “best” or the “worst” in the world? Or just lost in the sea of online anonymity and overload? Need help?  Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). And while in your bunker this month, it’s the perfect time to invest in your family by completing the fun and meaningful journal by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, THIS. 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love.  MORE LESSONS: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! Click here to order More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Click here to follow the new blog with 40 guest bloggers. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:  Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations 14 Boardroom Questions Click here to follow John's 14-week series for the ECFA blog on Ram Charan's 14 questions for board members. Read more on Question 2, "Are We Addressing the Risks That Could Send Our Organization Over the Cliff?"  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

Upstream - The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen

 

Issue No. 434 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (April 15, 2020) urges you to read or listen to this must-must-read book on upstream thinking—how to solve problems before they happen. Timely? And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Trial and Error, Error, Error During this COVID-19 marathon, could there be a more relevant, timely book than Upstream, by bestselling author Dan Heath? No way. The big idea: solve problems before they happen. Customer complaints, crimes (and get this!)—chronic illnesses are preventable. RELEVANT! We must experiment. Heath quotes systems thinker Donella Meadows. “Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be shot at. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own….The thing to do, when you don’t know, is not to bluff and not to freeze, but to learn. “The way you learn is by experiment—or, as Buckminster Fuller put it, by trial and error, error, error.” TIMELY! Don’t make the problem worse. Heath notes, “When we fail to anticipate second-order consequences, it’s an invitation to disaster, as the ‘cobra effect’ makes clear. The cobra effect occurs when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse.” That happened in India, during the UK’s colonial rule. “A bounty on cobras was declared,” and citizens received cash for producing dead cobras. You guessed it—the entrepreneurs began breeding more cobras. (Read more here.) INSIGHTFUL! Data—the centerpiece of upstream efforts. Heath quotes Joe McCannon who uses “data for the purpose of learning” as distinguished from “data for the purpose of inspection.” Read chapter five (gulp!) to learn why you never hear about data systems “that are useful for people on the front lines.” (Maybe Heath was channeling our new physician hero, Ambassador Deborah Birx.) Forget all the other “must-reads” I’ve cajoled you into reading. This is the must-must-read of the year. Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath, was just published March 3, 2020, and—here at home, hunkered and bunkered—I naively thought, “For once, I’ll read this book without a pen. Just enjoy it. Learn. Reflect.” Not! The two blank pages in the front of my book are now smothered with 47 page numbers and notes. Forty-seven! There’s no way to cram all this good stuff into a short review. Sorry! I waded into Upstream while reading Sam Walker’s “Captain Class” column in The Wall Street Journal. The headline: “Covid-19 was a Leadership Test. It Came Back Negative. One lesson from the coronavirus is that we need leaders who prevent crises more than we need managers who scramble to handle them.” Walker’s WSJ column included this: Last year, before this virus began to spread, I learned about a parable that’s well-known in public-health circles. It goes something like this: Two friends are sitting by a river when they spot a child drowning in the water. Both friends immediately dive in and pull the child to safety. But as soon as they do, another struggling child drifts into view. Then another. Then another. After completing several rescues, one of them climbs out of the water. “Where are you going?” the other friend asks. “I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids in the water.” This parable is on page one in Upstream—and it’s the metaphor for the next 243 pages, followed by a “Next Steps” section, a one-page graphic summary of the book (Brilliant—why doesn’t every author give me a one-page summary?), and a discouraging two-page appendix, “Scaling Programs in the Social Sector.” (Heath: “My own take is that this is largely an unsolvable problem—that there are few programs for improving the lives of human beings that are as easy to reproduce on a large scale as fried chicken or lattes.”) So here are four options for this must-must-read: • Option 1: View Dan Heath’s four-minute video (see below)—and then delegate your reading to a team member for a report at your next weekly meeting on Zoom. • Option 2: Actually read the book! (Hardback or Kindle) • Option 3: Listen to the book, an hour a day, during your daily exercise routine this week (the audio is just 7 hours, 47 minutes). Visit Libro.fm • Option 4: Don’t read or listen to the book—and continue to manage your “willy-nilly” systems (per the downstream approach to the homeless problem previously used in Rockford, Illinois).  DAN HEATH EXPLAINS UPSTREAM THINKING (4 ½ minutes): Click here to view the video. MY TOP-10 TEASERS (And a bonus!) #10. BOXES. The Dutch bicycle company VanMoof reduced shipping damage by 70% to 80% when “they started printing images of flat-screen televisions on the side of their shipping boxes, which are very similar in shape to flat-screen TV boxes.” (page 104) #9. BARRIERS. Illustrating the three barriers to Upstream Thinking (problem blindness, a lack of ownership, and tunneling), Heath praises Chicago Public Schools for thinking upstream—and assigning their BEST teachers to ninth grade students, during the “whopper of a transition,” their vulnerable move from elementary school (K to 8) to high school. Where do you assign your best team members? (page 25) #8. BRACELETS. In a sleepy New England town, north of Boston, a “Danger Assessment” tool brought agencies together to address domestic abuse instead of the previously splintered response. Dan Heath attacks silos like COVID-19 attacks those who don’t social distance. One simple “upstream” innovation—attach GPS bracelets to released offenders BEFORE they leave jail, not two days later at their first parole appointment. I know, “Duh!” But…read the book and you’ll find the finger pointing at you. (page 82) #7. BUMMERS. Yikes #1: “Choosing the wrong short-term measurements can doom upstream work.” Yikes #2: “Getting short-term measures right is frustratingly complex.” Yikes #3: A ghost victory occurs “when measures become the mission.” (Did I mention “must-read?” See chapter nine, “How Will You Know When You’re Succeeding?”) #6. BUNKERS. How does one city use “predictive modeling to accelerate ambulance response time? By forward-deploying ambulances around the city, based on the model.” Thus without that system, Heath suggests you bunker down near a fire station! “This could become a selling point for real estate agents: First floor master—AND just a three-minute drive from the fire station!” (page 138) #5. BUSINESS. Read chapter eight, “How Will You Get Early Warning of the Problem?” and then view this witty IBM Watson TV commercial. (Click here.) #4. BONKERS! Yikes! An Illinois school district tech director was concerned about phishing attacks—so with a security firm’s help, he sent a “phishing test to the district’s staffers from a weird email address they’d never seen before. The email announced that a suspected security breach had happened earlier in the week and encouraged them to click a link to change their passwords.” Yikes—29% of the staff clicked on the link. (page 221)  #3. BRILLIANT! Read how LinkedIn earned “tens of millions of dollars annually” by reducing the churn rate on a product. Attention: Church Leaders & Association Execs—a member’s first 30 days are the most important. Brilliant. (page 135) #2. BROWNIE. Did I mention relevant? In the twelfth chapter, “The Chicken Little Problem: Distant and Improbable Threats,” you’ll weep when you read about the “Hurricane Pam” simulation. “The assignment: Create hurricane response plans for New Orleans and the surrounding region.” The July 2004 week-long gathering (amazing collaboration among agencies) launched the planning effort. Except…the follow-up meetings were cancelled because FEMA would not approve the additional $15,000 in travel expense. By the way, Heath notes that Congress ultimately funded $62 billion (not a typo) for the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina which hit 13 months later in 2005. #1. BUREAUCRATS (see “LAZY”). When your team finally commits to upstream efforts—and you’re pondering how to measure success, Heath has five questions to prevent “pre-gaming” your results—aka “the careful consideration of how the measures might be misused.” They include:    • The “rising tides” test    • The misalignment test    • The lazy bureaucrat test    • The defiling-the-mission test    • The unintended consequences test  BONUS TEASER: BIBLE-READING! One of Heath’s three types of “ghost victories” (where “it’s possible to ace your measures while undermining your mission”) is his youthful account of his father’s offer to pay him $1.00 for every book of the Bible he read. Younger Heath gamed the system—and instead of reading from Genesis to Revelation to earn $66—he started by fast-tracking through Second John, Third John, and Philemon—the three shortest books in the Bible—and then asked his Dad for his first cash payout—three bucks! Note: I just shipped this book to my favorite state senator in California. You might want to do the same in your state. To order from Amazon, click on the title for Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath. To listen to the audio version (7 hours, 47 minutes), visit Libro.fm   BONUS BOOK! You’ll also enjoy reading (or listening to) the bestselling book by Dan Heath, and his brother, Chip Heath (my 2017 book-of-the-year), The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. (Read my review.) Listen to the audio book here on Libro.fm (6 hours, 24 minutes). You'll appreciate the ideas in this book when planning the "Welcome Back" celebration at your office, church, or classroom. YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Who are you currently getting to know and collaborating with now—in anticipation of the NEXT crisis or disaster? Heath quotes a participant in a community-wide preparedness event, “You don’t want to be exchanging business cards in the middle of an emergency.” 2) One company (see page 160), discovered that email “open rates” were the wrong measurement when their spiffed-up email subject lines caused sales to plummet—even with increased open rates. So…how do we know if we’re measuring the right things? Are we thinking upstream or downstream? “Locked in a Room Together” Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  I know. I know. You’re already locked in a room during COVID-19, but this is different. Keep reading!  One of the big ideas in the Customer Bucket is this: “We listen to our customers. We are zealots for researching and understanding our markets.” Whether you’re planning for your next crisis (visit the Crisis Bucket)—or you finally (finally!) exit your silo to research your customer—Dan Heath urges teams to get “locked in a room together.” That’s one of the not big, but HUGE, ideas in the book, Upstream. Talk! Collaborate! Do it together—trial and error, error, error. In 2012, about 20 million Expedia customers called the travel company. “At a support cost of roughly $5 per call, that’s a $100 million problem!” For every 100 online transactions, “58 of them placed a call afterward for help.” But…customer service was hunkered down answering the phone—and their customer satisfaction ratings were acceptable, I’m guessing. Every other department had other metrics. No one saw the big number or the big picture or the big problem. Finally two upstream thinkers recognized the problem and assembled a war room with a simple mandate: “Save customers from needing to call us.” The results are stunning! “Since 2012, the percentage of Expedia customers who call for support has declined from 58% to roughly 15%.” The secret: assemble cross-functional teams—and lock them in a room together! (Read chapter one, “Moving Upstream.”) For more resources from the Customer Bucket, click here.                      JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are your communication tools focused downstream or upstream? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). And while in your bunker this month, it’s the perfect time to invest in your family by completing the fun and meaningful journal by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, THIS. 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love.    MORE LESSONS: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! Click here to order More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Click here to follow the new blog with 40 guest bloggers. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:  Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations Gloom, Boom, and Zoom COVID-19 has unleashed the advice-giving genes in every LinkedIn and Facebook user. So…click here to read my three cents-worth about Gloom (even the comic strips are depressing), Boom (prepare for what's coming), and Zoom (know that all four social styles  on your Zoom call will respond in different ways to crisis).  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

The Amazon Management System

 

Issue No. 426 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Jan. 21, 2020) highlights a digital wake-up call in just 138 pages. Learn why frugality is an Amazon core value! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my Top-10 books of 2019 and my Book-of-the-Year pick. Two-Pizza Team Meetings!  Emergency alert! Bestselling business author Ram Charan says the disrupter is in the building—and its name is Amazon. “Our 21st century prevailing management systems are still largely inherited from the oldest forms of human organization, such as the military and the church,” he writes. Designed for “command and control” in the pre-Internet era, these hierarchical bureaucracies mimicked the only management systems they knew. Until the digital age and Amazon. Whew. This tightly written book, The Amazon Management System (just 138 pages plus helpful appendices), is a wake-up call for nonprofits, for-profits, and churches. If you’re wondering… • …why your credit card bill is populated with Amazon purchases, read this book.  • …how to learn more about Amazon’s focused obsession on the customer, read this book.  • …how Amazon (online in 1995) was worth $1 trillion in 2018 (it goes up and down, of course), read this book. In addition to the big ideas—and bold management risks—there’s plenty of fun stuff in this quick-reading book, with one-page bullet-point summaries for every chapter. For fun: Why did Jeff Bezos pick “Amazon” for his company name? According to Ram Charan and Julia Yang, Bezos had experimented and then rejected numerous other suggestions like:    • Awake.com    • Browse.com    • Bookmall.com    • Relentless.com    • Makeitso.com    • Cadabra.com “Still searching, Bezos referred to the dictionary. Luckily the name hunt didn’t last long. Amazon jumped out at him. It was love at first sight. Amazon ‘is not only the largest river in the world. It’s many times larger than the next biggest river. It blows all the other rivers away,’ Bezos said.” That’s just one interesting sidebar in this serious—but short—analysis of the Amazon management system. It’s a must-read assignment for every senior leader (and perhaps your board members). The authors aren’t suggesting your organization becomes an Amazon clone—but, instead, “understand how it works and pick the valuable ingredients and inspirations for your own digital way.” And you will think differently about digital immediately. The digital future is scary, but brimming with opportunity. The book highlights six building blocks:    1. Customer-Obsessed Business Model    2. Continuous Bar-Raising Talent    3. AI-Powered Data and Metrics System    4. Ground-Breaking Invention Machine    5. High-Velocity and High-Quality Decision-Making    6. Forever Day-1 Culture A very helpful one-page checklist of the Amazon Management System is on page 135. One page only! And—throughout this gem—it’s the rare page in my book that isn’t underlined. Examples: • On Amazon’s relentless drive to invent, “Seek and build big ideas continuously [using a brilliant press release process]…and construct cross-functional full-time and co-located ‘two-pizza’ team with the right project leader.” Why? If two pizzas aren’t enough, the team is too big! • On making high-velocity decisions: a brilliant segmentation and process for decision-making: Type 1 decisions (one-way doors) and Type 2 decisions (two-way doors). “For Type 2 decisions, speed matters. Let the metrics owner make the call. If approval required, one level only.” • To create a “Forever Day-1 Culture,” Amazon does this: “Operationalize by observable behaviors, create forcing mechanisms, live and breathe them yourself, and invent memorable symbols and rewards. (See page 132 for the “Just Do It Award.” The authors add, “Given his constant reinforcement of frugality, Bezos came up with the totally unorthodox idea of having old sneakers, worn and torn, mounted and bronzed.” (It reminded me of my 2017 book-of-the-year, The Power of Moments.) • “Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdotes differ.” Oh, to have observed an executive meeting when Bezos—skeptical when the head of the Customer Service Department said that customer wait times were “well under one minute” (without “offering any supporting evidence”)—used the meeting room speakerphone and dialed the call center’s 800 number. The wait time: four-and-a-half minutes. Yikes! If you’re looking for weekly staff meeting topics, consider using the “Amazon 14 Leadership Principles” on pages 141-143. Succinct, with three to four lines of commentary, they include: 1) Customer Obsession (there was an empty seat at early meetings—representing the customer), 2) Ownership (leaders are owners), and 3) Invent and Simplify. The fourth principle is noteworthy and arresting: 4) Are Right, A Lot. Amazon notes: “Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.” Others include: 5) Learn and Be Curious, 6) Hire and Develop the Best. “Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion.” 7) Insist on the Highest Standards, 8) Think Big. “Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” And 9) Bias for Action. When hiring, a designated “Bar Raiser,” independent of the team that is hiring, also interviews the applicant. Bar raisers are “meticulously trained to be the stewards of Amazon’s leadership principles.” (Read more here.) The tenth principle is Frugality. “There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.” 11) Earn Trust, 12) Dive Deep [no task is beneath a leader], 13) Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit. “Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting.” 14) Deliver Results. Oh, my—there is SO much I should add to this review, like: • Avoiding “the creep onto the treacherous slippery slope called ‘Day 2’” • Amazon’s flywheel (per the Jim Collins concept) • The amazing impact that Jeff Bezos’ grandfather had on his thinking • “Nothing overcomes the wrong person. In the wrong hands, great ideas will not blossom.” • “To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.” (See the 18 failed innovations on page 80.) • Charlie Ward, the junior software engineer, who proposed the idea for Amazon prime in 2004. As of 2018, Amazon had over 100 million Prime Members! • Start with the customer (see what questions to ask on page 86). • “Eat your own dog food.” • The Jeff Bezos 70-90 Rule (When you have 70% of the info—make the decision. “If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.”) • Why Bezos resists “the overrated importance of harmony.” • July 9, 2004: The day Amazon banned PowerPoint presentations at the core executive team level—and honed the “Six-Page Narratives” (sometimes two pages) approach. (See Bezos’ email on page 108!) And finally, “A wrong decision may not be career-ending at Amazon, but Bezos will make sure the lesson is well learnt.” (Note: Read this book and it will be career-enhancing. Guaranteed.) To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Amazon Management System: The Ultimate Digital Business Engine That Creates Extraordinary Value for Both Customers and Shareholders, by Ram Charan and Julia Yang.   YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) The authors say that Amazon’s emphasis on Forever Day-1 is not rocket science. But organizations must notice the “usual suspects” to Day-2 thinking: “complacency, bureaucracy, and interdependency that blurs the lines of accountability.” What are the “usual suspects” that inhibit results in our organization? 2) Originally, Amazon had five values, but those morphed into 14 Leadership Principles. Many “experts” would say 14 are too many—and can’t be remembered or lived out. But Amazon has “operationalized” their principles into daily life. Example: read the blog post, "What's It Like to Interview at Amazon." Pop Quiz! From memory, recite our core values—and share when you saw one value lived out in the last seven days.   Ram Charan: Prolific Thinker! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  One of the big ideas in the Drucker Bucket, Chapter 4, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is that you must be “a disciplined lifelong learner in the art of management.” I’ve appreciated Ram Charan’s consistently helpful books on management, leadership, and board governance. In addition to his latest book, The Amazon Management System (Dec. 2019), check out my reviews of these Ram Charan books: • Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan (Order from Amazon.) • Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan (Order from Amazon.) • Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis, by Ram Charan (Read my review.) • Owning Up: The 14 Questions Every Board Member Needs to Ask, by Ram Charan (Read my review.) • The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers, by Bill Conaty and Ram Charan (Read my review.) • Boards That Lead: When to Take Charge, When to Partner, and When to Stay Out of the Way, by Ram Charan, Dennis Carey and Michael Useem (Read my review.) • The Attacker’s Advantage: Turning Uncertainty Into Breakthrough Opportunities, by Ram Charan (Read my review.) REMINDER: TO DOWNLOAD 3 LISTS OF 400+ BOOKS REVIEWED BY JOHN PEARSON, visit The Book Bucket (click here): • List #1: Books by Management Buckets Categories • List #2: Chronological List of 425 Issues of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (400+ books) • List #3: John Pearson's Top-100 Books List (updated every 2 years)                      JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are you leveraging the extraordinary power of visual media to inspire your members, clients, or customers? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video), including the new book by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, THIS. 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love.    MORE LESSONS: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! Click here to order More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Click here to follow the new blog with 40 guest bloggers. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:  Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations ECFA Tools and Templates Blog Click here to read John's new blog series on 22 downloadable tools and templates for effective board governance, including how to inspire your board members to be "leaders who read." See Tool #13: Board Retreat Read-and-Reflect Worksheets (with seven reading options).  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.