(March 13, 2024) introduces a new book that connects the dots between strategy and design. So applicable! Plus,
to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies).
Ridin’ a Lawn Chair at the Harley Store!I was hooked on this book just reading Kevin Ervin Kelley’s introduction, “Ernie the Tow Truck Driver Meets Kevin the Watcher.” I couldn’t put it down and it’s already a finalist for my 2024 Book-of-the-Year:
Just published yesterday, March 12, this book is absolutely fascinating. Think of the book title as “Irre
PLACEable”—and you’ll get this strategic design architect’s big idea: “Something so special it can’t be replaced if lost or destroyed.”
I know 20 colleagues who would love this book. Kelley is an award-winning architect and experience designer. “I’ve spent my life trying to bring people together through the timeless interactions and primal qualities of place.” He adds,
“…my job is to make the everyplace places of our lives extraordinary.”How does he do this?
“I’m the guy who pulls up a lawn chair in a parking lot to watch people walk in and out of a steak buffet chain, and I’m the guy who studies consumers buying Fig Newtons in the cookie and cracker aisle of a grocery store. It’s an odd job.”“Standing around for weeks on end watching people look at Harleys may not be for everyone, and it created an awkward moment when I first met my wife and told her how I spend my days in disguise as a customer. But it’s what I do.” He adds,
“But I’m not just a watcher. I’m also a fixer, adjuster, tinkerer, rethinker, and experience designer.”Consulting with Harley-Davidson, Kelley interviewed people (mostly men) at 30 Harley dealership across the U.S. After seeing Ernie a second time and at a different Harley store, he listened to his story. “Ernie’s desire to ‘hang out’ in the store told me a lot about his needs and wants and
how we ought to be rethinking the purpose of the dealership, less as stores and more as clubhouses for wandering souls.” (Ernie already owned two Harleys!)
Kelley and Ernie joked about Harley bikers: “The purchase they sought to acquire was ‘the end of loneliness for midlife-crisis-males-fading-in-strength.'”
And speaking of joking, the author’s unusual approach when his team is stuck on solving a client’s problem is to “find the funny.” He explains “find the funny” in Chapter 9, “Articulate”—one of five parts to his design firm’s “comprehensive system we’ve developed that has allowed our clients to retain or regain their edge over outside influences for the last three decades.” The five parts: Extract, Distill, Articulate, Crystallize, and Maximize.” (The “crystallize” steps—I hope—will be covered in his next book.)
Timely! I’m guessing the author has already sent his book to the new CEO of Macy’s. Read this March 1, 2024,
article in the WSJ:
“Macy’s Stores Aren’t Fun Places to Shop. Its New CEO Wants to Fix That. Tony Spring is drawing on his hospitality training to turn around the department-store chain.”
LOL! You’ll laugh when you read that as a kid, Kelley rearranged the furniture, lighting, and music volume in his parent’s home! When he got bored, he took on his classroom and friends’ bedrooms!
He believes that “great things happen at the intersection of commerce and community.” Kelley writes that “…we set out to create a multidisciplinary field called convening, which we define as the art and science of bringing people together around an idea, forum, and experience.”He cofounded the strategy and design firm,
Shook Kelley, in 1992 with his friend and lifelong mentor, Terry Shook. I thought this was insightful:
“Terry was good with acres and me inches.” (Where are you on that continuum?)
Their firm “helps people connect the dots between strategy and design.” And speaking of convening, I had read only four pages when I recommended this book to Greg Leith, CEO of
Convene.
Who else should read this book? All of my camp and conference center friends, pastors and church leaders, university presidents, rescue mission leaders, board members, and others—and then this list of others—as suggested by the author:
“This book is for those who own, manage, design, or inhabit a physical place or human experience as part of their business model or operation. These places include anywhere people convene in the public realm, whether a local grocery store or pub, a religious facility or an office building, a bowling alley or university, or an urban district or zoo. This book is also for parents, teachers, and students wanting to know more about how the environment of a place affects human behavior, social interactions, and our mental health and well-being.”The book oozes with practical insights (relevant to your space),
but let me pause here to apologize to my wife who endured my reading meaty paragraphs to her from almost every chapter! Here’s a taste:•
Visual Harmony vs. Visual Noise. “Ideally we want customers to walk into our venues feeling one way and come out a changed person with more energy and inspiration.” (Is that not the aspiration of every pastor and priest?)
•
The 7 Layers of Signage System: Orientation, Evocative, Address, Values, Process, Promotional, Whisper/Nudge. (You’ll see stores and restaurants with new eyes!) About those giant grocery store letters that spell
PRODUCE—“First of all, when’s the last time you heard mom and dad telling their kids to ‘Eat your produce!’”
•
The Theater of Space. Must-read: the author’s five guiding principles for “the art and science of scene-making.” Using retail as his example, the first principle is “A Good Retail Scene Has a Beginning, Middle, and End.” Principle 2: “A Good Retail Scene Has a Mini-climax Inside of It.”
There’s much, much more:• The 10 preliminary questions the design firm asks to get their “observation pumps primed.”
•
Why only 3 out of 10 clients can do “groundbreaking, breathtaking, and game-changing innovation work.” The other seven? They’ll “do better than where they started but won’t reach the level of excellence they initially desired.” He explains.
• Don’t skip the 3x5 card facilitation process, the 3 dials (rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10), The Place Brand Constitution, and the “6 Tips of the Brand Spears.”
• Plus: why you need a Brand Stewardship Committee, and how to inspire team members to become
“black belt evangelists” and “shepherds of the brand.”•
Creative idea: In what they jokingly called their “civil disobedience workshops,” the firm launched an urban renewal project with
“the technique of communicating our big strategic idea in the tight confines of a movie poster.” (Brilliant—worth the price of the book!)
The winners and the losers (Blockbuster and others) are noted in this book including the innovative L.A. shopping center,
The Grove (he takes his clients there to observe),
Trader Joe’s, and
Texas Roadhouse.
Irreplaceable reminded me of two books:
Growing Weeders Into Leaders and
The Power of Moments.
More Brilliance! “If you suddenly got hired by your fiercest competitor and were now sitting at their strategy table, how would you recommend they beat your old employer?”
“Too Enthusiastically." I was intrigued with Kelley’s design observations and recommendations (a list of 21) following his travel to the city of Makati—the financial center of the Philippines. (I’ve been there.) No one except Kelley noted “…this small but curious anomaly: groups of
maintenance crews applying a notable amount of hazard-yellow paint all over the place…” He adds,
“While they intended to alert the public to potential hazards, they did their jobs too enthusiastically.” Trust me. You can’t be
too enthusiastic about this one-of-a-kind book. It’s a must-read in your lawn chair or your Harley!
To order from Amazon, click on the title for
Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places that Bring People Together (March 12, 2024), by Kevin Ervin Kelley. Listen on
Libro (7 hours, 39 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:1) How intentional are you in connecting the dots between strategy and design? Max De Pree (1924-2017) was the CEO of Herman Miller, a company well known for design. In his book,
Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board, he writes: “Hospitality has to do with equity for each member. Enabling each to feel authentic and needed and worthwhile is an act of hospitality. The way we provide for the needs of the group in the physical setting is part of this.”
Read my 30 blog posts (not a typo!) on De Pree’s book. Or, read Lesson 3, “
The Productivity Payoff of Intentional Hospitality,” in
More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom.
2) Who, on your team, is focusing on the “inches” and observing from a lawn chair? Perhaps Joan Kroc, the wife of Ray Kroc, McDonald’s founder, did not use a lawn chair—but she did “hang out anonymously” at a Salvation Army community center in San Diego. Kevin Ervin Kelley, author of
Irreplaceable, would love these story about the Kroc estate gift of more than $1.5 billion to The Salvation Army! Read “
Big Blessings Abound When Management Faithfulness Flourishes” (
Christian Management Report, April 2004), and Lesson 1, "
Big Blessings Abound When Governance Faithfulness Flourishes,” from
More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom (2019).
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books
Part 12: Historical & Political Commentary (U.S.)Book #69 of 100: Rumsfeld’s RulesFor your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #69 in
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons
in Business, Politics, War, and Life
by Donald Rumsfeld
Books #66 through #70 spotlight five fascinating books on U.S. politics and more. Admiral Hyman Rickover warned, “If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won’t.” That’s just one of over 400 “rules” in this wonderful book by Donald Rumsfeld (1932-2021). The quotations, axioms, rules, and corner office wisdom ooze off almost every page. In the front of my book, I noted 36 rules that I will use again.
•
Read my review.
• Order from
Amazon:
Rumsfeld’s Rules • Listen on
Libro (9 hours, 3 minutes)
•
Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson).
In the section, “Running a Meeting,” Rumsfeld advises:• “The first consideration for meetings is whether to call one at all.”
•
“If you can find something everyone agrees on, it’s wrong.” (Rep. Mo Udall)
• Rumsfeld adds, “The default tendency in any bureaucracy, especially in government, is to substitute discussion for decision-making. The act of calling a meeting about a problem can in some cases be confused with actually doing something.”
•
“If you expect people to be in on the landing, include them for the takeoff.”• “Stubborn opposition to proposals often has no basis other than the complaining question, ‘Why wasn’t I consulted?’” (Pat Moynihan)
• “As drill sergeants are fond of saying,
‘If you’re five minutes early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, you have some explaining to do.’”
MORE RESOURCES:
Issue No. 658 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 3, 2025) features a new book coming Oct. 7—describing the four seasons of a CEO. The “...
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