Some of the iconic CEOs – Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos – are known for their obsession for exceeding customer expectations. How about Disney? Since I had never had been a Disney theme park, nor had any ” Moments of Truth” at Disney, I did not know that Disney is also famous for its extraordinary customer service. But thanks to Ron Baker, Founder of VeraSage Institute, I learned so much about excellence in customer service. Ron posted a series of 3 articles in LinkedIn, and I found each of them remarkable and insightful. I am sharing the articles below.
Category Archives: Leadership
FOCUS
This 5 letter word is gaining more and more prominence. It was only a week back that Fred Wilson, the famous VC, blogged about “Focus”and how it led to the success of Steve Jobs.(Read my blog here). Today in LinkedIn, Daniel Goleman, the author of the path-breaking book “Emotional Intelligence” announced the title of his new book(surprise, surprise) – “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence“.
He asks “What do a world-class athlete, a star rapper, and a high-performing executive all have in common? Focus – how well they pay attention to what matters most for their performance. Focus is the hidden ingredient in excellence – but a different kind of focus matters for each of these achievers.”He then makes a very relevant point, “In the new normal we are inundated by a sea of distractions. Attention has become a mental ability under siege. We need to get smarter about how to maintain our focus.” I can relate to this big time. The constant need to refresh the inbox to see if there are new mails, frequent checking of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn prompted by the fear of losing vital insights has an impact on productivity. That is where Daniel Goleman’s book comes into picture. More details about the book are available here or click on the image below.
Before I finish, I would like to add that his book “Emotional Intelligence” had an extraordinarily positive effect on my thinking. I would highly recommend that you get a copy of it.
Click on the image to read a good review/overview of the book.
Steve Jobs and “Focus”
Who was the most iconic CEO of the last decade? Very few people will disagree with the choice of Steve Jobs. No wonder there are so many books about Steve Jobs and the Apple story. While many of the books are interesting, the most read book is likely to be “Steve Jobs”by Walter Isaacson. The book is about 600 pages thick and naturally, it would be quite comprehensive and would cover most important aspects of his life(I haven’t read it yet).I am sure the book is also the favorite of many of his admirers, fans and probably even critics.
While there are so many things that can be learned from Jobs, one of the most legendary aspects of his life has been his razor like focus. In his popular daily blog, Fred Wilson(a Venture Capitalist and principal of Union Square Ventures), writes about this aspect “Focus”. He says that “Focus is critical when you are three people, when you are twenty-five people, five hundred people, and ten thousand people. You can always get farther faster by saying no to too many projects and too many priorities. Pick your shots carefully and hit them. That’s what Jobs did to turn around Apple and that’s what you can do with your company too.” The full blog can be read here.
As an entrepreneur myself, I have been trying to apply this principle of “focus”. At our company, we have been focusing on only one vertical and that has served us quite well so far, especially we are so much resource constrained. And “focus”is required not only in new firms, but also in every aspect of life. Do you agree?
Seth Godin’s 5000 blog posts
I became a fan of Seth Godin in January 2012 after I read his blog, which was shared to me via Facebook or LinkedIn. I immediately subscribed to his blog expecting to read some articles occasionally. But I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that he blogs daily. Some of the posts were short, while some longish. But what was remarkable was that he blogged daily.
I learned lot of new things from him like “Permission marketing”, “purple cow” and “tribes” to name a few ideas. Being a marketing professional myself, I soaked myself in some of his insights. Apart from blogs, he has also published several books. The titles of his books are quite intriguing – “Purple Cow”, for example. I could not stand the suspense of the purple cow, and promptly bought it and read it back-to-back in a few hours. It was fully worth it. (I will share a review of the book sometime later). The title of another book – ” All Marketers are Liars”, raised an eyebrow and I am very keen on reading it, because I want to know how I, as a marketer, am a liar.(Apparently the title has been changed to ” All Marketers Tell Stories“). “Tribes” is a book I have purchased last week and intend to read soon.
Coming back to blogging, I passingly wondered how someone is able to consistently do that, but did not think of it further. But today, when I got his 5000th blog in the my email, I was awestruck. This is one persistent guy. I did a math – if he blogged everyday, that would be 365 blogs a year which would mean that he has been blogging for more than 13 years or from the year 2000. Turns out he has been blogging since January 2002.
So far so good. As a I read through the blog, he mentions something that seems to be addressed to me. He says ” My biggest surprise? That more people aren’t doing this. Not just every college professor (particularly those in the humanities and business), but everyone hoping to shape opinions or spread ideas. Entrepreneurs. Senior VPs. People who work in non-profits. Frustrated poets and unknown musicians… Don’t do it because it’s your job, do it because you can.”
Yes, I can!!
Or can I? I had blogged in this space only thrice in the last year. But I have been blogging about solar 2 times a week. That still is a not a lot. But I have decided to try to emulate Seth. Let’s us see how this one goes…
Leadership Lessons from America’s Founding fathers
USA’s founding fathers are recognized as pioneers and visionary leaders. On the eve of Fourth of July, USA’s independence day, FastCompany published an interesting article about what lessons can be learned from them. The article lists 4 lessons
– the courage of convictions
– the sanctity of sacrifice
– the fulfillment of faith
– the power of purpose.
The article is quite insightful and can be found here.