Brought to you by LinkedIn and PayPal co-founder Reid Hoffman with co-author and instructor Chris Yen, Blitzscaling is a lesson in strategy, tactics, and history of what the authors describe as “blitzscaling”. Blitzscaling is not just “scaling” it is such rapid scaling of a business or endeavor that much risk is taken, many lessons are learned in the process, and that not all market situations are suitable or call for blitzscaling. Learning from recent startup unicorns like AirBnb, Alibaba, Uber, Twitter, Facebook, and others, the authors capture what it takes to blitzscale but also what are the key conditions under which a blitzscaling strategy will be key to quickly dominating a market. I recommend this book for startups, entrepreneurs, but also Industrial Engineers looking for a somewhat technical but more strategic and broad picture of the contrasts between rapid scaling and the pursuits of repeatable, stable processes. I’ve enjoyed the book thoroughly!
Beyond Heroes: A Lean Management System for Healthcare
Told from the perspective of President of Thedacare, Kim Barnas, this book covers the history and tactics of the Thedacare Lean Health Systems Transformation during the early 2000’s. Now considered lore on second only to Toyota’s own cultural transformation as it developed and improved the Toyota Production System, this journey for Thedacare is a great introduction to lean basics, cultural transformation, and some simple tactical tools that are lynchpins in a culture change to a people (patient/customer/provider) centric healthcare model in which problem solving is the centerpiece of the business and continuous improvement mindsets and results are pervasive across the organization (horizontally and vertically). Having come from aerospace and manufacturing, I found this easy read a refreshing reminder of lean tactics and principles but also a very useful exploration of continuous improvement, culture transformation, and lean in a VERY different industrial sector. I recommend this book for any healthcare professional but also for anyone in continuous improvement, no matter the industry.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!
This book is a classic of marketing and is recommend often among entrepreneurs and successful CEO’s alike. This book is compact and easily distilled to your particular situation. I found it VERY helpful to understand marketing in general but also as a lesson in organizational change as well. While it might not seem useful internally to an organization, this book is fundamentally about individual and group psychology, choice theory, influence, and customer satisfaction. When viewed from those angles these 22 Laws become VERY useful to a much broader audience. I recommend this book for leaders and managers, marketers, industry and market analysts, entrepreneurs, and startups.
Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Atul Gawande’s book The Checklist Manifesto is fast becoming a classic and for good reason. He lays out his own journey to using checklists in the medical world to save lives and prevent errors. This book has been used widely since it’s publication and for one, in Boeing for developing training and flight manuals for pilots. I see it as the very foundation of Standard Work and design, implementing, and improving checklists in a variety of processes, not just critical to safety ones, can make or break a process and an organization. I recommend this book for all leaders, managers, continuous improvement professionals, entrepreneurs, and especially for people in the healthcare professions as one of the simplest intro’s to Lean and standard work without being overtly about those subjects.
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
Business Model Generation is the third book in a collection of interrelated works (not all the same authors) of Startup Owners Manual and Value Proposition Design, all focused on innovation, business model design and development, the Business (or Organization) Model Canvas, and Value Proposition Design. This book is a deeper dive into examples of a wide variety of business models and a wide ranging exploration of the various ways these companies innovated their products, services, and business models to continuously pursue excellence but also better serve their customers in the end. I recommend this book for essential reading of entrepreneurs and product developers, but also participants in the startup world, organizational effectiveness consultants and leaders, and Innovation focused professionals.
The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company
I’m a huge fan, believer, and engineer focused on systems design and analysis approaches. The Startup Owner’s Manual has been a go to resource for a systems thinking view of building an organization but I also believe improving one as well. The central tool of this method is the “Business Model Canvas” but it can just as easily be translated to “Organization Model Canvas” or even “Teaming Model Canvas” with a few tweaks in verbiage and format. I’ve coupled this tool with strategic analysis tools like SWOT and Market Analysis frameworks. It’s an incredibly rigorous, practical, and proven approach to design, prototype, implement, and improve your business model as you startup, scale, and mature your organization. I believe the canvas can be a central tool for organizational effectiveness consultants, consultants in general, General Managers, and Innovation focused leaders. The processes are clear but also the tools are visual, easily understand by wide audiences, and create a systems (broad and interconnected) view of how your organization meets it’s purpose and value proposition for it’s customers. This is a Top book of mine that I recommend probably the most often.
Principles: Life and Work
Ray Dalio is the founder and long time CEO (now Co-Chairman) of his hedge fund Bridgewater. The first 3rd of the book describes his journey through writing and refining these principles over 30 years of operating his company. He had systematized and computerized the analysis and management of their financial portfolio and eventually, Ray figured out that he MUST systematize (and in some ways computerize!) the management system of Bridgewater. Principles is the public version of those principles. Ray does a splendid job in describing varying methods of using the book, reading the book, and integrating the methods into your work and life. It’s approachable to all readers, of all ages, of any discipline or career path. It’s clear, concise, organized, and very pragmatic. This book is now in my Top 10 books, for ANYTHING, and I’ll be sure to share these principles (and as he suggested, the ones modified to fit your personal and professional life) with my children. I recommend this book for essentially anyone in their personal and professional lives who want exposure to what principles are at a minimum but at the other end, for those who want a systematized practice for life and work.