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!
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
This is the book that I say to myself “I SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN THAT!!!”. McKeown does a great job in distilling timeless principles like Pareto’s 80/20 Rule as well as newer fundamentals like Theory of Constraints, into a digestible and practicable set of principles that anyone can use in their daily and work life. This book has been out for a while and I continue to see it and the author referenced alongside other books like Checklist Manifesto, 4 Hour Work Week, and other easy reads for entrepreneurs and productivity focused people. I recommend this book for any professional seeking a set of principles by which to focus their work and lives on what’s truly essential (vs. focusing on efficiency - doing the wrong thing super well is a waste!).
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.
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.
Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want
This book is an essential component of a three part collection of the Startup Owners Manual and Business Model Generation. I’m reviewing this book first because it is the most widely applicable to varying roles and endeavors in the world of business and organizational development. Value Proposition Design provides a systematic and proven method to design, prototype, develop, and improve your value proposition from a product or service perspective. I’ve used this method and it’s toolkit extensively in my consultations, collaborations, as well as my pro-bono consulting work helping to improve local non-profit value propositions. This book helps you deconstruct and reconstruct your customers “Pains, Gains, and Job’s to be Done” by accompanying and addressing them with “Pain Alleviators, Gain Generators, and Products/Services”. I’ve used this method when designing new processes, services, and products in higher education, outdoor product development, business process design and improvement, and community health services organizations. I believe it helps do really get deep into the details of effectively and successfully serving your customers needs. It’s as close to an engineered approach I’ve seen but with a central component of relationship development and psychology as well. I recommend this book for change agents, continuous improvement experts, product developers, entrepreneurs, and leaders wanting to have deep insight into their customers, from the CUSTOMERS perspective (central to Lean thinking).
Who: The A Method for Hiring
Who: The A Method for hiring is a well thought out, practical, validated approach to developing a robust people process focused on hiring top talent in a systematic, focused, and ultimately, long term success focused way. Smart and Street take the lessons learned from the largest research study of it’s kind at the time to help solve one of the never ending challenges of owning, operating, and managing an organization and that is finding, retaining, and developing top talent. I’ve shared this book with entrepreneur peers, managers I know, business owners I’ve consulted for, and many others I interact with that have faced the challenge of finding and retaining top talent. Sadly, I find many small to medium sized business have ad hoc and non-standard ways they approach searching for, interviewing, selecting, hiring, onboarding, and training new talent in their organizations. This costs a huge amount of time, productivity, and ultimately money, but results in dissatisfied managers, new hires, and existing employees. This book is highly readable and is practical in its methods. I recommend this book for leaders, managers, project managers, and HR professionals looking for a thorough and well researched method for hiring great people.
Factory Physics for Managers
Factory Physics for Managers is a clear, cohesive, and coherent summary of the fundamental nature of factory’s and productive systems in general. Ed Pound et. al do a great job in 1) Convincing the aspiring manager that while the book contains technical content and underpinnings, the investment in reading and digesting the material will pay immense dividends to their understanding of effective operations as well as provide them with the firepower to truly manage their systems in a strategic and effective way. If you understand these principles, apply them in your business, and continuously improve with them, you’ll find your profitability as well as the shear enjoyment of your work increase immensely. I’ve met and worked with Ed Pound on the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering Work Systems Division Board of Directors and I know his understanding of this material and the science of factory management is deep, comprehensive, and tested time and again across almost every area of manufacturing. I recommend this book for Operations Managers, Industrial Engineers, Continuous Improvement Experts, Senior Leadership (C Suite), Supply Chain Experts, and anyone interested in the science underlying the production of goods and services.