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Tag: management-leadership

• Published by Be Better January 24th, 2020

  

  Zero to One

  Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build The Future

  Your highlights:

  What’s in it for me? Learn the secrets to startup success from one of the world’s most prominent venture capitalists.

  • why monopolies are actually good for innovation; • why your startup needs to go from "0 to 1," not "from 1 to n"; and • why it’s not that uncommon for a startup founder to have experience building bombs.

  24 January, 2020 08:10 Share

  To imagine what progress the future will bring, you must be able to view the present differently.

  As you can imagine, vertical progress is hard to predict because you have to imagine something that doesn’t exist yet. That’s why you can only predict future progress if you’re able to see the present differently.

  24 January, 2020 08:09 Share

  After all, the future is by definition different from the present, so to imagine it you can’t just focus on the status quo. If you want to imagine what the future holds, you must be able to view the present critically. The author believes that this is such a crucial ability that, in job interviews, he asks candidates, "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" Why? Because only a person who can think outside established conventions can see and change the future

  24 January, 2020 08:09 Share

  The author believes that this is such a crucial ability that, in job interviews, he asks candidates, "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" Why? Because only a person who can think outside established conventions can see and change the future.

  24 January, 2020 08:10 Share

  Be the architect of your own future and make a focused effort to attain it.

  success is the product of focus, dedication and determination. Fate and luck have little to do with it. After all, if success were nothing but a product of luck, we wouldn’t see serial successes like Steve Jobs or the author, who founded several prosperous businesses.

  24 January, 2020 08:06 Share

  Start-ups only have one best future – and attaining it demands a concerted effort. Why only one? Because a start-up will only be successful under very specific conditions: there’s only one best market for the company’s product, only one best time to launch it, and so on. In order to strike when the conditions are just right, you must make a conscious choice to pursue the future in question.

  24 January, 2020 08:06 Share

  Building a successful, profitable company takes years of work.

  This is especially true when it comes to profits: it can take years for a start-up to become profitable. But even if the company doesn’t initially make profits, it can still have value, because value is determined by the profits it will make over its entire lifespan. PayPal is a case in point: in 2001, it wasn’t making any profits, and when the author calculated the value of the company back then, he found that most of it came from profits that were expected to come in more than ten years later!

  24 January, 2020 08:11 Share

  So how can you make your start-up a profitable monopoly? You need to start small and then expand bit by bit. First, understand that you don’t need to be the very best in every business, just your business. So it’s important to define your market as narrowly and specifically as possible. That’ll make it easier for you to become its dominant player

  24 January, 2020 08:11 Share

  Start-ups need a solid foundation: the right people and culture, and balanced owner interests.

  The first key component in this foundation is finding the right people. Typically, start-ups are so small that every single person on the team plays an important role. That’s why, before making an investment in a company, the author not only makes it a point to analyze the skills and vision of the people involved but also their personal connections. He’s seen firsthand what weak personal ties can do to a team. Before co-founding PayPal with Luke Nosek, the author had invested in a company that Nosek had started with someone he barely knew. Eventually, their personal differences took the whole venture down, along with the author’s investment.

  24 January, 2020 08:12 Share

  Your products will never sell themselves: your team needs to do that.

  For example, the author co-founded the data analytics company Palantir, where a single closed sale usually brings in several million dollars. Here, the CEO has to personally do the selling, because clients spending such sums expect a certain amount of personal involvement from the seller’s executives.

  24 January, 2020 08:13 Share

  But in business, sales is a vital necessity. Many people, especially those enthusiastic about technology, would prefer to focus on product innovation, but innovative products are worthless unless they’re sold. And there’s no product on earth that people will buy without you selling it.

  24 January, 2020 08:13 Share

  Many cleantech companies failed because they did not consider the seven critical questions every business must answer.

  Innovative companies like Tesla typically have answers to almost all of these key questions, whereas most cleantech companies had zero. This is why they failed.

  24 January, 2020 08:14 Share

  1. The Engineering question: Can you create a true technological breakthrough? Cleantech companies didn’t understand that to prevail over established energy companies, they needed technology ten times better than theirs, not just slightly better. 2. The Timing question: Is this the right time to start your business? Some cleantech companies believed the industry was on the cusp of a period of rapid, exponential advances in, for example, solar-panel technology, and that this would allow them to flourish. But in fact clean

  24 January, 2020 08:14 Share

  1. The Engineering question: Can you create a true technological breakthrough? Cleantech companies didn’t understand that to prevail over established energy companies, they needed technology ten times better than theirs, not just slightly better. 2. The Timing question: Is this the right time to start your business? Some cleantech companies believed the industry was on the cusp of a period of rapid, exponential advances in, for example, solar-panel technology, and that this would allow them to flourish. But in fact clean technology has advanced slowly and linearly

  24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

  4. The People question: Can your team pursue this opportunity? Cleantech companies were often run by non-technical executives who had no idea how to build great products.

  24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

  7. The Secret question: Do you see a unique opportunity that others have missed? At the time, everyone agreed cleantech was going to be huge. But truly successful companies have secrets: they spot opportunities not everyone can see.

  24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

  Founders tend to be oddballs, but their vision is crucial for any company.

  Consider Paypal’s founding team: almost every member was a bit of an oddball. In fact, as teenagers, four of them even had the unusual hobby of building bombs! This kind of originality is important because founders do far more than just start a company: they give it a vision. And this contribution is indispensable; no matter how refined a company’s management strategies are, it must have a vision to pursue.

  24 January, 2020 08:15 Share

  As this success story shows, even a strong company, if it wants to perform at the highest level, needs the originality and vision of its founder.

  24 January, 2020 08:16 Share

  About the book:

  Zero to One explores how companies can better predict the future and take action to ensure that their startup is a success. The author enlivens the book’s key takeaways with his own personal experiences.

  About the author:

  Peter Thiel is a co-founder of PayPal and one of the most prominent venture capitalists in the world. He was the first outsider to invest in Facebook, and he manages Founders Fund’s $2 billion assets.

  

  Blinkist takes outstanding nonfiction books and distills their key insights into made-for-mobile book summaries that you can read in just 15 minutes. Learn something new every day - on your smartphone, tablet or PC.

  blinkist.com

  

  Tags

  blinkist management-leadership entrepreneurship
• Published by Be Better January 18th, 2020

  

  Essentialism

  Essentialism:

  Your highlights:

  What’s in it for me? Discover why less is sometimes actually more.

  We can’t be an expert in every field, we can’t have every toy, nor can we have every possible experience. Not only that, but having and doing everything won’t necessarily make us more happy. In fact, we’ll find our closets cluttered with junk we never use and our schedules filled with tasks we can’t complete, at least not well. Instead, we should be focusing on what we should do, thinking instead about what is essential to our happiness and well-being.

  18 January, 2020 12:40 Share

  You’ll learn:why you should probably go ahead and throw away that stupid, howling-wolf shirt in your closet;what happens when airlines try to have it all andwhat sleep-deprived overachievers and drunks have in common.

  24 March, 2020 01:31 Share

  In order to avoid drowning in unnecessary work, you need to adopt the principle of essentialism.

  Do less, but do it better. The cornerstone of essentialism is the never-ending task of identifying the less important things in your life to cut out, and doing what’s left over to a higher standard.

  18 January, 2020 12:41 Share

  Do less, but do it better.

  18 January, 2020 12:42 Share

  Reject the notion that we should accomplish everything,

  18 January, 2020 12:42 Share

  Constantly question yourself and update your plans accordingly. The process of deciding what’s worth doing and what should be let go is ongoing

  18 January, 2020 12:42 Share

  Finally, once those few vital tasks have been distilled from the trivial many, the essentialist wastes no time in ensuring that the changes are put in place.

  18 January, 2020 12:43 Share

  Constantly question yourself and update your plans accordingly. The process of deciding what’s worth doing and what should be let go is ongoing. The essentialist is always deciding whether what she is doing is actually worth her time or if she should invest her time and energy in a more productive area.

  24 March, 2020 01:32 Share

  Do less, but do it better

  24 March, 2020 01:32 Share

  Reject the notion that we should accomplish everything, and choose instead specific directions in which you can excel

  24 March, 2020 01:32 Share

  Constantly question yourself and update your plans accordingly. The process of deciding what’s worth doing and what should be let go is ongoing.

  24 March, 2020 01:32 Share

  Finally, once those few vital tasks have been distilled from the trivial many, the essentialist wastes no time in ensuring that the changes are put in place.

  24 March, 2020 01:33 Share

  If we become overwhelmed by our tasks, then we lose our ability to make choices for ourselves.

  The term learned helplessness originates from experiments on dogs. In the experiments, the dogs were given electric shocks. Some of them were given a lever that would stop the shocks, others received a similar lever which had no effect and the last group received no shocks at all. Later, the dogs from all groups were put together in a huge box divided in two: one half administered shocks and the other emitted none. All the dogs from the earlier experiment who had the chance to stop the shock or had experienced no shock at all ran to the shock-free side. The ones whose levers were powerless, however, stayed in the shock zone and did not adapt.

  18 January, 2020 12:47 Share

  If we surrender our power to choose, we essentially give others permission to choose for us. When people think that their efforts are futile, they tend to respond in two ways: They either give up completely or become overly active, accepting every opportunity presented to them. At first, their activity might indicate that they have not developed learned helplessness. However, these people aren’t actually exercising their power to choose the opportunity which is best for them. They simply do everything

  18 January, 2020 12:49 Share

  The term learned helplessness originates from experiments on dogs. In the experiments, the dogs were given electric shocks. Some of them were given a lever that would stop the shocks, others received a similar lever which had no effect and the last group received no shocks at all.Later, the dogs from all groups were put together in a huge box divided in two: one half administered shocks and the other emitted none. All the dogs from the earlier experiment who had the chance to stop the shock or had experienced no shock at all ran to the shock-free side. The ones whose levers were powerless, however, stayed in the shock zone and did not adapt.

  24 March, 2020 01:35 Share

  If we surrender our power to choose, we essentially give others permission to choose for us. When people think that their efforts are futile, they tend to respond in two ways:They either give up completely or become overly active, accepting every opportunity presented to them. At first, their activity might indicate that they have not developed learned helplessness. However, these people aren’t actually exercising their power to choose the opportunity which is best for them. They simply do everything.The ones who offer the possible choices, on the other hand, are the ones who hold the real power.

  24 March, 2020 01:35 Share

  Embrace the idea of "less but better" and accept trade-offs as an inherent part of life.

  In fact, Southwest Airlines displayed a remarkable level of success for a period by concentrating on one of the key tenets of essentialism: doing only a few vital things very well. Rather than offering their customers lots of choices, such as first class seating, meals and seat reservations, Southwest concentrated on one thing: flying people from point A to point B, and that’s it – no frills necessary.

  18 January, 2020 12:51 Share

  However, the operational inefficiencies caused by pursuing both strategies meant that Continental Lite wasn’t price competitive. In the end, because they couldn’t sacrifice the nonessential and focus on what was vital, they lost millions.

  18 January, 2020 12:53 Share

  They realized that if they tried to do everything, they would undoubtedly fail. However, by concentrating on doing a few things very well, like getting travellers to their destinations, then they could be successful

  18 January, 2020 12:53 Share

  Rather than offering their customers lots of choices, such as first class seating, meals and seat reservations, Southwest concentrated on one thing: flying people from point A to point B, and that’s it – no frills necessary.They realized that if they tried to do everything, they would undoubtedly fail. However, by concentrating on doing a few things very well, like getting travellers to their destinations, then they could be successful.

  24 March, 2020 01:43 Share

  Adopting this approach means being willing and able to make trade-offs, which can prove to be difficult. While it might seem simple enough to cut out unimportant tasks and leave only the most vital, in practice, we just end up becoming convinced that we can do it all.For example, when the success of Southwest became apparent, Continental Airlines decided to imitate their strategy. However, instead of cutting back to a few vital essentials, Continental erroneously decided that they could do it all. Their solution was to carry on with their traditional airline and create the separate brand, Continental Lite, to offer the budget service.

  24 March, 2020 01:43 Share

  Adopting this approach means being willing and able to make trade-offs, which can prove to be difficult. While it might seem simple enough to cut out unimportant tasks and leave only the most vital, in practice, we just end up becoming convinced that we can do it all.

  24 March, 2020 01:44 Share

  For example, when the success of Southwest became apparent, Continental Airlines decided to imitate their strategy. However, instead of cutting back to a few vital essentials, Continental erroneously decided that they could do it all. Their solution was to carry on with their traditional airline and create the separate brand, Continental Lite, to offer the budget service.However, the operational inefficiencies caused by pursuing both strategies meant that Continental Lite wasn’t price competitive. In the end, because they couldn’t sacrifice the nonessential and focus on what was vital, they lost millions.

  24 March, 2020 01:44 Share

  Giving yourself space to escape and seeing the bigger picture will help you pick out the vital from the trivial.

  boredom can actually be good for you. A period of time in which you have nothing to do can give you an opportunity to think clearly about what needs to be done. In order to ensure that you have that time, clear a break in your schedule every day to give yourself time to escape: to think. Creating a space in your schedule just to think about your life – what options, problems or challenges you face – will help you assess which are vital and which aren’t.

  18 January, 2020 12:55 Share

  People often get so lost in the small, day-to-day tasks that they lose track of the reason they are doing those things in the first place. In order to maintain focus on what’s important, essentialism teaches us to always concentrate on the bigger picture. One way to do so is by keeping a journal, but instead of writing down everything you experience, force yourself to write as little as possible. This will require you to think through everything you’ve done and sift out only what you consider essential. And as you read back through your journal entries you will see the big picture emerge.

  18 January, 2020 12:55 Share

  However, boredom can actually be good for you. A period of time in which you have nothing to do can give you an opportunity to think clearly about what needs to be done.In order to ensure that you have that time, clear a break in your schedule every day to give yourself time to escape: to think.Creating a space in your schedule just to think about your life – what options, problems or challenges you face – will help you assess which are vital and which aren’t.

  24 March, 2020 01:44 Share

  In fact, some of humanity’s greatest minds, such as Newton and Einstein, used this technique. Both of them confined themselves in solitude in order to escape, thus allowing themselves time to think about their groundbreaking theories.

  24 March, 2020 01:44 Share

  Many of today’s most successful CEOs do the same, scheduling a few hours of "blank space" in their calendar every day in order to do some thinking.However, escaping isn’t just a way to isolate vital tasks from the rest; you can also use it to ensure that you remain focused on the big picture.

  24 March, 2020 01:44 Share

  One way to do so is by keeping a journal, but instead of writing down everything you experience, force yourself to write as little as possible. This will require you to think through everything you’ve done and sift out only what you consider essential. And as you read back through your journal entries you will see the big picture emerge.

  24 March, 2020 01:45 Share

  In order to maintain focus on what’s important, essentialism teaches us to always concentrate on the bigger picture.

  24 March, 2020 01:45 Share

  Get your creative juices flowing by playing – just don’t forget to give yourself time to rest.

  Unfortunately, we adults tend to make a sharp distinction between work and play, having decided that play is something that is trivial and unproductive. It is there purely for entertainment, and doesn’t help us to advance our goals. In other words, it’s a waste of time.The essentialist, however, recognizes that play is a vital tool for inspiration. If you want to discover what’s vital in your life, you can use play to free your mind so that you can approach this subject creatively.

  24 March, 2020 01:45 Share

  Play can serve this purpose because:it helps us to develop novel connections between ideas that we would have never otherwise considered;it is an antidote to stress, which is one of the key factors in unproductivity andit helps us to prioritize and analyze tasks.

  24 March, 2020 01:45 Share

  But as important as play is, it should never take priority over rest and sleep. Non-essentialists view sleep the same way they do play – as a luxury, a waste of potentially productive hours.This approach is totally backwards, as sleep increases your ability to think, connect ideas and maximize your productivity during your waking hours. One hour of sleep actually results in several more hours of higher productivity the following day!In fact, studies have shown that going 24 hours without sleep or getting a weekly average of just four to five hours of sleep per night causes a cognitive impairment equivalent to what you would have with a 0.1 percent blood alcohol level – enough to get your driver’s license suspended!

  24 March, 2020 01:46 Share

  Be ruthless in cutting away things that aren’t essential.

  In short, be extreme with your criteria. One way to do so is by adopting the 90-percent rule. Start by considering the most important criterion for the decision you are making. For example, if you’re cleaning the closet, that criteria might be, "Will I ever wear this again?" Then, give it a score between zero and 100.With the 90-percent rule, anything that is less than 90 (even an 89) is a zero. After considering all the options, discard everything that scored less than 90.

  24 March, 2020 01:47 Share

  Another method is to decide that "if it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no." A simple way to put this into action is to list the three minimum things that something must have in order to keep it, as well as three ideal criteria that you want it to meet.Then when deciding on what to keep, something must pass the three minimum requirements as well as at least two of the ideal ones.Thinking this way will hopefully allow you to avoid having trivial matters slip through. For example, there is absolutely no way that the howling-wolf shirt in your closet would pass the three minimum requirements: (1) "Is it stylish?" (2) "Would I wear it everyday?" (3) "Will no one laugh at me for wearing it?"

  24 March, 2020 01:47 Share

  Say "no" to nonessential tasks and plan the essential ones carefully.

  We tend to fear saying no, feeling both socially awkward as well as pressured not to disappoint the people around us, and are concerned that saying no might damage our relationships.However, often times we should say no, and reserve yes only for the things that really matter.

  24 March, 2020 01:47 Share

  Always remember, failing to say no to the things which aren’t vital can lead you to miss out on the opportunities that truly are.Once you’ve gotten used to saying no when it’s in your best interest, you can focus on planning the vital tasks that are left over.

  24 March, 2020 01:49 Share

  Imagine, for example, that your goal is to end world hunger. Although this goal is certainly inspirational, it’s not at all concrete, and thus fails as your essential intent. Trying to follow an objective of this magnitude will become cumbersome due to its vagueness.Now consider this goal: build 150 affordable, environmentally friendly, storm-resistant homes for families living in the lower ninth ward. Not only is this goal inspirational, but it’s also specific and concrete. In other words, your objective is abundantly clear.One way of checking whether your goal is clear is by asking yourself: How will I know when I’ve reached my goal? If you can reasonably answer this question, then you know you have clarity about what you are doing.

  24 March, 2020 01:49 Share

  Stop doing unnecessary things by withdrawing from failures and setting boundaries.

  Have you ever ended up doing something that you knew was a waste of effort simply because you committed to it? A lot of people fall into this sunk-cost bias.The sunk-cost bias is the tendency to continue investing money, time, effort and/or energy into something we already know is unlikely to succeed. Unfortunately, every little investment makes it harder for us to let go, while simultaneously increasing the amount we are sure to lose.

  24 March, 2020 02:23 Share

  Although it was an astonishing engineering achievement, the cost made it unprofitable and doomed to commercial failure. Regardless, the French and British governments fell into a sunk-cost bias, and continued investing in it for four decades, fully aware that most of their money would never be recuperated.

  24 March, 2020 02:23 Share

  You can easily avoid this trap by developing the courage to admit your errors and mistakes and let them go. If it’s clear that something isn’t going to work out, then don’t be afraid to cut your losses and abandon ship.Moreover, you can avoid this entire scenario by setting clear boundaries. While a non-essentialist sees boundaries as unnecessary constraints, boundaries are in fact liberating on a fundamental level.Imagine, for example, a schoolyard on a busy street: at this school, children are only allowed to play in a small part of the yard next to the school buildings, and the teachers have to keep a watchful eye that the children stay within this boundary.But what if a fence was installed that clearly demarcated where the children can safely be? Then the teachers could use their time better, since they wouldn’t have to be so concerned with children being near traffic, and the children could play freely within that space.Boundaries are not there to constrain you, but to make your life easier and more enjoyable. For example, you could consider setting a clear boundary between work and family. If your kids aren’t allowed in the office, then work shouldn’t be allowed in your home.

  24 March, 2020 02:24 Share

  Keeping on top of what’s important requires that you eliminate what slows you down and that you prepare carefully.

  Once you’ve committed to the principles of essentialism, it’s time to grapple with the last step: execution.Becoming an essentialist requires you to identify what’s slowing you down and then eliminate it, rather than simply finding ways to work around it.

  24 March, 2020 02:26 Share

  Finally, you see the essentialist solution: you take some of the weight out of the slower kids’ backpacks and put it in the fast kids’ backpacks. By thinking with the principles of essentialism, you’ve eliminated the problem!

  24 March, 2020 02:27 Share

  you can prevent unnecessary obstacles by being prepared. One of our biggest mistakes is assuming that our plans will go as expected. An essentialist, however, does not think this way. Instead, he assumes that things might go wrong and thus makes the right preparations.Whatever you do, whether it’s taking your kids to school or delivering a presentation at work, always give yourself a buffer of 50 percent of the time you expect it to take. This way you can always leave room to correct anything that ends up slowing you down.

  24 March, 2020 02:27 Share

  An essentialist life centers around yourself, a routine and proceeding step-by-step.

  If you’ve ever achieved something in one fell swoop, then you experienced luck first hand. Most of the time, it won’t work out that way. In reality, creating success is all about building upon your previous progress with small, incremental steps

  29 January, 2020 01:14 Share

  But no matter what your approach, you’ll need to ensure that you stick with it by designing a routine.Routines create a habit, thus making difficult things become easier over time. It’s therefore prudent to create a routine that aligns with your goals.

  24 March, 2020 02:28 Share

  Small wins create momentum, which gives you the confidence to further succeed. Moreover, they allow you to stay on track by giving you the opportunity to check whether you are heading in the right direction.

  24 March, 2020 02:28 Share

  Final summary

  In spite of how it might seem, only a few things are actually vital to our goals and well-being, and everything else is unimportant. By focusing on these few essential things and learning to do better by doing less, we can craft a life that is far more productive and fulfilling.

  24 March, 2020 02:29 Share

  Be an editor. Rather than constantly adding more and more responsibilities and material possessions to your life, try instead to find ways to cut things out. The more trivial things you can eliminate from your thinking and routine, the better you’ll be at what’s left; the things that truly matter.

  24 March, 2020 02:29 Share

  About the book:

  Essentialism (2014) teaches you how to do better by doing less. By offering practical solutions for how to get your priorities straight, Essentialism helps you to eliminate all of the junk in your routine that’s keeping you from being truly productive and fulfilled.

  About the author:

  Greg McKeown is an author and management consultant who has coached at companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and LinkedIn. He holds an MBA from Stanford University, where he co-created the course Designing Life, and is also the author of the best-selling book Multipliers.

  

  Blinkist takes outstanding nonfiction books and distills their key insights into made-for-mobile book summaries that you can read in just 15 minutes. Learn something new every day - on your smartphone, tablet or PC.

  blinkist.com

  

  Tags

  blinkist management-leadership productivity