Postulates a framework for managing knowledge workers, defined as ‘technologists who bring learning to work that is at least partly manual, such as lab technicians’. The best chapters regard the enterprise’s use of info (foundation info, productivity, competence, resource allocation) in order to create value and manage assets, which Drucker describes as people themselves; and knowledge-worker productivity, which turns on creating a culture where individuals know how to make what they know useful to others. Always thoughtful and provocative if typically aimed at larger organizations.
Business management
2. Diamond, Getting More (9 May 2011)
A conversational, anecdotal presentation of the author’s Wharton course on negotiation. The primary framework is 1) what are my goals? 2) who are they? and 3) what will persuade them? The author elucidates 12 tactics for executing a 4-step model (page 160), the most important being focusing on the counterpart’s vision and problems, using their standards, finding the ‘real issue’, trading items of unequal value, and taking incremental steps. Like many such frameworks, it seems most effective if frequently put to use.
9. Fader, Customer Centricity (2010)
Customer centricity is not serving every customer’s whim, but serving the best (i.e., most profitable) customers at every opportunity. This refinement is also an advantage over most product-driven businesses. The goal of data mining (as sometimes encapsulated in CRM) is to identify real, quantifiable differences in customers, in order to focus marketing so as to obtain more prime customers and also to know how much to spend on them.
8. Cohan, Money and Power (6 Jun 2012)
Narrates Goldman Sachs’ rise to national prominence in investment banking and charts its transformation into a prop-trading powerhouse as well as a ‘crony capitalist’. Through the first half of the 20th century, Syd Weinberg and Gus Levy dominated proceedings, even as the limited partnership developed corporate best practices (exemplified by John Whitehead’s famous 10 points). Though the author continues portraying the company’s leading lights through Jan Corzine, Hank Paulson, John Thain, and Lloyd Bankfein, the latter pages also seek to outline how the transformation to a public company and trading its own accounts put the bank at odds with its commercial clients. The tension prefigured by previous conflicts is illustrated by detailed review of Goldman’s derivatives trading in mortgage products (including the word of Mike Swenson ’89). An easy and sometimes engrossing read, the book is somehow not quite coherent. It goes some ways toward identifying a solution to conflicts of interest, without definitely making a case for modernizing Glass-Steagall. Perhaps it should have been two books.
1. Rumelt, Good Strategy (2 Jan 2013)
Strategy discovers a situation’s critical factors and derives a coherent, simply presented approach to the objective. According to Rumelt, who does not address the interplay with tactics, it comprises diagnosis, setting a guiding policy, and identifying / specifying a coherent set of actions. The latter creates strength, which sets it apart from Rumelt’s examples of bad strategy, which amount to sloganeering and disconnecting activity. Good strategy is often unexpected – not necessarily complex – because (pace Drucker) it has identified what’s really (already) going on. The key to the policy is to make it participatory (i.e., shared leadership).
11. Thiel, Zero to One (15 Oct 2014)
A highly stylized theory of entrepreneurialism which contends startups aiming to solve clear, ‘big’ problems are most likely to transform the future. The author posits the ideology of competition is a false objective for businesses, which should instead seek to become monopolies. In Silicon Valley, this usually requires proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and distinct branding. Along the way, the founder of Paypal-turned-financier outlines some practical advice (e.g., equity for employees) and also libertarian political thought: faith in indefinite progress leads to pursuit of rent, whereas faith in definite progress leads to inventions that transform the future – careers in law or finance versus going to the moon. The jumping off point, the question of singularity (i.e., exponential advance), is worth further pursuit. Interesting but lacking in the economic grounding that appears early in the book, and may grow dated.
13. Feld, Venture Deals (10 Jun 2015)
Economics and control are the primary features of a venture capital investment. The book surveys various mechanisms toward these objectives including the term sheet, the letter of intent, and frequently used but obscurantist clauses. The authors helpfully describe how funds work and stand (i.e., polished) modes of seeking funding. An excellent work.
6. Feld, Startup Boards (28 Mar 2017)
A well-organized and functional but slightly contrived guide to work with a young company’s board of directors. Probably more useful on a case-by-case basis than as an overarching approach.
8. Horowitz, The Hard Thing about Hard Things (21 Apr 2017)
A series of essays regarding leadership of young, high-tech businesses. Drawing on personal experience including oversight as a venture investor, Horowitz winds his way toward the ‘know thyself’ dilemmas of being chief executive. There are sound tactical observations, but no system which rises to the level of Drucker.