Founders need a bit of grit for the fight; Resilience in an entrepreneur is more important than brilliance

November 5, 2013 5:08 pm

Founders need a bit of grit for the fight

By Luke Johnson

Resilience in an entrepreneur is more important than brilliance

On certain days business can feel like a war of attrition. Meetings, calls and emails bring an endless stream of difficulties: customers going broke and not paying their bills, rivals poaching staff, property disputes, suppliers demanding price increases, employee grievances, frauds, accidents, collapsing deals and so forth. It could be argued that struggle is at the heart of enterprise: in a free market, competitors battle it out to seize share from others. Management talk is full of phrases such as “aggressive expansion”. In among that melée a leader is tasked with generating a profit. Why on earth would such an activity not be constant combat? Any entrepreneur should be good at coping with the stress that inevitably arises from such conflict and striving. But how does one put the various challenges into proportion? Which are trivial and which are a crisis? In the 1960s, two psychiatrists invented a table called the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory, which rated 43 events as factors in causing illness, going from 100 points for the death of a spouse to 11 for a parking ticket. It includes obvious tragedies and problems such as divorce, jail and personal injury. So I have devised a special stress rating for business owners and bosses – the Johnson-FT Entrepreneur Life Stress Inventory. Read more of this post

Control Is for Beginners

Control Is for Beginners

by Deborah Mills-Scofield  |   9:00 AM November 5, 2013

My daughter’s voice teacher recently told another student to stop practicing.  ”What?!” I almost yelled.  ”What happened to the theory of 10,000 hours of practice for mastery?”  But she explained that, at times, over-practicing can stifle music, just like over-training can stifle athletes and over-engineering can create products too complex to use.  There is a time to stop rehearsing, stop waiting for perfection, stop waiting for control and just go for it.

We need to balance grabbing opportunities as they present themselves — even if we’re not ready and have to ramp up as best and as fast we can — and practicing a lot so that when the opportunity appears, we’re prepared.   At Bell Labs, we were all about practicing; we called it experimenting.  We experimented, learned, applied, and iterated until it was flawless; AT&T wouldn’t release anything into the market until it was absolutely perfect.  When I was designing the system for which I received a patent, I wanted to get prototypes in front of potential customers for feedback before we got too far down the road. How naïve of me! Of course we couldn’t show customers something that wasn’t perfect — it would affect their expectations and maybe (horreur!) negatively impact the brand.  Needless to say, by the time the system was perfect enough to get into the market, we had lost most of our competitive advantage. Read more of this post

Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity

Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity Hardcover

by Luc de Brabandere  (Author) , Alan Iny  (Author)

When BIC, manufacturer of disposable ballpoint pens, wanted to grow, it looked for an idea beyond introducing new sizes and ink colors. Someone suggested lighters.
LIGHTERS?
With an idea that seemed crazy at first, that bright executive, instead of seeing BIC as a pen company—a business in the PEN “box”—figured out that there was growth to be found in theDISPOSABLE “box.” And he was right. Now there are disposable BIC lighters, razors, even phones. The company opened its door to a host of opportunities.
IT INVENTED A NEW BOX.
Your business can, too. And simply thinking “out of the box” is not the answer. True ingenuity needs structure, hard analysis, and bold brainstorming. It needs to start
THINKING IN NEW BOXES
—a revolutionary process for sustainable creativity from two strategic innovation experts from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
To make sense of the world, we all rely on assumptions, on models—on what Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny call “boxes.” If we are unaware of our boxes, they can blind us to risks and opportunities.
This innovative book challenges everything you thought you knew about business creativity by breaking creativity down into five steps:
• Doubt everything. Challenge your current perspectives.
• Probe the possible. Explore options around you.
• Diverge. Generate many new and exciting ideas, even if they seem absurd.
• Converge. Evaluate and select the ideas that will drive breakthrough results.
• Reevaluate. Relentlessly. No idea is a good idea forever. And did we mention Reevaluate? Relentlessly.
Creativity is paramount if you are to thrive in a time of accelerating change. Replete with practical and potent creativity tools, and featuring fascinating case studies from BIC to Ford to Trader Joe’s,Thinking in New Boxes will help you and your company overcome missed opportunities and stay ahead of the curve.
This book isn’t a simpleminded checklist. This is Thinking in New Boxes.
And it will be fun. (We promise.) Read more of this post

Feng Shui woes in Taiwan’s elite families? It’s been a rough year for The Palace Mansion (帝寶), with four of its residents — including the Wei families, which are currently embroiled in the tainted oil scandal — receiving heaps of negative press

Recent troubles prompt Feng Shui concerns at The Palace Mansion

By Queena Yen ,The China Post
November 6, 2013, 12:07 am TWN

TAIPEI, Taiwan — It’s been a rough year for The Palace Mansion (帝寶), with four of its residents — including the Wei families, which are currently embroiled in the tainted oil scandal — receiving heaps of negative press, causing some to wonder whether the issues might be related to feng shui (風水). The Palace Mansion is located at an intersection of Ren-Ai Road (仁愛路) and Jian-Guo South Road (建國南路) in Taipei. According to Feng Shui master Tsai Shang-ji (蔡上機), the Jian-Guo viaduct next to the building actually cuts the building in half. Therefore, it might be bringing some unexpected problems and bad luck to the residents. Recent examples of bad luck include the Wei families, who are involved in the tainted oil scandal; Lian Huei-shin (連惠心), who endorsed a weight-loss product now suspected to contain forbidden drugs; Dee Hsu (徐熙娣), whose husband was accused of insider trading; and Lee Jen-ni (李珍妮), who is facing issues over an illegitimate child. According to Tsai Shang-ji, the Palace Mansion itself was originally thought to be in a good Feng Shui location, since Ren-Ai Road is wide enough to bring good luck to the residents. Also, because water is related to good fortune in Feng Shui, the pond on the safety island on Ren-ai road is believed to bring the residents great fortune. The Feng Shui at this location brings benefits to enterprises and companies. However, the year 2013 is related to water in the study of Feng Shui. An old Chinese saying says that “water can not only move a boat but also sink a boat.” The result could be that too much water energy is located at The Palace Mansion this year, creating hard times for the residents.

Bloomberg, Champion of the Poor

November 5, 2013

Bloomberg, Champion of the Poor

By MICHAEL B. KATZ

DURING New York City’s mayoral race, criticism of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for neglecting the poor ignored his bold and unprecedented antipoverty measures. He may not have eliminated inequality or reversed the impact of the Great Recession — over the last two years, the poverty rate has crept up to 21.2 percent from 20.1 percent — but failure to acknowledge what he did in fact accomplish is not only unfair but also shortsighted. Usually depicted as a champion of the rich, Mr. Bloomberg mounted an antipoverty program at a moment when poverty as an issue was off the national radar and even politically toxic. Read more of this post

Inside Leonard Asper’s private struggle to save one of Canada’s most influential companies

Crisis Lines, Part 1: Inside Leonard Asper’s private struggle to save one of Canada’s most influential companies

Theresa Tedesco | 05/11/13 | Last Updated: 05/11/13 5:38 PM ET
I don’t know whether our escape comes from Egypt, Australia, Mexico, Europe or the corner of Jarvis and Bloor

An exclusive look at Leonard Asper’s losing battle to keep control of the Canwest family dynasty as revealed in his extensive business journals. This is the first in a three-part series.

On a cold Winnipeg morning in December 2009, Leonard Asper, the youthful scion of a family media empire stood at the grave of the patriarch for the first time since his father died suddenly six years earlier. It had been two months since the Asper family’s control of Canwest Global Communications Corp. had been stripped away after the once-mighty media conglomerate sought court protection from its creditors. “After having trouble finding him, I stood and cried, said I was sorry, left a loonie there and pledged to build another mighty oak from that acorn,” Leonard wrote in his business journal later that day. “Then I cried for 30 seconds more in my car, stopped and moved on. I had never visited the cemetery prior to that.” Read more of this post

Being ethical in business is not as simple as ‘doing the right thing’; The man who tells us how honest he is rarely deserves our trust

November 5, 2013 4:48 pm

Being ethical in business is not as simple as ‘doing the right thing’

By John Kay

The man who tells us how honest he is rarely deserves our trust

Honesty is the best policy, but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.” Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, was a 19th-century theologian, but his observation is very relevant to a modern debate about the nature of business ethics. The Co-operative Bank has just announced arestructuring that wipes out the value of existing equity. Over many years, the message of the bank’s advertising has been its aspiration to higher standards of ethical conduct than its competitors. The devil’s advocates might seize on the bank’s financial problems as evidence that honesty does not pay, but that is not what happened here: the Co-op Bank failed for the usual reasons banks and businesses fail – bad lending on commercial property and the misguided acquisition of another business by a management whose ambitions exceeded its capabilities. Read more of this post

A revolution on the chessboard: An entrepreneur is determined to make chess the next super sport

November 5, 2013 5:32 pm

A revolution on the chessboard

By James Crabtree in Mumbai

An entrepreneur is determined to make chess the next super sport, writes James Crabtree

Can chess be transformed into a money-spinning global spectator sport? It is a question that will be much on Andrew Paulson’s mind, as he settles down to watch the opening ceremony of the game’s latest world championship match in Chennai, southern India, this Thursday. An imposing, shaven-headed American media entrepreneur with an intellectual air, Mr Paulson last year paid Fide, the world chess federation, $500,000 for exclusive global rights to commercialise the sport over the next decade. Read more of this post

Amazon Spokesperson Goes Ballistic After Author Of Book About Amazon Uses One Wrong Word: Tenacious Vs Resourceful

Amazon Spokesperson Goes Ballistic After Author Of Book About Amazon Uses One Wrong Word

JAY YAROW NOV. 5, 2013, 12:43 PM 5,101 12

Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Brad Stone has a new book on Amazon called, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. Amazon is not a fan of the book.  Bezos’ wife trashed the book with a 1-star review on Amazon. Then, Amazon also attacked the book, saying in a statement, “He had every opportunity to thoroughly fact check and bring a more balanced viewpoint to his narrative, but he was very secretive about the book and simply chose not to.” Amazon is normally a very quiet company. It’s rare that it makes any comment, so these aggressive comments about the book are surprising.  Stone responded to Amazon’s attacks with a gracious post at Bloomberg Businessweek saying of Bezos’ and his wife’s complaints, “If they point to errors, I’ll gladly correct them.” He also wrote, “Bezos said that he married MacKenzie after searching for someone tenacious enough to break him out of a Third World prison. By that standard, I got off easy.” This sentence has sent Amazon into another tizzy, it seems. Craig Berman, a spokesman at Amazon, sent out this statement in response to Stone: In the rebuttal Mr. Stone published in Bloomberg Businessweek today, he writes: “Bezos said that he married MacKenzie after searching for someone tenacious enough to break him out of a Third World prison. By that standard, I got off easy.” Entertaining, and inaccurate.

Mr. Bezos says “resourceful” – not “tenacious.” Mr. Stone knows that. He also knows that the correct word doesn’t work quite as well for his purpose. “Resourceful” and “tenacious” mean different things. They also have subtle connotations. You might or might not like a tenacious person. It’s easy to imagine someone tenacious that you find a little exhausting and unpleasant. On the other hand, resourceful is hard to dislike. But no matter how well the word choice works for his purpose, it is not Mr. Stone’s choice to make. By beginning with “Bezos said,” he obligates himself to get it right. It is ironic that he has done this in a rebuttal to a one-star review that comments on the combination of inaccuracy and slanted characterization in his book. We don’t know what the back story to all of this is, but clearly Stone’s book touched a nerve.