Duck and (Re)Cover



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ISBN 9780470504901 Published June 2009
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Duck and (Re)Cover
The Embattled Business Owner's Guide to Survival and Growth
By Steven S Little 

Related Blog Posts
In the Books - Off to the Printers XI
Posted Jan. 6, 2011 7:16 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

After an always busy year-end of hosting our Author Pow-Wow, reading and judging books for our 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, producing our annual review of business books, planning our Book Awards Party in New York City, trying to keep up with our more mundane and unsung daily tasks, and working on our secret, obviously unannounced plans of world-domination, we're beginning to see the light here in the New Year. One big recent step was sending our annual review off to the printers*, and in a tradition I started last year to wrap up the project, I'd like to share with you here some of what we have written in previous issues. (I've also put links to previous entries in this series at the end of this post.)

*We are lucky to have Stauber Design Studio and CrossTech Communications in our corner on this project every year. This year's theme for the piece is "Work Better," something both organizations help us do. If you have anything you need to communicate in this world, the smartest first step you can take is to contact these wonderful Chicago companies.

First up, we have our General Manager Jon Mueller and his piece on the struggles we all faced as the economy tanked in 2008, and the books written in 2009 to help us out of it. Without further ado...

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Finding Opportunities: Re-examining Personal and Organizational Strength in Challenging Times BY JON MUELLER

As 2009 dawned, instead of the kind of high hopes and fresh starts the beginning of a year typically brings, the economy was crashing harder each day. Businesses crumbled, people lost jobs, and nearly everything lost value as spending froze and budgets dried up. 800-CEO-READ was intimately affected, as the company painfully let staff go in the downsizing of an already-lean group. Around the world, reality became surprisingly bleak, and no one seemed to have any solid answers.

Despite being bombarded by negative news regarding the economy, a counter-attack seemed to be developing and people started to come out of their temporary collective daze. Instead of giving in to the pessimism, people began to address the issues, rethinking what it means to run a business, manage a group of people, and develop and apply personal skills. For many, individuals and businesses alike, this crisis became an opportunity for change, for chasing dreams, even for just waiting out the storm as they planned for something better. Which is not to say there haven’t been painful decisions made, that there haven’t been casualties, but if change is the only certain thing, then the challenge is to transform dire circumstances into dramatic successes.

In January, Martha Finney released her timely book Rebound: A Proven Plan for Starting Over After Job Loss to encourage just such a thing. The book seemed eerily prophetic in some ways, but nonetheless offered an immediate salve to the wounded. For many, finding a new job was not at all in the plan, but the advice and insight in Finney’s book was miraculous in its ability to provide current and profound advice to those that needed it unexpectedly quick.

Rebound not only plunges headfirst into tactical advice, but also addresses financial and emotional issues, like how to manage spending during unemployment, how to explain your job loss to your children, and other issues that are often overlooked in the more common discussions about beefing-up one’s resume, networking, and refining the interview process. Those critical skills are covered, too, but it’s Finney’s knack for understanding and addressing the broad scope of the situation that makes her book stand above the rest.

Finney subscribes to the idea of using the negativity a job loss to address one’s true self-interest and passion. She states:

"Figure out where you stand, how much time you have to explore possibilities, what you love, and where you really want to go next" (103).

Now, let’s be honest, most people who find themselves jobless in the current economy are likely looking for a way to get that next paycheck. But it seems true that those who take this seemingly soft advice will be the ones who rise to even greater heights when the economic crisis settles.

For those who made the decision to leave the unfriendly confines of the corporate office, either by choice or by demand, Pamela Slim’s Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur is the guide for you. Slim concurs with Finney that it is crucial to align one’s professional life with one’s personal goals:

“If you don’t consider your life as a key part of your business model, you may find yourself outwardly successful and inwardly miserable. The way to avoid this is to create a plan that outlines in great detail the kind of life that will make you happy and healthy. Over time, as your life changes you can adjust the plan. The important thing is to think about your ideal life before you make any serious decisions about your business plan” (83).

From there, Slim outlines varying types of business models, and asks the reader to consider questions like, “what is really needed? What could make this experience better? How could I improve this?” in order to establish how their business can have a positive impact and increase its chances of surviving. Slim then gets serious about how to figure out the finances needed for the business, how to develop the business, and how to strategize for growth. All in all, this is a clear, direct, and serious book for those who want to start their own business, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for those among the newly disenchanted workforce looking to try their own venture.

These are exciting times for those daredevils willing to take a risk in the face of such uncertainty, as economist Tyler Cowen’s Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World encourages:

“This book will start and end with the idea of the value and the creative power of the individual” (1).

While Finney and Slim’s books advise individuals on finding their next path, Cowen addresses how technology has allowed for a tremen-dous shift in power to the individual. This power is something we all have access to, but might not necessarily understand how it all works, how we work within it, and how information can be both consumed and controlled to have a profound effect on our business and lives.

Because so many new channels exist, the better we become at communicating through them will be revealed in how good we are in our business. A final quote from Cowen sums up the great opportunities that this technology, and our involvement with it, provides:

“As our inner lives become richer, the idea of creating your own economy is becoming a reality. We’re learning how to use filters to get the information we really want and we are learning how to avoid information overload. We’re learning how to cultivate intellectual patience. And every day we are getting better at using the web to connect with other human beings and improve our personal relationships” (211).

These three books are but a small sampling of the useful information that became available to help individuals through the economic downturn, but what about the companies that held on for dear life? For those that stayed in business, it might be assumed that they foresaw the coming disaster, knew how to prepare, and can continue to weather any storm. But of course, it’s not that simple. Most companies were hit hard and had to make tough choices, and there are some timely books released that address how leaders and managers within companies can find positive results in a negative situation.

Bill George’s 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis bridges the gap between individual and organization, offering a solid resource of insight for those who want to lead as part of a team. George separates his book not by chapters, but by “lessons,” lessons that offer a tactical approach to distinct areas of leadership. He stresses those lessons are best learned by participating, and thus leaders must discover firsthand the risk and opportunity that the word crisis implies. And it is important to note that George offers an interesting translation of the word “crisis”:

“In Chinese, the character for the word crisis is made up of two symbols, danger and opportunity. That’s exactly what it represents for you as a leader. Although there is always the danger of failing, guiding people through a major problem is your best opportunity to develop your leadership” (4).

Throughout 7 Lessons, George talks candidly about the global meltdown, its roots, and how leaders can learn from it. He emphasizes the need to recognize that crises have deep roots, and addressing those roots is crucial for leaders; dealing with problems on the surface only creates a larger mess down the road. It’s profound advice that goes beyond the recent economic meltdown to many ongoing challenges that leader’s face.

Steven Little’s Duck and (Re)Cover: The Embattled Business Owner’s Guide to Survival and Growth makes no promises for instant solutions. The author is extremely forthright when he begins:

“I know you want answers. If you are embattled, you could be reading this book because you want me to tell you what to do … No embattled business owner, I can’t tell you what to do … What I can do is point you toward those areas that most need your focused attention and efforts” (28). After reading a statement like this, readers might question why they should continue. Little explains that he offers “two things most business owners don’t have: an outsider’s perspective and a long history of pattern recognition” (20).

With this approach, Little seemingly offers to be the struggling business owner’s partner during this trying time, and it’s a comfort to share the burden as Little discusses how to better manage cash flow, customer service, strategy, marketing, pricing profitably, and exploring other business models (ex., the green industry). He covers a lot of ground, but in a readable, intelligent style that gives the right amount of consideration to these serious times. Perhaps most importantly, he pushes the reader to remember the importance of purpose:

“The purpose of your organization is to identify and serve the changing needs of the marketplace. A recession doesn’t change that ultimate purpose; it simply changes the nature of the opportunities that are created. This current crisis may be unique in some ways, but it also is much the same as the previous economic storms we have weathered. Attrition and changing market needs are creating vacuums that somebody is going to fill. The question is: Which ones represent the best opportunities for you?” (131).

Questions like Little’s are what businesses need to be asking to prepare themselves for recovery. The challenge is to embrace a sense of opportunity and adventure. Focusing on the opportunities, the upside, and not wallowing in the doom is where the success lies.

Two other notable books reference this same optimism: Geoff Colvin’s The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath and Donald Sull’s The Upside of Turbulence: Seizing Opportunity in an Uncertain World.

Colvin’s book is an effective practicum; encouraging continued training and employee development, stressing that after (both human and budgetary) cuts have been made, focusing on the human resources that remain is paramount. He states:

“Continuing to offer training—adapted to the new environment—can help a company gain competitive advantage in the downturn. After all, in this changed world the requirements facing many of your people have probably changed also” (47).

Employees are the front line, so it is imperative that CEOs and managers keep them well-prepared for the flux.

The Upside of the Downturn goes on to suggest ways to find opportunity in a recession, from managing for value and finding solutions, to customer’s new problems and understanding risks to personal growth—the last of which aligns surprisingly with Slim and Finney’s more personal approach mentioned above. Now, more than ever, there seems to be a focus on personal development as a method to avoiding further mistakes and problems down the road.

Sull’s Upside encourages innovation by combining existing resources. He elaborates:

“A tight definition of innovation, however, consists of a novel combination of existing resources, in the spirit of the sandwich. Innovations come in many flavors—they can reconfigure a technology, process, supply chain or business model; sustain or disrupt an existing trajectory; extend existing practices; or break with the past. But all are examples of novelty from recombining existing resources” (20).

The good news here is that it might not take new ideas or investment to save a company that has survived but is not thriving; instead simply re-examining what it is they do well, and what else exists within, may lead to unexpected riches. Of course change does not come free, and Sull, like Colvin, encourages companies to invest, not freeze.

“To conserve cash in a downturn, companies retreat from attractive opportunities, leaving them open for rivals” (35).

Ideally a company should be open to doing both—pursuing new opportunities and exploring more options from within.

The Upside of Turbulence is not only a book for these times, but likely for the future as well. It infuses historical stories with current case studies and reveals patterns. Sull claims that being both aware and prepared to deal with these patterns is a key component to success. Using a metaphor about comedians, he notes:

“Seasoned improvisers attempt to discover a pattern that emerges in the course of a skit, rather than imposing a preexisting idea on the action” (115).

In fact, a theme throughout Sull’s book is agility, both personal and as an organization, in structure, communication, and strategy.

There is certainly no need to detail again what a turbulent year this was, both for individuals and organizations, but what is worth repeating is the value in the collective focus on some of the deeper issues at play: the emphasis on individual talent, skill, creativity, passion, and fulfillment, as well as a similar analysis of an organization, and tapping both the known and previously unknown resources and abilities therein.

Each of the books discussed in this essay share common themes of re-examination, development, and determination, fitting terms for everyone to consider putting into play in these challenging times. In doing so, both people and organizations will discover opportunities, new directions, and the substance to take their selves, their businesses, and eventually the economy itself to higher ground.

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS POST

PREVIOUS POSTS FROM IN THE BOOKS

Stay tuned to this here blog for more from In the Books, spread out over the next week.



The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards of 2009
Posted Dec. 15, 2009 3:00 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

The 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—And Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking Books, 624 pages, $32.95

Even though Too Big to Fail was written during the same year the financial collapse occurred, Andrew Ross Sorkin has written what we predict will be the definitive book on the subject. Sorkin not only tells a gripping “perfect storm” story—reporting the gory details as our 401k’s disappeared and our financial system became nationalized—but he humanizes the players as well, resulting in an imminently readable, albeit lengthy, book.

It’s a sobering reflection and a critical reminder of what transpired in recent financial history. But it is the great stories and detailed, insider information—the sense one gets of being in the room while history is being made—that will place this book among the greats.

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Leadership

best in category ➻ Maestro: A Surprising Story About Leading By Listening by Roger Nierenberg, Portfolio, 128 pages, $19.95 | Leadership is something that can be learned. However, the most respected leaders are not textbook cases, but those who wield the necessary traits and knowledge with a very personal sense of purpose. A parable, which Maestro is, is an ideal way to create a scenario for that sense of purpose to develop, as ideas are presented in ways that are interpreted personally by those who read them, rather than listed as bullet points or chapter summaries. By using the metaphor of a conductor and his orchestra, important details are revealed, from interpersonal communication skills, individual effort to benefit the group, group dynamic to celebrate the individual, and the role that listening (both physically and intuitively throughout all experience) plays in creating the most successful results.

best of the rest:

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Management

best in category ➻ The Four Conversations: Daily Communication That Gets Results by Jeffery Ford & Laurie Ford, Berrett-Koehler, 238 pages, $19.95 | At the core of management is the practiced skill of communication. The Fords present four kinds of the conversations and the best situations to use each of them. More performance conversations (asking for promises) and less understanding conversations (are you OK with all of this?) are needed, they say.

best of the rest:

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Marketing & Advertising

best in category ➻ Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan & Julien Smith, John Wiley & Sons, 271 pages, $24.95 | Social Media took off in big ways this year, and while technology has become an important tool for communication, marketing, and advertising, Trust Agents reels the tech-excitement back in by advocating a not-so-new element that is essential: trust. If the people who put out the messages aren’t people we’d like to work with and buy from, their messages, no matter how easy to broadcast, won’t hold their weight. It’s not about how to master technology, but about being the kind of person, the kind of company, that people like to do business with. This book is filled with prime examples, great stories, and hard facts that convince us not to be blinded by innovation as we communicate with our audiences.

best of the rest

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Sales

best in category ➻ A Seat at the Table: How Top Salespeople Connect and Drive Decisions at the Executive Level by Marc Miller, Greenleaf Publishing Group, 174 pages, $19.95 | In A Seat at the Table, Marc Miller shows that selling is based on the simple concept that the only thing a customer desires is value. The value this book will have for salespeople is that in the discussions of the customers need for value, Miller guides the reader step by step how to provide strategic help for their customers and deliver new and different forms of value.

best of the rest

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Finance & Economics

best in category ➻ False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World by Alan Beattie, Riverhead Books, 321 pages, $26.95 | Alan Beattie not only provides engrossing snapshots of mankind’s economic history; he demonstrates how naturally fragile economies are—and continue to be—and how they are guided by the choices we make, not by some invisible hand. It’s a great lesson in these uncertain times that we are—or at least can be—in control of our own economic future.

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Entrepreneurship & Small Business





best in category ➻ Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur by Pamela Slim, Portfolio, 340 pages, $25.95 | “Should I go solo?” The collapse of companies and careers over the last year has many asking themselves exactly that question. It’s the avalanche of concerns that follow like “What would I do?” to “Do I have enough money?” that stop most. The power of Escape from Cubicle Nation is that it removes all the roadblocks to saying “Yes.”

best of the rest

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Biographies & Narratives

best in category ➻ The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals by Frank Partnoy, PublicAffairs, 272 pages, $26.95 | In The Match King, Frank Partnoy brings Ivar Krueger, the match king, and exciting (though terrifying) time to life. We learn how he cornered the market on matches in his native Sweden and using “creative” accounting was able to ride that success to riches beyond belief until the market collapsed and so did his house of cards. So brilliant is Partnoy’s portrayal that I wanted to keep reading the book even as I walked to my car from the office at night. A great story, told well—there is nothing better.

best of the rest

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Current Interest

best in category ➻ Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—And Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking Books, 624 pages, $32.95 | How could we not pick a book on the financial crisis to lead the Current Interest category this year? And if we are going to pick a book on it, how could it not be this one? Too Big To Fail is the definitive book on the events leading up to, as well as on the characters involved in, the financial meltdown. In his reporting, Andrew Ross Sorkin has managed to weave together an entertaining narrative and recreate a nearly unbelievable sequence of events on Wall Street and in Washington—one that will likely be referenced as long as the topic is studied.

best of the rest

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Personal Development

best in category ➻ Power of 2: How to Make the Most of Your Partnerships at Work and in Life by Rodd Wagner & Gale Muller, Ph.D., Gallup Press, 243 pages, $24.95 | Wagner and Muller contend that it is a myth, or a rarity at least, that the best work happens when one heroic person who is somehow more superiorly gifted than average wrestles an insurmountable task and wins. Instead, Power of 2 proposes that a great partnership can more reliably produce transcendent work by capitalizing on the strengths of both persons engaged in the venture. It’s not a surprise then that Power of 2 was published by Gallup Press, the experts on strengths theory, and it is a pleasure to read a book that encourages collaboration based on strong research and communicated through enjoyable stories, particularly at time when many people are more often encouraged to “look out for #1.”

best of the rest

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Innovation & Creativity

best in category ➻ The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage by Roger L. Martin, Harvard Business Press, 191 pages, $26.95 | Design thinking is a popular trend in innovation thought this year and a number of good books submitted to this category offer various and useful treatments. The Design of Business by Roger Martin lays out the most applicable system to integrating design thinking into an organization or applying it to a singular problem. Martin also shows just how design thinking can reside harmoniously with more analytical or quantitative approach to strategy. Using memorable metaphors, Martin brings his professorial experience to the topic teaching the uninitiated and the theorist alike this new way of problem solving.

best of the rest

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Big Ideas

best in category ➻ What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis, HarperBusiness, 257 pages, $26.99 | Don’t be confused. This book is not about Google. Jarvis is delivering the virtues of clickable, linkable, searchable, and transparent using the Internet powerhouse as the metaphor. The thought experiments in the final third of the book (Google Cola, Google Capital, and The United States of Google to name a few) make concrete the ways in which the web is quickly changing what we expect from those who serve us.

best of the rest

  • Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation by Grant McCracken

    Basic Books, 272 pages, $26.95

  • Green Intelligence: Creating Environments That Protect Human Health by John Wargo, Yale University Press, 371 pages, $32.50

  • Think Twice: Harnessing The Power of Counterintuition by Michael Mauboussin, Harvard Business Press, 190 pages, $29.95

  • Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t by Kevin Maney, Broadway, 213 pages, $23.00



    Jack Covert Selects - Duck and Recover
    Posted July 10, 2009 4:55 a.m. by 800-ceo-read

    Duck and Recover, The Embattled Business Owner's Guide to Survival and Growth by Steven S. Little, John Wiley & Sons, 224 Pages, $22.95, Hardcover, June 2009, ISBN 9780470504901

    When Todd and I are out talking about our book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (yes, I know, a shameless plug) one of the questions we are almost always confronted with is "What books can give us some advice tailored to the current economic crisis?" That has been a hard question to answer until now, and Steve Little's new book is the answer we've been waiting for. It is the best I have read addressing the current economic climate, with real "take to the bank" ideas and solutions.

    As the title indicates, Little suggests dealing with the current mess in two stages—Duck, which defines section one of his book, entitled "Pressing Immediacies," and Recover, Which he discusses in the second half of the book, "Growth Opportunities." Each of the sections is loaded with practical advice and useful ideas. In the Duck section, Little talks about the famous notion that "it takes five times as much money to get a new customer than to retain an old one." In these stressful times, Little believes that this statement can cause businesses to make the fatal mistake of assuming that it is too expensive to try and acquire new customers. He advocates a common sense approach of continuing the search for new clients while husbanding your resources. He counsels that "ducking" shouldn’t be cowering in fear, but rather putting your organization "in the best position to release a focused, explosive movement when the time is right."

    But it's the second half, the Recover section, where Little really excels. His first book, The 7 Irrefutable Rules of Small Business Growth, was about growth, so this area is his sweet spot. He tells the story of sitting next to a road warrior sales person for a major telecom company while flying last Fall who said that she was being pulled off the road due to the economic crunch her company was feeling. As the author says "Can you see your opportunity here?...The telecom equipment sales rep was off to visit a $500,000 account. I can't imagine how her company couldn't justify the $500 to send her on this trip again in the months ahead. Clearly, spending $500 to visit an important account is not discretionary. It's a must-do, especially if competitors aren't showing up." Little goes on to suggest some quick tactics for getting and staying connected—having face-to-face meetings with clients and vendors, getting involved in your community, doing trade shows and becoming an information junkie.

    This is the book I would recommend for all small business people to survive and thrive is these current times. This little book is a quick read and will help you to realize that, with sound financial and personnel management, this is the time to duck and recover, not duck and run.




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