Quick summary of some recently released books related to
business:
NEW TO BIG is written by David Kidder and Christina
Wallace, both of whom have extensive entrepreneurial experience and currently
work together at Bionic, a company designed to ignite growth within larger
companies. Their text explores “How Companies Can Create Like Entrepreneurs,
Invest Like VCs, and Install a Permanent Operating System for Growth.” Kidder and Wallace assert that “the
refounding of iconic companies – including the development of the next
generation of growth leaders within those companies – is the most significant opportunity
and the greatest leadership challenge of our era.” They provide historical context, but, more
importantly, outline “crucial mind-set shifts” like moving from “planning in a
known share-based world, to … [focusing] on discovering a brand-new customer
problem or need.” Kidder and Wallace refer to this outside-in thinking as the
Total Addressable Problem (TAP) model and provide examples like mobile phones. They
spend another chapter on turning operators into creators by shifting thinking so
as to embrace productive failure, end the addiction to being right, or to “build
ladders to the moon,” amongst other suggestions. This “toolkit” format is very
engaging and will likely appeal to practitioners as well as merit review by our
business students. NEW TO BIG
received positive reviews from Clayton Christensen, Adam Grant and others. About
ten percent is allocated to appendix, notes and index.
HOW LEADERS DECIDE by Greg Bustin is subtitled “A Timeless Guide to Making Tough Choices.” To
motivate and inform business leaders, Bustin has provided 52 decision
situations, designed to be read one per week over the course of a year. He
accompanies each story with a thought-provoking question (e.g., If you were honored
for your life’s work, what achievement would you celebrate? What legacy would
you leave?). Unfortunately, Bustin chose to profile white males, almost
exclusively. And he also tended to select well-known individuals (e.g., Julius
Caesar, John Adams, and Winston Churchill) so this work has less impact and
inspirational decision-making advice than might otherwise be the case. Perhaps
for his next project, Bustin could explore additional biographical sketches and
create a newer version of
Frank
Olsen’s Inventors Who Left Their Brands on America? In
the meantime, readers could also consider turning to titles like The Third Door (featuring advice
from contemporary leaders and innovators) or They Made America (with a
more historical perspective although he includes women and immigrants) by
Harold Evans. In addition, Berger’s The Big Book of Beautiful Questions,
Case’s Be Fearless or Morten’s Great at Work offer valuable leadership advice.
BLOCKCHAIN: THE NEXT
EVERYTHING by Stephen
P. Williams is an attempt to explain what blockchain is and how it works. He defines blockchain as software and “strings
of code” or “a simple technology [that] serves as a permanent, unhackable
ledger for almost any kind of information you would like to record” such as the
bitcoin transactions for which it was originally developed. Subsequent sections
of this text discuss various innovative and potential new applications, with some
related to energy futures, climate change and environment, others to artistic endeavors.
Despite labelling the science and technology of blockchain as “challenging,” he
writes that “it won’t be long until using blockchain will be about as tough as
watching a movie on Netflix." To me, Williams struggles to truly describe blockchain;
at one point, he recommends turning to YouTube for better understanding. Obviously,
this technology is still evolving and Williams himself writes, “blockchain will
most likely be superseded in the future by something that works even better. …
distributed systems [with no central authority or control] … promise to
transform how we do business, communicate and govern.”
BIG BUSINESS: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero
by Tyler Cowen (Average is Over)
comprises a set of musings on aspects of the American corporation. Cowen, professor
of economics at George Mason University, first provides “a new pro-business
manifesto.” Other chapters explore whether CEOs are paid too much, how monopolistic
big business might be, and whether the big tech companies are evil. In
response, Cowen asserts that “on the whole our CEOs are providing good value
for the money they earn;” that although “K-12 education is arguably an example
of a big monopoly problem … the analysts who raise this issue [more generally] usually
are exaggerating the problem;” and “America’s tech sector is increasingly
underrated [due in part to less than objective media coverage].” Our students
have recently shown increased interest in researching the values of socialism
and would undoubtedly be interested in the questions that Cowen raises,
although they would might be less apt to agree with his generally pro-business argument.
Clearly Cowen raises issues and responds to critics while sharing a great deal
of emotion, caveats, and opinion in this accessible text; roughly twenty
percent of BIG BUSINESS provides
additional detail through references, notes and an index.
IT'S HOW WE PLAY THE GAME by Ed Stack is the story of the founding and
growth of DICK’S Sporting Goods company. Stack begins with tales of how the
company was founded in Binghamton, New York with $300 from his dad’s
grandmother’s cookie jar. Throughout, he
stresses the importance of family and the impact that family members had on
each other. For example, he writes about
his father’s love of sport and how he encouraged Ed to really study and analyze
the game of baseball. The idea of taking care of the local community was also always
important and Stack says, “[my dad] was making a difference … before I knew it
was happening … my dad understood the transcendence of sports – that they can
channel kids’ energies, give them focus and goals, keep them out of trouble,
reshape their lives. … He was willing to
reach into his own pocket.” Stack has carried forward that legacy and frankly,
shocked me with some of the statistics he cited: “In the 1999-2000 school year,
11.3 percent of public high schools in the United States did not offer
interscholastic sports. By ten years later, 22 percent of public high schools –
more than one in five – no longer fielded sports teams.” Of those that did,
forty percent required fees from the players and their families. To raise
awareness, Stack began a number of programs including the Sports Matters Initiative.
This book chronicles those efforts as well as changes in the business, such as
decisions to expand, and DICK’S principled relationships with landlords like
Wegman’s and suppliers like Callaway. In addition, you may have read
recently in The New York Times or USA Today about how DICK’S destroyed about $5 million in inventory of
assault style guns in response to the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The
thinking and strategy behind implementing that decision is included in this text,
too. Recommended by Adam Silver, Phil Knight, Mark Kelly and others, IT'S HOW WE PLAY THE GAME is definitely
worth a read, particularly in light of the shift from shareholder to
stakeholder perspective amongst US businesses, as evidenced by the change in Business Roundtable’s mission statement. 
