Book Review: A Sense of Urgency by John. P. Kotter

‘A Sense of Urgency’

By: John. P. Kotter

Harvard Business Press

ISBN: 978-1-4221-5230-0 (India Edition)

John. P. Kotter is counted amongst one of the world’s best leadership-gurus. He teaches at Harvard Business School and has written more than 16 books including bestsellers Leading Change and Our Iceberg is Melting. In this book, he presents a strong case and strategy for making changes in organisations most effective.

The first chapter is aptly titled “It all starts with a sense of urgency”. In the beginning of the book itself, the author makes a very important distinction amongst three things: a true sense of urgency, a “false sense of urgency” and “complacency”. He says, “We are much too complacent. And we don’t even know it”. (The dictionary says complacency is “a feeling of contentment or self satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger or trouble.”) Roots of complacency are successes: real or perceived, usually over a period of time, while roots of a false sense of urgency are failures.

The book is full of very helpful concepts and ideas. I am copying some of the topics and headlines, for my own reference:

• Be clear about what is false sense of urgency.
• Help others (including bosses) to see the problem
• How and why a business case fails
• Aim for the heart
• Increasing a true sense of urgency: the strategy:

1.   Bring the outside in

a.    Reorganise the pervasive problem of internal focus

b.    Listen to customer facing employees

c.    Use the power of video

d.   Don’t always shield people from troubling data

e.    Redecorate

f.     Send people out

g.   Bring people in

h.   Bring data in, but in the right way

i.     Watch out that you don’t create a false sense of urgency

2.   Behave with urgency every day

a.    Respond fast, move now

b.    The norm: un-urgent behaviour

c.    Be visibly urgent

d.   Urgency begets urgency

e.    Urgent patience

3.   Find opportunities in crises

a.    Avoid and control crisis, but watch out…

b.    Use a crisis to create urgency, but watch out…

4.   Deal with the NoNos

a.    Don’t waste time trying to co-opt a NoNo

b.    Never ignore the NoNos

c.    Distract the NoNos

d.   Get rid of them

e.    Immobilize them with social pressures

• Keeping urgency up
• Urgency up: success; urgency down: a mess
• The problem with short term successes
• Anticipate the problem, use the strategy, and choose the right tactics
• Drive it into the culture
• Start today.

- Rahul

Book Review: What the Dog Saw and other adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

‘What the dog saw and other adventures’

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Allen Lane (an imprint of Penguin Books)

ISBN: 978-1-846-14294-9

This has been one of the most revealing books I have ever read. In this book, the author goes so deep researching into things so diverse, that one can only feel awestruck at his intellectual capability. Reading this, and slightly starting to look beyond the obvious, as the author does, we would see a whole new world in front of us. The theme of this book is to find answers to all small and big questions in our minds. Getting into the mold, we develop amazing new ways to look at things.

I simply can’t afford to write a full review of this book of over 400 pages with content as wide and diverse and researched as deep into. I would simply list the “contents” summary, for my own reference and in case you feel curious enough, just reach out to Malcolm Gladwell.

Part-I: Obsessives, pioneers and other varieties of minor genius

1

1. The Pitchman: Ron Popeil and the Conquest of the American Kitchen
2. The Ketchup conundrum: Mustard now comes in dozens of varieties. Why has ketchup stayed the same?
3. Blowing up: How Nassim Taleb turned the inevitability of disaster into an investment strategy
4. True colors: Hair dye and the hidden history of postwar America
5. John Rock’s error: What the inventor of the Birth Control Pill didn’t know about women’s health
6. What the dog saw: Cesar Millan and the movements of mastery

Part-II: Theories, predictions and diagnoses

1. Open secrets: Enron, intelligence, and the perils of too much information.
2. Millian dollar Murray: Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage.
3. The picture problem: Mammography, air power and the limits of looking.
4. Something borrowed: Should a charge of plagiarism ruin your life?
5. Connecting the dots: The paradoxes of intelligence reform
6. The art of failure: Why some people choke and others panic
7. Blowup: Who can be blamed for a disaster like the Challenger explosion? No one, and we would better get used to it

Part-III: Personality, character and intelligence

1. Late bloomers: Why do we equate genius with precocity?
2. Most likely to succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell why is right for the job?
3. Dangerous minds: Criminal profiling made easy
4. The talent myth: Are smart people overrated?
5. The new-boy network: What do job interviews really tell us?
6. Troublemakers: What pit bulls can teach us about crime?

- Rahul

Book Review: The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford

‘The Undercover Economist’

By Tim Harford

Abacus

ISBN: 978-0-349-11985-4

I have read Freakonomics and when I read its author’s praise for this book (Steven Levitt: “Required reading… It brings the power of economics to life”, I couldn’t remain but excited about it. And what a read it has been.

Tim Harford is an economist and a member of the Financial Times editorial board. He is now a writer, but before this he worked for Shell, the World Bank and then taught at Oxford University. Through this book, Tim wants to tell us that economics is not pure theory, but it is at its best when applied to solve day to day problems and to answer simple questions in our day to day life. He starts with giving a description of how complex the “economics” is when we think about the various works needed to bring one cup of coffee for us to enjoy. Often, we don’t think much behind the apparent and hence don’t appreciate the big picture. Throughout the book, the author touches one interesting point after the other, providing us with insights which we never got before. He explains how open markets leads to most efficient economy, how “scarcity power” guides the high rents and premium, how ‘marginal’ land is of central importance, how unskilled workers oppose immigration of unskilled workers for their own selfish reasons, how our laziness to go some more steps results in shops at strategic locations ripping us off, and how supermarkets charge more for trivial features and we don’t even know.

He explains how “price targeting” is best for the companies (but it is not so for customers and hence is controversial) and how IBM’s low-end laser printers were actually costlier to make than high end printers. The portion on “efficiency versus fairness: can we handle the truth” is also amazing (case on pharmaceutical companies and pricing methods). He thinks ways to control traffic (concept of marginal cost), evaluates if “green campaigns” are any good at all, and explains the impact of “imperfect information”. The last chapter is on how China is on fast track to richness and why. But it presents a balanced picture, the authors also shows the dark sides of China’s growth.

It is an amazing read on practical economics and I am sure you won’t be disappointed by reading it.

© Rahul