Author: Dave Esler and Myra Kruger

How an Underdog Company Defied the Odds,
Won Customers’ Hearts, and Grew It’s Employees into Better People

I was sent an advanced copy of The Pursuit and Something Better and while I generally don’t like to read new books until I’ve had them recommended and ravely reviewed by others first but I’m glad I didn’t wait for this book, its absolutely brilliant! I read it back to back with The Adversity Parodox and both books are now in my definite top 5 for business and personal development books.  The Pursuit of Something Better is a story of a CEO who takes a mediocre company with high turnover to a thriving culture rich customer focused success.  Jack Rooney is that CEO of the company, U.S. Cellular and he comes in with a passion and belief in culture change being the cornerstone of the company’s success and that belief drives new systems and focus that is unstoppable.  There is more story and insight and example in this book than many others combined and it shows what can be done not only from top down, but also in other levels of the organization, your life and individual self improvement so don’t think this is an executive book only, its much more than that!

Rooney comes into U.S. Cellular and introduces a new concept known as the Dynamic Organization (the D.O.) which he lives and breathes by example and immediate sets new standards and expectations that all associates in the company will also start living that DO culture.  He delivers these systems with a proven track record and overcomes significant hurdles along the way.  I found these hurdles and ways they were addressed to be most inspiring as I see the same items in my work and often they feel like impossible roadblocks.  This story and book are proof and guidance to get past that!

So, I found there are 4 main themes to the Dynamic Organization in the book  and I’ll cover some specific things from each in this review.

Culture

This book outlines an impressive transformation that is built upon a new culture for U.S. Cellular, one far from the conventional business wisdom.  The culture is one that shifts toward a customer focused, caring and value based company.  One that seeks motivational leadership, provides impressive personal development systems and engages and expects every employees to contribute to these new cultural initiatives.  Among these deep messages built into the company come a focus to always do the “right” thing and expect that of all its associates, especially its leaders.

Rooney puts many stages of culture change into place and he does so with much resistance, as would be expected, but his systems built over time and prove themselves to be valid in building a better company and all of the culture changes become sought after both internally between departments and regions within U.S. Cellular and eventually outside the company as well. All three areas below are embedded into the culture and the core to making it all work is that this culture is actually what defines the business strategy.  In fact, it IS the business strategy.  Everything that is promoted in the dynamic organization and the culture for it, are actually the business focus to Rooney and all of the systems, decisions, leadership, and financing is put towards these cultural aspects.  This was the most exciting part to me, to see how the success of a company can come by focusing strategy on things that matter to the employees and customers, that things are done with moral leadership and that the company can focus on initiatives that lead to profits, without directly being steered by profits.

Customer Service

The customer deserves the focus and the customer gets priority are also embedded into this Dynamic Organization and it is taken to great extremes in many cases with long term benefits that certainly didn’t seem profitable in any way when first introduced.  Much of these initiatives in the story were created at a time when there was huge growth in the cellular industry and most companies were purely after capturing market share quickly to expand and take advantage of the available growth.  While this mattered to U.S. Cellular, it wasn’t a focus and the customers were treated better than competitors, service was of its highest quality and the company had expectations from every employee that decisions and actions were taken to ensure the customer would benefit as a result.  Many of these things were costly in the short term but they slowly saw the market shifting to recognizing this customer service and the loyalty of their customers grew.  It allowed them expand and ultimately hang on to market share while their competitors were still struggling to capture new markets without a loyal customer base.  The long term benefits of this payed off and the book outlines many of the challenges that were faced in doing this and how this customer focus was created and maintained at U.S. Cellular.

Leadership

None of this great change could happen without great leadership and there are impressive stories and systems employed that can be modeled to help companies build stronger more focused leadership.  The Dynamic Organization expected drastic contributing to the new culture and that was reinforced with regular leadership development and feedback systems.  Peer based feedback systems for all leaders drove much of these expectations and it allowed all associates to identify the desired leadership factors which seemed to enable more and more grass roots leadership.

Ethics

I think the sheer volume of attention put to ethics in the Dynamic Organization was impressive and one of the most inspiring aspects of the book.  It shows how a company can still operate (and do so very successfully) with strong ethical boundaries and expectations.  Business competition often stems unethical behaviors and greed that dominate our news and media channels which is so obvious today.  These kind of stories and examples of doing the right thing no matter what the costs and the way U.S. Cellular put ethical boundaries and expectations into a company’s core culture is something to be honored and admired.

So, I’d highly recommend The Pursuit of Something Better to anyone interested in culture change, leadership, ethics and moral leadership and customer service.  I believe some of these changes can occur at any level of an organization but its especially useful for driving systemic changes and strategic change in your company.  I can’t say the book is really a clear guide of exactly how to do this, but the stories are inspiring and many of the systems and actions are described in detailed and will be easy to use as a model for similar systems in your own company.  I know I can use some of these in mine!

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 16 Comments »

Review: The Shadow Effect

with Debbie Ford

I received a free copy of The Shadow Effect to review and am actually having a tough time reviewing it. The Shadow Effect is about discovering and knowing the so called, “Shadows” in our lives which are the flaws, the bad actions, the painful things, the adversities we’ve faced which we avoid and try to keep secret from the world around us.  Some of these shadows are outlined and they include how we sabotage ourselves of our desires, our feelings, our egos and our persona’s we display.  All these things we hide and reject are buried inside us and we can’t keep them bottled up since it consumes so much energy to do so and it prevents us from allowing our brighter side to truly be revealed with our dark side together.

So, my first reaction was one of disappointment as I was really hoping for something with more of an impact to me and something that I could connect with.  However, that didn’t happen for a number of reasons.  First, the movie just seems to drag on saying the same thing without getting to many real discoveries and it has many old cliches which I found kept me out of the movie’s atmosphere over and over.  The movie presented a number of obvious biases as well.  There are certain media figures used as examples for the dark “shadows” while others are presented as great shining light examples.  I found these examples seemed to pinpoint and promote specific names with media clips while chastising others (I won’t even repeat the names used here) and that turned me off immediately.  It was completely unnecessary for the point in the movie.

Also, many of the examples are described with no real evidence or research, everything is presented as “probably” and “likely” this person that or that person must have done “this” at some time in their life.  These are not examples of the shadow in any way, it’s simply made up.  I could find those types of things in anyone’s life, especially if I am making assumptions about what they must have thought years and years ago which formed the so called shadow.  I found this just ridiculous.

I think the points being made about how our thoughts and emotions can cause later problems in our lives when they are not dealt with are great but the movie talks only about how rejecting these feelings is a problem without providing any really guidance to in fact deal with them instead.  The movie tries to drive you into your own mind of suppressed emotions and does nothing but stir those up and talk as if this “shadow” can be resolved to then “let our light in our awareness” to begin processing them.  Those are the words in the movie, not mine.  That really doesn’t mean anything to me and I’m not sure how it can help anyone.  I realize there are lessons to be learned in any dark experience and that they can lead to being a better person.  The way this is outlined as the shadow with dark and light seems off base to me.  The movie references a few spiritual aspects in terms of the shadow and this is where I really disconnected.  I can’t connect to something that is describes so strongly as spiritual yet they refuse to say anything about right and wrong, or good and evil, or God for that matter.  They use light and dark instead.  It’s just a way of hiding what the shadow really is if you ask me, which contradicts the whole point of the movie. The whole movie is based on revealing those hidden truths inside ourselves that we hide from the rest of the world. The light and brilliance of hope, grace and love by God versus the dark, evil, and tempting ways of Satan.  It seemed to me they want the viewer to feel like they have exposed something great and that there is a “divine recipe”, while they don’t even bring God into the picture of dealing with these types of evils inside of us.  The movie goes into some great points on forgiveness and how it is required to move forward to shield our spirits but I just can’t believe God again, was left out of this.  Sorry, forgiveness is not in ourselves, it’s by the grace of God and his Son, Jesus.  They dared not touch any of this subject in “The Shadow Effect” though, its all left quite universal.

Another area I absolutely disagree with were the points about how you can’t hate something that you don’t deeply desire yourself.  The movie says that anything you show that you hate or detest in others is really because you deeply desire it yourself.  This is ridiculous!  I can hate evil, murder and other horrific things without that desire or even a glimmer of desire inside me.  There isn’t a perfect balance of the so called “light and dark” in every person, like the movie claims.  These balances might exist in the universe, but they certainly shifts inside individual cultures, generations, amongst turmoil and absolutely in individuals.  Can people change? Yes. Does it require outside help and intervention?  Yes.  I’ll put my faith for that in God, not myself thanks.

The movie ends without giving you any tools to change, instead its feels like an infomercial for enticing you to buy the interactive DVDs and attend “The Shadow Effect” seminar processes.  There are many inspirational messages about light and references for brilliance and happiness and while the movie is motivational, it’s not something I feel can make any lasting change for someone.  It still requires more of the process (whatever that is) to allow any change to occur.  The movie reminds me very mush like, “The Secret” for its repetitive strong message without really telling you how or what is necessary to make any the movie’s promise actually happen.  Personally, I’d say not to bother with this movie, as it just doesn’t give any real things to learn or change from.  I haven’t read the book but if its anything like this movie, I’ll save myself the time and avoid it as well.

I’d encourage you to still go check out the trailer and decide for yourself.  I truly watched this movie with an open mind and wanted to learn what was so transformational, but I personally didn’t see that and the style in which the movie teased with no real actions disappointed me throughout.

Posted by Mike King under Life | 8 Comments »

Top Articles and Favorite Posts

Armen (at Timeless Information) inspired me to build my own 100 lists ( 100 ways to be a leader and 100 Ways to Simplify Your Life and Mind ).  A few people have continued with the trend. Here were some new ones and a few I came across while browsing.

• 85 Ways to Motivate Yourself by Arswino.
• Not continued from the 100 lists, but this is a great one as well.  88 Important Truths I’ve Learned About Life
• 100 Clevel Ways to Change Your Habits and Improve Your Life – I found this stumbling and even though its not new, its a great article.
• 100 Ways to Birth your Entrepreneurial Dream at Divine Purpose Unleashed
• 100 Ways to Improve Your Blog and 100 Ways to Live a Better Life by Dragos

A few additional articles I’ve come across and really enjoyed are here:

• Sharpen Your Conversation Skills by Brian Tracy
• How to Achieve the Impossible
• The productivity magazine is a superb free resource and issue #3 is now out.
• 11 Traits of Highly Creative People

I don’t normally include videos in my content or much of my stumbling but I watched this advertisement and it is truly an amazing one.

Posted by Mike King under Life | 10 Comments »

Author: Seth Godin

We Need You to Lead Us

I recently read Tribes and its the first book I’ve read by Godin, believe it or not.  I definitely want to get into a few more of his titles now since this book had some real gems in it on leadership.  The message throughout that book is that there are many ways to connect a group of people together for a common purpose and today’s technology, especially the web enable so much of that to happen.  It allows the formation of like minded people or “Tribes” that can collectively work together and create a movement for change.

Godin highlights a few areas of why business has changed and what Tribes enable people to do now.  A few points here really stood out for me and they are about how companies expect more people to lead than they ever used to.  Leaders are expected much more now at all levels than classic organizations where only few were expected to lead everyone else.  This is encouraging to anyone to be more involved as a leader.  Another point is about, how much influence and impact individuals actually have now on areas needing leadership, new products and just the rate that business operates.  Things change much more quickly than ever before in business and this opens many doors for new leadership to exist at all levels.  The final one of these points for me was about how exciting and fun leadership and new innitiatives can actually be and that so many people want to be involved in them.  This leaves many opportunities for anyone to help collect and lead a tribe toward a common goal and common passions and aspirations.  All these points show the benefits and need for more and more tribes and Godin does a fantastic job of calling out his readers to step into these so called “Tribes” and make an impact directly.

If you are interested in leadership and new business practices and in any way wanting to expand your own influence, then “Tribes” by Godin is a worthy book.  It was packed full of good advice and great challenges to help intice you to do more than learn about it, read a book about it and understand tribes, but to actually go and get involved in them and to become more of a tribal leader yourself.  The content of this book is really packed in and condensed as well, which makes for a short read yet there are many key messages and phrases that really deliver a powerful punch to inspire more leadership. Keep this in mind as Godin leaves out any practical advice on HOW to lead or make these tribes a success, he simply puts the challenge out their and leaves the responsibility solely up to each tribal leader, just how it should be.

I definitely recommend this one to anyone looking for more leadership ideas, inspiration and simple to those who wish to explore a bit more of the social media and internet style of communities, as this is explored throughout the book.

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 9 Comments »