Better than iPhone6; Rookie Smarts; Internal Shark Tanks; Sept 29 Room Cutoff
September 25, 2014Congrats #2, 3, 6, 7, 13; Microsoft in 2 sentences; Uber’s clever deal; 2pm ET today
October 10, 20143 Important Books; Perfect Persuasion Manual; 9 Email Rules; Amsterdam, Athens, and Cyprus
"…out-learning the competition"
HEADLINES:
How Google Works — you've likely seen plenty of press for Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's new book How Google Works (interestingly, no subtitle). Co-authored with former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg, I strongly suggest you take 2 minutes to download and read Google co-founder Larry Page's short but very insightful Foreword – worth the price of the book. How to create an organization that maintains the autonomy "smart creatives" need, while scaling up, is one key to Google's success. The other is setting big goals. Page has found, surprisingly, that it's tremendously hard to get teams to be super ambitious (he explains why).
9 Rules for Emailing — Fortune magazine published a specific excerpt from the Google book detailing 9 specific rules for emailing (or gmailing) – worth a couple minutes to scan down the list.
Persuasion Manual — however, you may have missed this new book. If you want 52 small and legal "how to" ideas which have a big influence, read The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence just published Sept. 9. Dr. Robert Cialdini has done it again. Author (and father) of Influence, he's teamed up with Steve Martin and Noah Goldstein, two other heavyweights in persuasion science, to write a book that gets right to the point (very short chapters) in sharing simple and no cost ideas to persuade people. A hint on how to read the book is in the next paragraph.
Change One Sentence — They open by showing how small changes in the wording of a letter helped the UK collect hundreds of millions of pounds in additional revenue — and how you can apply the same idea in your business. Then they share 51 more killer techniques (idea: figure out how to apply one per week in your marketing meeting). Lead author Steve Martin is keynoting the Growth Summit Oct 28 – 29 in Vegas and GazellesPro and book club members will receive a copy of the book. One hint – go immediately to the bonus chapter in the back and then read the chapters in reverse order – the authors saved some of the best ideas for last.
10X Your Company — why are many of the new companies growing ten times faster than others? A soon to be released (Oct 14) book by Singularity University director Salim Ismail explains how. Titled Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it), Salim shares 10 characteristics of exponential companies. Salim is also keynoting the Growth Summit.
Exemplary Leadership — In the midst of running our companies, sometimes we forget to challenge ourselves as leaders. On Friday Oct 10th at 2:00PM EST, the Gazelles Growth Institute is hosting a 1-Hour panel discussion on Exemplary Leadership, based on Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner's book The Leadership Challenge. This event will include a panel of qualified business leaders eager to share their personal experience implementing Jim and Barry's methodology and how this has helped them grow! You can register here:
Amsterdam, Cyprus, and Athens — I'll be leading a one-day workshop in Amsterdam Oct 7; in Cyprus with YPO Oct 8 – 10; then with the family in Athens Oct 11 – 13. Let me know if you want to connect.
COACHING:
