Customer Reviews

Break From the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Economy

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Harold Rosenberg's famous shot at his fellow New York intellectuals as "a herd of independent minds" has been usefully applied to almost every kind of grouping people make for themselves. It is as true of teenagers in their conformist non-conformist fashions, college students in their uniform way of becoming independent from the parents whose money they use to fund this process, and it is also true of business people.

Why is this so? Maybe part of it is similar to the behavior of herds of animals that live around predators. Staying in the herd increases your chance of survival. Wandering off through carelessness or being too slow or ill leads to becoming someone's lunch. However, in human activity that is often competitive, it is staying in the herd that can lead the immutable laws of economics to allocate your resources elsewhere and you starve to death.

Oren Harari opens the book describing his observations of a long distance race. The first group was about three people who were fit, full of energy, and alone. In back of them was a slightly larger group that was huffing and puffing trying to catch up to the first group that was setting the pace. Then came the huge pack - the herd - who were plodding, sweating, and straining to simply not trip over each other. Finally, a smaller group brought up the rear who were having a good time walking along, but made no pretense of even being in the race in any meaningful way. This is quite an apt metaphor for competing in business.

This book provides interesting perspectives on ways you can rethink your company's position in the marketplace and get into that front group and leave the big pack behind. Obviously, you will have to do things differently than the way "everyone else does it". It will make you uncomfortable and being that alone may make you fear being noticed and eaten. But it is in the pack that the competitive business faces the most danger.

After framing his argument in the prologue, Harari divides the rest of his book into three parts. The first is resisting the pull of the pack. He describes "commodity hell" and how living in the copycat economy is a form of doom. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on "how to lose". He explains ten compulsions we face that keep us mired in the pack stepping on each other's toes breathing bad air. His founding principles for success are based on continuous and calculated reinvention and being curious, cool, and crazy in order to build a culture of disciplined lunacy. Good stuff.

Part II provides a series of six chapters on how to break from the pack. Dominate or leave (which does not necessarily mean being the biggest in the industry), putting the pieces together for a higher cause (which involves the customer as well as your employees), build a defiant pipeline (of products and services - this involves leading the marketplace rather than waiting and reacting), taking your customer to an impossible place (a very interesting notion of the level of expectations and exceeding them in a certain way), take innovation underground (your innovation has to be in your processes and in back of the house, as well. But EVERYTHING has to be for the effect it has on the customer, not for some vague notions of cost cutting or some program), and consolidate for cool (not accounting benefits).

The third part is a chapter on a 12 step recovery program so you can become the Leader of the Pack and an epilogue.

I really enjoyed the thinking in this book and the way the author illustrated his points. He uses good case illustrations from real world companies. And I was actually thrilled in his insistence of focusing on PROFITS rather than being distracted by other measures. You can increase your revenues and lose money. You can increase market share and lose money. You can do lots of things including manipulating your accounting and lose actual money. However, if you are actually making money, good things happen to your company, to your company culture, and to everything else you do.

This is quite an enjoyable book for those of us who are interested in business and what it takes to win in the marketplace. Why slog it out when you can be out front where the air is good and no one is stepping on your feet?

Recommended.

Everywhere, products and services are being imitated. Whatever an organization is doing and providing today is right now becoming imitated and commoditized, and, therefore, will inevitably require significant change.

To sustain a competitive advantage in this "Copycat Economy," companies must break from the pack by differentiating themselves from their competitors. They must build cool, compelling products and attempt to always stay way ahead of their competitors.

The book, `Break from the Pack', by Oren Harari (The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell), is about how to be the leader of a company that breaks from the pack.

In every industry, says Harari, a very small number of organizations are fast, fit, healthy and clearly at the forefront. These groups are clearly ahead of "the pack". The bad news is that in a global free market, the pack is bigger than ever before! The pack grows, more players join in, constantly checking each other out and mimicking each other's movements. The result is the Copycat Economy, where everyone has access to the same resources and talent, and where imitation is rampant.

According to the author, faced with this plague of imitation, business leaders reflexively resort to actions that plunge their companies further into the Copycat Economy. Some of those actions leaders should avoid are:

1. The Compulsion to Cut Prices: Lowering prices to keep customers from migrating to your competitors decimates a company's margins and trains customers to wait for another round of price cuts before buying. When one competitor copies the other's price-cutting sales promotion, both fall prey to the Copycat Economy.

2. The Compulsion to Get Bigger: The key predictors of corporate success is not the size of a company's tangible assets (its balance sheet), but the size of its intangible assets like its speed in execution and customer care, its culture of constant innovation, and its agility in capitalizing on opportunities. The companies that dominate don't dominate because they got big. They got big because they dominated!

3. The Compulsion to Ask Customers What They Want: Breaking from the pack requires you to lead customers to a place they didn't ask to go and didn't know existed. How many consumers would have assured Howard Schultz (Starbucks) they would stand in line to spend $4 for a cup of coffee in a paper cup?

4. The Compulsion to Use Legal and Political Force to Protect Your Business: If companies rely on legal and political force for competitive advantage, they are doomed. Lawsuit and protectionism strategies drain a company of resources, money, vision, and the urgency to reinvent itself in the face of new technological and competitive realities. A company must proceed "as if" there is no "protection" because, ultimately, there isn't.

5. The Compulsion to Do Anything as Long as You're Doing Something: Many businesspeople respond to the Copycat Economy with manic bursts of action, such as acquisitions, restructuring, downsizing, outsourcing, or new alliances. It doesn't matter whether there's any strategic discipline as long as action happens. "Do whatever it takes to get the numbers Wall Street wants" becomes the message. When a company goes down this track, the inevitable setbacks begin.

The best concept I found in this book was about the Madonna and Willie Nelson Effect.

The singer Madonna has been spectacularly successful. What is her secret? Harari says that Madonna reinvents herself by keeping her antennae attuned to the culture, norms and behaviors that groups are currently experimenting with. She is always evolving; she never stands still. Every two years she comes up with a new look, a new way of presenting herself, a new attitude, a new act, and a new design. And every time it is successful. According to Harari, that is the mantra that applies to any business that wants to break from the pack. The essence of the Madonna Effect is, "Don't just respond to your customers; lead them."

In the late 1980s, singer Willie Nelson was asked about how he "knew" that his leadership on "outlaw" music would be so successful. He replied, "Being a good leader is finding a bunch of people going in one direction and jumping in front of them."

I found the Madonna and Willie Nelson Effect the most inspiring passages in this book.

So what kinds of organizations are successful in this copycat economy? Harari says that organizations that break from the pack are curious, cool and crazy.

Curious: If the strategic direction of your organization can be described as daring, bold and adventurous, then you're on the right track.

Cool: What you do, what you make and how you do it all must be perceived and experienced as cool by your employees, customers and investors.

Crazy: "You can't proceed in a calm, rational manner," said Jack Welch to The Wall Street Journal. "You've got to be out on the lunatic fringe." In the world of business, today's lunacy is tomorrow's conventional wisdom.

Harari also stresses the importance of carefully choosing your team. He says that leaders must choose the best people with the greatest talent. In other words, they must enlist champions. Leaders should scour the landscape not for people who can "do the job," but for maniacs who, without being asked to, will transform their jobs on behalf of the team, not their own egos.

Finally, Harari discusses the importance of one's customers. He says that leaders must be able to convey to their employees that the prime purpose of their jobs is to help make customers very, very happy. Peter Drucker always said that the only reason for a company's existence is to create and serve customers!

This is a great book for all leaders struggling in this copycat economy!

As they say, if you're not out front the scenery never changes. This book will really help guide your thinking on how you can change your business to stay in front of the competition. It's a quick read, with interesting real life examples. Yet it makes it's point and gives you things to think about in relation to your own business. Well worth it.

The saying goes that, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and while that might be true for a fashion designer or creative artist it's a financial death sentence to most other product and service categories. Nearly every conceivable marketplace is currently awash with "fast-follow" and "me-too" products in a commoditized race to the bottom. While some may win with this commoditization strategy, most will lose. Author Oren Harani writes in his book titled - Break From the Pack - that organizations need to offer substantive difference from their competition to ensure a sustainable advantage. Soundview recommends this book because the author coins the phrase "Copycat Economy" to describe the current market tenor regarding innovation, or more accurately, the lack of innovation while offering ways to respond. The author believes that companies, which are able to "break from the pack" of competition tend to exceed customer expectations; produce compelling, demand-driving products; and becoming market leaders within their sector. And for those companies caught in the swirl of commodity limbo, Harani offers relevant strategies and tactics for real breakthrough. Why imitate, when you can innovate!

One the most formidable challenges most organizations now face is how to differentiate themselves from the competition, especially at a time when customers have more choices and more control of the purchase decision, and when, as Oren Harari observes, "In every industry, a very small number of organizations are fast, fit, healthy, and clearly at the forefront. They are followed by a few pretty good wannabes nipping at their heels. These groups are clearly ahead of `the pack' - that large, undifferentiated bulk of companies of all shapes and sizes that don't stand out and don't draw the kind of positive attention from customers and investors that they'd like."

Harari focuses in this book on how to break away from - and then stay ahead of -- "the pack" and thereby thrive in what will probably continue to be a "Copycat Economy," even as a process of natural selection seems to eliminate faster than ever before those organizations that are unwilling and/or unable to adapt to new (albeit painful) realities in their competitive environment. Throughout Harari's narrative, his emphasis is always on "how" and, when appropriate, he includes a brief explanation to establish a context within which he shares insight and recommended action items.

All of those organizations that succeed in breaking from a given pack understand the power of "a radically compelling value proposition, hard economic logic, and fast efficient execution." Each involves a mix of entrepreneurial spirit, foresight, and discretion as well as prudence. Harari characterizes that mix as "calculated reinvention." With regard to the first, "a radically compelling value proposition," Harari introduces "Curious, Cool and Crazy/Calculated Reinvention Launch Pads" in Part I that can propel almost any organization in six strategic directions. For example, "Dominate or Leave" which makes sense if an organization does not have both domination and profitability. How to know that? Harari points out that no company can "be all and do all" profitably. For sustained competitive advantage (and for breaking from the pack), companies must determine which markets and value propositions they can dominate (be the best at, be the benchmark for innovation, be the ones that set the agenda for the industry), and then avoid or exit those they can't. He also emphasizes the need for metrics for measurement that revolve around profit as well as organic growth rate, customer retention rate, and rate of retention of most valuable employees.

The importance of "hard economic logic" is especially important when M&A activities are involved. In Chapter Ten, "Consolidate for Cool," Harari identifies and then examines eight reasons why M&As fail (Pages 230-237) and eight motives which have made M&A "the number-one `go to' growth strategy for many executives despite the fact that a high percentage (estimates range from 65%-80%) either fail or fall far short of expectations. Many readers will especially appreciate Harari's "6-T Blueprint" for determining whether or not a proposed consolidation meets all six of the criteria specified (Pages 241-246). Obviously, if a proposed consolidation is rejected, it may still make sense to forge a strategic alliance with the given organization. Harari concludes the chapter by sharing some sound advice from a Ben McCleary, a former lead investment banker at Lehman Brothers and currently a partner at Seaview Capital.

"The 6-T is hard to quantify, [McCleary] says, which can open it up to potential abuse or disregard. But, he continues, if you read the 6T Blueprint in the privacy of your office or home, think carefully about your motives and options, look in the mirror, and [begin italics] then [end italics] ask yourself `Is this deal the right thing to do?', then you just might make the right decision that will truly help your organization break from the pack."

As for "fast efficient execution," Harari examines the importance of "tornado speed" in an earlier book, Beep! Beep! He and co-author Chip Bell offer some truly valuable insights into major business subjects such as effective leadership, "competing in the terrain of the future," collaborative "flocking" (as opposed to mindless regimentation), strategic uses of speed, flexibility and adaptability, the power of having an "honorable culture, "the "magic" of curiosity and innovation, and the importance of joy (as opposed to pleasure). I especially appreciate the inclusion of several dozen boxed items (e.g. "Birdseed") that supplement (indeed nourish) the narrative. In Break from the Pack, Harari reiterates the importance of speed, agility, and flexibility, and what he calls "strategy on the run"; these are attributes that break-from-the-pack organizations use to capitalize on fleeting market opportunities.

I am among those who agree with Harari's comments about dominance. For example, that two or more organizations can be dominant within the same competitive marketplace (whatever it may be) if - huge "if"--each of them sustains sufficient profit margins, continues to avoid or eliminate waste, and maintains a high retention level of both (profitable) customers and (valued) employees. It takes courage as well as determination to eliminate whatever and whoever weakens performance in any one of them.

Tom Peters has described the business world as "a brawl with no rules" and there is some truth in that but, as Oren Harari explains so brilliantly, there are values as well as strategies and tactics to break away from the pack and that can be a noble achievement because it helps an organization to provide itself and all of its stakeholders with "the joy and reward that come with being on the leading edge."

The modern workplace is a complex jigsaw puzzle with international pieces, quick-change technology and oddly shaped commodities. It's hard to comprehend or complete the global economic enigma, but Oren Harari offers crucial elements of the workplace puzzle. With precision and real-life examples, Harari explains how employees and executives can succeed in a "copycat economy" dominated by imitators, pretenders and pirates. He offers vision and practical tips, though some corporate examples, such as his praise of JetBlue - which is now well-established - seem a little forced or dated in this otherwise timely text. The book can be repetitious in sections, but some points are worth repeating and this analysis is well worth reading. We highly recommend it to executives, investors and mid-level employees.

Break from the Pack is one of the most commen sense management guides I have read in recent years. A cross between Tom Peters, C.K.Prahalad and Gary Hamel, this book deals with one of the most important challenges confronting Managers today - Finding Growth Opportunities in a copy cat market space ! Oren Harari offers a no nonsense practical approach to assist business leaders identify the dangers of me too competitors and the skills that can be learnt to stand out and be noticed.

This book offers advice on how to transform your organization in real time and is completely transferrable to any industry. I am not a big fan of management theories du juor, and found Break From the Pack to be a refreshing change. You could say the book "Breaks from the Pack"...

When reading this book, everything the author says sounds so "common sense", so you're left wondering why so many people behave differently (but luckily they do, otherwise there would be no room for improvement).

Tightly packed with clear analyses and useful advices, "Break from the Pack" will definitely help you if you decide you'll be trying to be different from your competitors.

I bought this book because I work precisely in an area full of copycats. Oren Harari at the beginning of the book describes very precisely and accurately the problems of a copycat economy, so I was looking forward to read to the rest of the book. Well, I have to say that the remaining of the book is rather disappointing. Don't get me wrong. There are some interesting ideas, but the framework and the solutions that the author recommends, remind me immediately of 'Good To Great' by Jim Collins. Mr. Harari lays out some principles and steps which can not hurt: be curious, cool and crazy; dominate or leave; build a defiant pipeline; take innovation underground, etc. and he sustains those principles by outlining a nice story about a company that followed it and it worked and another that didn't follow it and it failed. But, as the best business book I've ever read and that I highly recommend, The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers explains: it's always possible to find a story to basically sustain anything; a correlation does not mean that there is a cause and effect; it's not possible to assign a successful outcome to a single factor; it's always possible to find successes that followed the principles, but what about the ones that followed them and failed?

All in all, it's an interesting read, but I can't rate it above three stars.