Customer Reviews

Follow the Other Hand: A Remarkable Fable That Will Energize Your Business, Profits, and Life

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Follow the Other Hand is one of the most interesting books about changing the way you look at your business that I've read in quite a while.

Actually, I struggled a bit to "categorize" Follow the Other Hand. It has flavors of a process improvement book, a book about changing the corporate culture, and a book about generating new ideas. In the end I decided to think about this book as a way to get a new perspective on your business.

Follow the Other Hand was written by Andy Cohen, who is a marketing consultant, and a magician. The magician part is important because the title refers to magic, and the book is based on a business owner who is tutored by a magician to see things differently. Rather than take the most "reasonable" or safe course or perspective, the business owner is challenged to "follow the other hand" - in magic, that's where things really happen.

What I liked about this book:

1. It was one of the most easy to read business books I've read in a while. The book has a narrative story that incorporates the points that Cohen wants to make. Often it feels more like a novel than a business book, but that just makes it easier and more interesting to read.
2. The book incorporates a lot of basic magic in the narrative, and uses magic to set up some key points that Cohen wants to make about your business. So much of what he talks about is our cultural perceptions - we "can" do this and we "can't" do that. Instead he challenges us to look beyond our cultural and philosophical barriers to "follow the other hand".
3. Cohen synopsizes his key points at the end of each chapter. Many businesses could simply adopt some of his concepts from the end of the first chapter:
Create an effect - what is the result that you want?
Follow the other hand - what should you do differently that you might not have considered?
Develop the method - how would you do that new thing if you could?
Start with a great performace - create a dramatic entrance to the new market
These concepts are what make a great magic act - Cohen argues that they are also key to
implementing a great new idea.
4. Cohen follows the Seth Godin "Free Prize Inside" concept. In his book there are examples and explanations of several magic tricks - even two "magic" cards. You can learn a little magic along the way as the characters in the book learn about magic and how to apply the effects to their business.

There were a few things I felt could have been better in the book. Primarily they have to do with overcoming resistance and doubt and changing a corporate culture. This is touched on in the book, in a chapter called "Idea Heckling". The discussion provided is reasonable but makes it seem a little too easy to change a long standing culture and to get complete buy in from the team.

Overall though I'd have to say that unlike most books about business, I was disappointed when this one ended. I grew to like the characters, learned a little magic and could see how Cohen's love of magic gave him a very different way to look at changing a business. Follow the Other Hand is a quick read because it's interesting and provides a lot of insights into corporate culture and the ways we create barriers to new thinking approaches or accept conventional wisdom. I've already handed my copy off to folks in our business to read, and have recommended the book to friends. I'd recommend that you consider "Follow the Other Hand" as a great book to help you think differently about your business.

[..]

Let's face it. Given the choice between reading a typical management book and a business-based fable to learn better management practices, few would choose the typical management book. Imagine how much greater will be the preference for Follow the Other Hand, which provides great sleight-of-hand entertainment values above and beyond any business fable I've read before. You've got a treat ahead of you!

This is a book about creativity in business, and the content lives up to the book's intention. Here's an example. The introduction opens with this sentence: "I, Jonathan West, like to tell people that I am in the oil business." Visions of billions light up in your eyes, no doubt. But the second paragraph qualifies that sentence with "I import olives, olive oil and related gourmet products."

In those two paragraphs you get a sense of Mr. Cohen's interesting way of communicating. He tells you something. You jump to a wrong conclusion. Then, he corrects your false assumption in a humorous way. It's a sort of verbal magic trick, as it were.

West and Company is doing poorly. It may have to be sold or closed. But Jonathan West called a college friend, Wilcox, whose business is doing well. Wilcox recommends someone who can help, George Miles, a magician named Merlin. Wilcox believes in Merlin so much that he offers to pay Merlin's fee if Jonathan is not satisfied.

Intrigued enough to go ahead, Jonathan is about to experience the lessons of a lifetime.

Merlin combines magic and business in a most unusual way. In Lesson #1, Jonathan is challenged to figure out how a card illusion is done. The advice: "Think Differently--Follow the Other Hand." A magician draws your attention in one direction while something is going on elsewhere. A business, likewise, does things in a certain way . . . and ignores the alternatives. Like Dr. Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, you are encouraged to think what you want to accomplish ("Begin with the End in Mind") and then figure out how to get there. At the middle of the chapter, you receive instruction in how to do the "Two Card Monte" trick. Jonathan is then able to take the trick back to his office and use it to re-direct his colleagues' thinking.

Lesson #2 is Building Trust-Making the Audience Part of the Act. We've all seen how magicians let the audience check out the magician and the equipment to be sure there's no rigging going on. This checking is part of how we are able to suspend belief and go along with the illusion. Merlin suggests that we offer customers choice, control and the chance to get engaged emotionally in our offering before they buy. The chapter is filled with intriguing examples of companies that are doing this in a variety of ways. I found this chapter so impressive that I re-thought how to market some of my professional services. This chapter shares the secret of the illusion of how to let the audience pick an object that you can guess correctly.

Lesson #3 is Defining Your Brand-Creating a Magical Experience. The secrets are to add drama (often using technology), let people have an experience of discovering the offering on their own (so they feel the brand is them) and then listening to the reactions to be flexible in how you perform for the customer . . . adapting to their experience. This chapter also has some fine examples in it such as Build-a-Bear and Jones Soda. You also learn how to use a photograph on a cell phone as part of an illusion.

Lesson #4 is Idea Heckling-Removing the Obstacles to Thinking Differently. This is a chapter about stall-busting, eliminating barriers to thinking differently. The chapter's illusion, appropriately enough, is how to match wits to decide how many matches are in a matchbook.

Lesson #5 is Discovering Your Competitive Edge-"What's Your Magic?" This is where you turn what makes you unique into an advantage that others will appreciate. This is obviously the most open-minded of the chapters . . . but probably the most important. The chapter ends with a chance to make a coin disappear into "thin" air.

Through the five lessons, Mr. Cohen does a fine job of building a new business model for West and Company that should open up many new doors of opportunity.

The metaphor of magic illusions is a powerful one for this book. Mr. Cohen picks up on the experiences we've all had in trying to figure out magic tricks, providing the illusions for others and feeling deeply engaged in illusions that we couldn't figure out where our senses were excited by the experience. In all three senses, that's what being in business can be about: Solving problems to make a business more successful and trying to figure out who to buy from; developing and delivering superior offerings and seeing thrilled customers enjoying those offerings; and the breakthrough experiences of creating something new and unexpectedly wonderful.

Anyone who doesn't think they can be more creative in business will probably find that this book will help them remove some of those mental blocks.

In my case, I was so impressed with Mr. Cohen's book that I decided to use its principles in my new few briefing documents and assignments for The Billionaire Entrepreneurs' Master Mind.

Bravo, Mr. Cohen!

from the blog "IdeaFlow: Creativity and Innovation" --

A good metaphor is hard to resist, but a bad one is hard to forgive. We've all read those metaphor-based business books before and been burned when the metaphor breaks down after three chapters. So I did not want to like Andy Cohen's "Follow The Other Hand" - the "innovation as magic" metaphor seemed just too good to hold up.

Fortunately, the "innovation as magic" metaphor turned out to be of the irresistible sort.

The metaphor comes directly out of Cohen's experience as a young boy hanging around his magician great-uncle and the uncle's circle of magician friends. Yet when I spoke with him recently, Cohen recalled that he was uncertain that the "magic as innovation" metaphor would hold up if he tried to apply it in a book.

"I was concerned that people would have to get over the obstacle of negative connotations...[of] magic as something that misrepresents, that shifts."

He worked on the metaphor for a year before writing the book, and it "kept surprising me along the way....because the metaphor is different and unique in its own way, and I make it pay out."

The way it pays out is that Cohen equates "follow the other hand" with the not-uncommon innovation advice that one should challenge assumptions. And he offers magic as a concrete way readers can test the value of challenging assumptions.

The irresistible part of the metaphor is the part where he also talks about both magic and innovation as processes that make possible something that is seemingly impossible.

In showing the reader a little of how magic makes possible the seemingly impossible, Cohen lays out a structure for not just doing magic, but figuring out how to do it.

There's an important distinction there. Think of it as accepting that innovation doesn't just happen, but is a process. That's what Cohen is saying about magic -- it doesn't just happen, it's a deliberate process. He goes one step further and lays out exactly what that process is:

1. The first thing to do in creating an illusion is to identify an effect that you want to achieve.

2. Next, challenge assumptions - the main assumption being challenged, of course, is that the effect can't be done. In the process of challenging that assumption, you are forced to look at the possibilities.

3. Then you figure out a method.

4. And then, at the very last, you figure out the performance - that's the part where it *looks* like magic.

Cohen said his next project involves "exploring a straitjacket routine" which of course leads to an exploration of how we restrain ourselves. Now that I know Andy Cohen knows his way around a metaphor, I can't wait for that one!

I love it when an author comes up with a unique method to tell an old story. Andy Cohen has accomplished it in spades with Follow the other hand.

Combining his expertise as a business consultant with his hobby, Cohen pens a magical book that reveals how to think differently, increase your sales and generate new ideas. In short, the subject is how to gain a competitive edge.

The steps are old; the treatment is new. Using a fable of a company mired and stagnating, Cohen uses a magic metaphor to chart a fresh, energized path to growth and success.

The steps may be old, but by the "fable's" conclusion, you will be filled with more ideas and solutions that you will be able to implement.

I doff my hat to Andy Cohen. If you only have time to read one business strategy book, this is the book. It is short, well-written and insightful. Read it and you will have plenty of time to tackle your problems with a creative, renewed vigor.

People enjoy learning through stories. It seems to make the principles easier to understand and remember because the illuminating practical applications are already included with the principles to be learned. This book is a fictional story that is designed to teach the reader some very practical ideas.

Andy Cohen has combined his expertise as a business consultant with his skills as a magician to create an engaging fable that teaches the reader about freeing up perceptions and ideas in oneself and in one's team in order to create a fresh path to growth and success. Jonathan West, the protagonist in this story, is running a family olive oil business that has been in his family for generations.

Their traditional business model has them stuck in an unattractive and unsustainable place in the market. While wondering whether to ride with the business until it can't go any further or selling out now, a friend points him to a strange sort of business consultant, a magic shop owner who goes by the name of Merlin. The friend even provides a check for the first appointment. If the first meeting isn't worth the fee, just hand Merlin his check. If it is worthwhile, then the Jonathan should pay. The same goes for any subsequent meetings with Merlin. Do you think West ever uses the check?

I don't want to share the lessons learned because that is the point of the book, but you can imagine that they have to do with perception, freeing up one's mind to look at the effect one wants to create, and so forth. You know, how a magician works. The author even teaches the reader a few simple magic tricks you can use to amaze your friends and associates.

The book also includes a list of magic shops and books on magic that Cohen likes. That way you can build on the tricks in the book and keep your friends entertained.

The book made me appreciate the magic of business and the business of magic.

I love parables. When they are done well, they are some of the best reads you will ever have for a business topic. Andy Cohen does an outstanding job getting his message across in a very unique way.

I will remember this book (and its lessons) for a long time.

Find your magic!

This book will help you rethink everything in your life. Its an innoculation against negativism and paralysis.

Do you believe in Magic? If you've spent too many years in the business world, then perhaps jaded has overwritten the Magic.

In his new book, Andy Cohen has successfully put the magic back in business.

Through this well written fable, Andy will put a spell on you as he ingeniously weaves lessons from Merlin into effective, time honored principles of growing a business. He even throws in a few magic tricks for us all to try.

If you've ever enjoyed watching a magician cast his spell over an audience, you will find this book a page turner to the end.

Hats off to Andy...and Merlin for an entertaining presentation of both worlds...Bravo!!

This is an excellent book on how to approach innovative thinking in business and personally.

Great read! Unique and insightful book that makes you challenge your assumptions and thus attack business or personal decisions from a fresh perspective.