In How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Kawasaki urges his reader to create disruption for "fun and profit." The book is organized into four parts: Lay the Groundwork, Do the Right Things, Do Things Right, and Push the Envelope. Within each of the four parts, Kawasaki includes interviews with various corporate executives who share their real-world experiences. He offers hundreds of examples to illustrate his ideas about non-conformist strategies which will help achieve a competitive advantage.
In his more recent book, Rules for Revolutionaries, Kawasaki asserts that, inorder to break down the barriers to innovation, one must "command like a king." That is to say, have steadfast convictions and then communicate those convictions to others with the power of faith and self-assurance. When asked to explain what a champion is, Jack Dempsey replied that a champion "gets up when he can't." Such determination is admirable, of course, but not always prudent. (What if David had decided to wrestle Goliath?) Agreeing with Jeffrey Gitomer, Kawasaki insists that customers must become "evangelists", not merely buyers of whatever one sells. Sustainable customer loyalty is the objective, not satisfaction with a single transaction. The same is true when one must generate support to overcome resistance to change. Two mistakes must be avoided: in Barbara Tuchman's words, "assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting contrary signs", and, "the refusal to benefit from experience." Only by being alert to "contrary signs" while benefiting from experience can anyone hope to prevail.
Kawasaki has sometimes been described as "controversial", usually by those who feel obliged to defend the status quo. Kawasaki challenges all assumptions and premises (including his own), convinced that agility, mobility, and hostility are essential to success in the competitive marketplace. His is a pyrotechnical mind combined with street smarts and unlimited energy. He enjoys creating "disruption"...especially when it creates profits. Read his books, follow (if you can) the way his mind works, and then go have some profitable fun yourself.
