Left on Red: How to Ignite, Leverage and Build Visionary Organizations [Hardcover]

Bill Glynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2008

In Left on Red, venture capitalist and business innovator Bill Glynn reveals how visionary thinkers and risk-takers build great companies by doing the opposite of the expected. Today?s coolest and most successful businesses?including Google, Apple, and YouTube?were built by people who break the rules and bring radical ideas to life. If you?re an entrepreneur or an executive, this book gives you the inspiration and the guidance to bring your radical ideas to life?and change the world in the process.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book provides inspiration and guidance for entrepreneurs and executives" (Strategy Magazine, December 2008)

From the Inside Flap

What does it take to build a company capable of changing the world? Constant innovation, and ideation? An obsessive, almost insane sense of urgency? Business Velocity and IQ? In Left on Red, venture capitalist and recognized innovator Bill Glynn presents an insider's view of the way great businesses are built.

Visionary, game-changing companies like Google and Apple don't just appear out of nowhere. Instead, they are built by maverick leaders and business commandos willing to throw the rules out the window and disrupt the status quo. They don't just "think outside the box"—for them, there is no box at all. With great personal, financial, and social risk, true innovators throughout history have overcome the most complex constraints society can throw at them. Naysayers, deal prevention teams, and the social order, like red lights, are meant to slow or stop progressive movement. Taking a left turn at a red light or driving right through it—like real innovation—is dangerous, a little crazy, and certainly a lonely sport not for the weak-willed. But if you have the guts and smarts to try it, the rewards are well worth it.

Most companies stifle and discourage their most creative employees and leaders. Only today's best companies constantly and perpetually seek out visionary employees, encourage ideation, and use every means necessary to improve their business and products. Those companies know how to build a business environment that promotes innovation and rewards risk-taking. Left on Red shows how they do it, revealing the way today's best business leaders implant innovation and change into the very DNA of their businesses.

Corporations are inherently risk averse, yet taking risks and breaking rules is the only way to truly innovate and compete. If you're an entrepreneur or an executive, Left on Red provides the insight, ideas, and examples you need to build the kind of culture of innovation and creation that's necessary to survive the systems and markets meant to keep you and your team bottled up.

Those people who change the world are mavericks and free thinkers who choose to swim against the current, cut against the grain, or turn Left on Red. For anyone who has a vision and wants to build a business that's unique, exciting, and different than anything that's come before, this book will show you the most direct route to innovation. It will teach you how to overcome red light people and systems along the way. Left on Red points out the obstacles and people that stand in the way of progress and warns that someone will end up being crushed under the weight of change. Will it be you or them?

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (June 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470230231
• ISBN-13: 978-0470230237
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,243,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No Greenlight for "Left on Red", July 26, 2008

By 

Thomas M. Loarie (Danville, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Left on Red: How to Ignite, Leverage and Build Visionary Organizations (Hardcover)

"Red lights are meant to slow or stop movement. Taking a left on a red is dangerous, a little crazy, and certainly a lonely sport not for the weak-willed. If you have the guts and smarts to try it, the rewards are well worth it."

I happened to hear author Bill Glynn being interviewed on national radio when his "Left on Red" was released and was compelled to put "Left on Red" at the top of my "must read" list. Glynn, "one of the world's top fifteen innovators" and venture capitalist, has written what I would call a "breezy" book (215 pages of the largest font I have seen in years) based on his experience and observations. The book's cover promises to provide an insider's view and examples of: 1) how great businesses are built; 2) how to create cultures of innovation and creation necessary to survive the systems and markets meant to keep individuals and teams bottled up; and 3) what is the quickest route to innovation.

Topics include The Visionary (Business is War), The Future (Not the New Media - the New Medium), The Art of a Deal (The Two-by-Four and Return on Innovation), and the Strength of Social Capital (Shaking Hands and Kissing Babies and Ideation). The format he uses begins with his observations and examples, followed by Tactical Takeaways (a summary with bullet points), and an Insider's Viewpoint (comments by various innovator's).

For me, the book was a great disappointment. Before I go on, I will admit to a bias as I come from the life science industry which is a world apart from Glynn's very fast paced 5.0 existence. The upfront investment and potential human costs in medical research and commercial development of new medical therapies follows a very different paradigm for innovators.

With the exception of a few Insider's Viewpoints and some aspects of the Strength of Social Capital, the book offers the reader very little other than tiresome glib comments and clichés. Glynn notes that colleagues have commented on his fast-paced style and his ability to get to the endgame before anyone else. I suspect "Left on Red" reflects his overall approach to life.

Glynn is critical of the books, "Who Moved the Cheese" and "One Minute Manager," believing they belong on the shelf in a bookstore. For me, "Red on Left" makes a threesome.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Intense Call to Action, May 19, 2008

By 

Greg A. Ray (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Left on Red: How to Ignite, Leverage and Build Visionary Organizations (Hardcover)

Left on Red is an intense call to action for leaders, managers, investors, and innovators at all levels. Whether you are looking for inspiration, validation, or just a dose of courage, Bill Glynn runs you down a compelling path of the mindset needed to win big in today's hyper-competitive environment. He also demonstrates how what-if thinking along the entire value chain of most any product or service can create bigger opportunities for everyone involved. This book is for anyone who is in the business of thinking ahead, or should be.

I am definitely recommending it to my network and buying it for my partners and direct reports.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More Wall Street brilliance, February 11, 2009

By 

Robert Tyrka (newington ct) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Left on Red: How to Ignite, Leverage and Build Visionary Organizations (Hardcover)

If you think that recent events have vindicated Wall Street's vehement defense of privatized profits and socialized losses, then this is the book for you.