Customer Reviews

Rethink: A Business Manifesto for Cutting Costs and Boosting Innovation

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book on the recommendation of a colleague whom I have known for twenty years, both of us members of the Silicon Valley Hackers Conference started by Stewart Brand and now managed by Glen Tenney. When I came to buy the book and saw all of the very short, very empty, largely negative reviews, I was surprised. Trying to understand this, and having looked up the author's history, I speculate that a bunch of folks bought this book because of who the author is (Microsoft's business rethink strategist and innovator), and then did not have the contextual background to appreciate the story line.

Of course the books suffers some from being a book-length expansion of a core idea originally published in the Harvard Business Review, "The Next Revolution in Productivity" (free online at Phi Beta Iota), but from where I sit, 47 of the 53 reviews miss the whole point, and I am not that thrilled with the remaining six, but they did help me.

POINT NUMBER ONE: Businesses are eco-systems within eco-systems. The industrial era has piled up a mish-mash of stovepipes, conflicting chains of command, etcetera etcetera. Until Web 2.0 (I'm working on Web 4.0) there was not much one could do about it, but now Information Technology (IT) has reached a point where it CHANGES EVERYTHING. Bare bone zero sum reviews are a priority.

POINT NUMBER TWO: The Cloud is the Context. Location is now generally irrelevant, knowledge and trust and reliability of performance are higher values, and in fact forcing individual performers to center on a fixed point (desk, secretary, coffee pot) is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. However, you cannot send them out as lone rangers without giving them a suite of software & services (S+S).

As some of the author's critics observe, the idea that we spend too much time on the how and not enough on the what is not new. In military circles (war college level) it is called "strategic decrepitude," when flag officers confuse growing staffs, more PowerPoint briefs (sorry, Tuft has it right on this one), and body counts to be "progress." They actually have no clue.

POINT NUMBER THREE: The existing business processes were established in earlier eras, the legacy systems represent earlier generations of everything, and if you do not drill down deep and wide, you will not identify the true costs of everything, nor the hidden values.

At this point I want to list ten books that I have reviewed with the suggestion that anyone unsure about the value of this book read my summaries of the other books first, and then decide. These other books provide a useful context for this book--saying it is incomprehensible or whatever is like saying that the Redskin Playbook is incomprehensible to someone who is not a Redskin. So what?

Reflexive Practice: Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World
Knowledge As Design
Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization
The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education
The Hidden Wealth of Nations
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials)
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
Critical Path

So getting back to this review, here are some of my summative highlights:

+ Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) now being integrated, enhanced, and displaced by Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). The critical point here is that IT generally and the Cloud specifically make possible multiple radical process changes that reduce true costs (not just internal financial costs) and dramatically enhance outcome including return on investment and retained profit.

+ The book resonates with me because the author diplomatically touches on the fact, across various case studies, that many "leaders" are actually administrators (this is true of the $75 billion a year secret intelligence community that I served for three decades), and rather out of touch with reality, context, facts, whatever you want to call it. Lest the reader doubt me, let me cite Ben Gilad, one of the top commercial intelligence officers in the English language. He writes, in Business Blindspots (and this chapter is free online, just search for the quote below):

"One of the facts that amazed me the most over the past eight years while helping American and European firms improve their ability to read their markets, was how insulated top executives were from competitive reality. This is because they secure their competitive intelligence (market signals regarding change) at best through a close circle of 'trusted' personal sources, or at worst through those one-page news summary clippings. Top managers' information is invariably either biased, subjective, filtered or late."

In my experience helping 66+ countries directly these past twenty years, the same is true in government, and in the other six of the eight tribes of "intelligence" (decision-support): academia, civil society, law enforcement, media, military, and non-profit.

I will put this another way. Russell Ackoff (along with Jan Warfield, his online Wandwaver Solution is a must read) emphasized how so many organizations get in a rut striving to do the wrong things righter. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS BOOK. You have to get a grip on the truth of what you do and why and to what end, and then start doing the right things cheaper faster better NOT the WRONG things cheaper, faster, better.

+ I have a note that if the industrial era was about time management, the information era is about systems management--EVERYTHING including especially time and energy inputs, true costs, and outputs including impacts on all others and "residuals" or cascaded impacts and benefits (or costs) down the line.

+ The author is focused on software and human productivity is somewhat silent, but I absolutely see that this is a human-centric book that strives to show how IT can change the definition of what it means to be productive or profitable. This is about a QUANTUM IMPROVEMENT meaning not just a change in the how but a change in the NATURE of what is done.

+ Very lightly the author observes that any organization that does not keep current on its software is losing productivity. Beckman, the CEO author of Knowledge-Driven Organization (I sought him out and he impressed me hugely) is of the view that one must replace all information technology every two years for all if possible, but certainly for the information-intensive employees at least. Although I am critical of software pigs that suck up every bit of hardware progress before the hardware hits the marketplace, the point is valid.

The case studies are a fast read, and I am sympathetic to those that found the writing too cryptic or breezy or whatever. Some of the core repetitive points:

+ Connectivity matters. MUST KNOW how everything is connected to everything else in all directions (suppliers, integrators, etc.)

+ Context matters. Cannot ignore weather, fast-changing global government compliance idiosyncrasies, etcetera.

+ Predictability is precious. Stupid organizations do not think through the consequences of their actions or lack of action.

+ ING DIRECT and ECLIPSE (which reminds me of Jim Fallow's superb book Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel) are both worth study outside the quick pass that this book offers. Vern Rayburn is quoted, and this is a key point:

"Innovation and disruptive technologies can create new value propositions."

Combined with TRUST, which one Nobel Prize winner demonstrated lowers the cost of doing business, and based on the transparency that IT makes possible today, we are on to something here....such as Green to Gold, Cradle to Cradle, Ecological Economics, Natural Capitalism, Ecology of Commerce, Sustainable Design--all book titles that Amazon rather annoyingly will not allow me to link here, so use the Phi Beta Iota version of this review (which leads back here) to get all the links).

The Cranium case study is noteworthy to me because the success story includes the death of advertising. They used Starbucks presence, disc jockeys, and Amazon plus Barnes and Noble to reach millions at no cost. I personally believe that now that we have true cost of goods increasingly available at point of sale via handhelds and bar code queries, we are going to start seeing the death of advertising and the movement of markets based on consumer access to real-time sensible information.

The Amazon case study was certainly of interest to me. I delivered a standing room only closing briefing to the Amazon developer's conference a couple of years ago (link to briefing slides and compressed movie at Phi Beta Iota), and I learned things about Amazon that I did not know, which just deepened my conviction that one of these days Jeff Bezos has to get serious about being the hub for a World Game and Global Game, my two pet rocks (they bite). Tim O'Reilly, also a member of the Silicon Valley Hackers Conference, inspires sharp attention when he is quoted in the book saying "Amazon's a pretty serious dark horse." I agree. So is Nokia.

I am touched by learning that disabled veterans (we have tens of thousands of multiple amputees being concealed from the public by an Administration that prefers to hide the true cost of war to society) are earning money answering questions on Mechanical Turk, and this deepens my resolve to find a way to offer every disabled veteran the tools with which to connect to the world and earn money with their brains, eyes, ears, and whatever they have left in the way of limbs.

The Heat Map was not explained as well as I would have liked, this is one place where sharper graphics and greater coverage would have helped. The book ends by pointing to its website, and that is probably where I will end as well.

Rethink by Ric Merrifield is subtitled "a business manifesto for cutting costs and boosting innovation." This might make you think that the book is all about how to tweak and tune your current options to make them run more efficiently. Quite the opposite. Ric wants you to reevaluate your entire organization and come up with ways to do things DIFFERENTLY - which will save you money and help your final product reach its aims more effectively.

This mantra is repeatedly constantly in the book. Yes, start by looking at HOW you do things. You send FAXes. You answer phone calls with orders. Then step back and think about WHAT you are accomplishing. You are distributing status updates. You are bringing in orders. You could do those things far more efficiently if you just focused on those "whats" and thought up different ways of how they could be done.

The techniques he uses to help you out of your current box are similar to many other self-help books. You build a grid with four parts - high value / low performance, high value / high performance, low value / low performance and low value / high performance. The HV/LP are the ones you must actively fix. The HV/HP you can luckily just monitor. The LV/LP should be outsourced or eliminated. You're not doing them well anyway, and you don't really need to waste the time. The LV/HP is a waste of resources - people are doing really well things that don't need to be done. Sic those people on something more valuable.

There are good real-life examples in the worlds of Amazon, jet planes, online banking and other areas. You hear about specific issues they faced and how they were overcome. Cranium, the fun board game, went through numerous rethinking rounds before it reached success.

In many of the examples you hear a common theme - that company management was resistant to an idea which later proved to be quite successful. In Cranium, they thought nobody would want to play with clay. In Amazon, people resisted the idea of showing used books right alongside the new ones. The company plowed ahead with the risky idea and found success.

There are also examples of tiny changes making a big difference. For example, in one of Cranium's board games they had used a traditional hourglass as a timer. Players would nag each other during their turn, tapping the hourglass and taunting them about time running out. They made a tiny change to the game - changing the hourglass into a musical timer. Suddenly players were now encouraging each other, encouraging them to finish in time.

I've seen that some other reviewers found the writing style to be "dry". Maybe it's because I've read numerous business books at this point, but this book is NOT dry :) I can recommend several books for people to read that are highly respected and VERY dry. Yes, the tone isn't cutesy and light with examples involving puppies and kittens, but I did find the information useful.

If I had a complaint, it's that the examples all skew towards rather large businesses. Most businesses out there are small businesses, and those small business owners definitely need this assistance. However, it's hard for a small florist or a website owner to relate to a lot of these examples. I think if even a few of the examples could have been brought down to a smaller size, it would have been extremely helpful.

Great book! Re-think provides the clarity into business conversations to focus on the What vs. How. The premise of the book is that people and organizations fall into the "How Trap" all too often focusing on "How" to accomplish something, vs. really focusing and more importantly agreeing on the "What" that is needed. I have been practicing What vs. How conversations with great results. I have found it to be an effective tool for getting out of the weeds, especially in conversations with technical folks, and driving more engaging conversations with customers. People are often enamored with the shiny object problem, and elegant technology driven solutions, and all too often lose sight of what they are attempting to accomplish. I highly recommend reading re-think, and putting the principles into practice - results will follow. View it as a tool for framing engaging conversations and reining in sideways dialogs.

Length:: 9:54 Mins

"Rethink" arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago and after completing it, overall, I would give it a thumbs up.

For me, the second half of the book was the most interesting part. The case studies were good, and I felt they brought the book's thesis to life. While I found myself thinking about core competencies and value curves when I was reading the book, I could also see how creating 'what' heat maps would integrate quite nicely with other business frameworks like these. They all fit together.

Looking back at my experience of reading the book, my favorite chapter was the 'Key Concepts' chapter. Personally I feel that all too often, the authors of business books spend too much effort expanding a single insight to the requisite thickness, only to omit a proper summary or useful cheat sheet that the reader can go back to for easy reference. The 'Key Concepts' chapter also gives you a glimpse into the level of detail and complexity that these 'what' heat maps actually deliver in practice.

So, if your organization is seeking to escape the 'how trap' and refocus its energies on identifying the 'what' changes that will have the greatest impact, I encourage you to check out "Rethink" by Ric Merrifield.

There are already plenty of reviews on this topic which discuss the reader's impressions. Since, at least at the time I am writing this review, you can't search this book on Amazon, I thought it would be useful to list the contents of this book (chapters and their subheadings). Here goes:
CH 1: How the "How" Trap Is Trapping You
- The Cases of the Zip Code Bandit and the Laggard Laptop
- If Not Now, When?
CH 2: The Thinking Behind Rethinking
- Unit of Analysis: The Task
- Unit of Analysis: The Worker
- Unit of Analysis: The Department
- Unit of Analysis: The Process
- The New Unit of Analsis: The "What"
CH 3: First -- Identify the "Whats" That are Truly Valuable
- Newman's Own, Where More Than Food Has Value
- How to Rethink Your "Whats"
CH 4: Second -- Know What You Are (and Aren't) Good At
- Target, Where the Supply Chain "Whats" are King
- Burgerville, Where the Flavor Goes In and the Garbage Stays Put
- An Electronics Giant That's Got the Juice
- How to Rethink Your "Whats"
CH 5: Third -- Make (and Break) Connections
- Merck: Beyond the Moat
- How to Rethink Your "Whats"
CH 6: Fourth -- Understand What Can (and Can't) be Predicted
- JetBlue: Storm Warnings
- How to Rethink Your "Whats"
CH 7: Fifth -- Unravel (and Follow) the Rules
- Matching Laws and "Whats"
- How to Rethink Your "Whats"
CH 8: Revolutionary Rethinking at ING DIRECT
- ING FIRECT did What?
CH 9: Rethinking at Eclipse
- Eclipse Aviation did What?
CH 10: Rethinking at Cranium
- Cranium did What?
CH 11: Morph Again and Again
- P&G Soars by Morphing its Innovation "Whats"
Key Concepts
- Conventional "How" Business Views
- What is, and is Not, a "What"
- Reading a Heat Map
- Getting to the List of "Whats"
- A Bit More about Level 1 Maps
- Level 2 Maps

I wonder. Merrifield writes about totally qualitative and subjective topics related to innovating a company. Is this perhaps a reaction against the quantitative trends of the last 20 or so years? These have been dominated by the seminal 6 Sigma, kaizen, re-engineering and other buzzwords. 6 Sigma and kaizen (ie. continuous improvement) were and are notable for the emphasis on many and repeated measurements of processes, where these might be in a factory for making a widget, or more generally for some type of output like a service.

Others have remarked on Merrifield, but there seems to have been relatively little attention paid to this aspect. Without gainsaying the other reviews, you might also profitably regard the book as a useful reminder to sometimes stand back and re-evaluate ab initio the basics of what your firm does well. Assuming of course that it already does something well. And if it does not, maybe all the more reason for attending to this book.

I suspect that this could have been an excellent 10-15 page paper. But there is just not enough information for a 212 page book.

The basic idea is to concentrate on the "what" you want to accomplish and not get bogged down in the "how to trap". This idea is not new. Most goal setting programs and many coaching programs stress the idea of getting clear on the end results you want and then focusing on what needs to happen in order to realize those results. The "how to" in these programs is always secondary to the what.

There is some value in the book but I am not sure that it is worth the effort. In order to clarify the concepts, Merrifield introduces some real business examples. In my opinion some of the examples selected actually muddy the waters. One example was the development of the 787 Dreamliner by Boeing Aircraft. While they concentrated on the "what" they failed to adequately monitor all their sub-contract suppliers. So they tried to focus on the "what" but failed miserably in the execution.

Another similar story was Eclipse Aviation. Merrifield cites them as an example of innovation by focusing on the "What". But the execution was still poor and the founder got ousted. Why cite examples that don't work?

There are other stories that seem like filler. There is an entire page devoted to many different versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet. To me, this only served as a distraction. I found far too many distractions from the central theme of the book.

In my view, the book is not well thought out and certainly not delivered in a clear, concise, how to manner.

I liked the concepts but the execution fell short.

Ric Merrifeld's Rething, is a decent book. Ric firs establishes what he calls the how trap. The fact that companies and managers are stuck in how to accomplish goals rather than in determining what they are really trying to achieve.
An example would be the way many retailers fire knowledgeable clerks because they cost more, leaving them with a leaner cost structure, but no competitive advantage over their competitors. Since the goal was to improve their Net Income, they improved, temporarily. However if they had really asked what they wanted they would have answered to be the best most efficient operator. Then they would have focused on drawing customers and cut costs elsewhere. Somewhere where it wouldn't effect their other goals.
He attempts to approach business solutions from the "what" perspective. What, are you trying to accomplish. Why are you trying to accomplish it? What are your goals? etc. And then he suggests that people use the whats to drive their hows.
The book is fine for what it is, and differs from many current approaches like six sigma, but I didn't feel that it was that revolutionary. Moreover, I found it a little dry and boring, although it had length going for it. Considering its length I guess it didn't have to be that interesting to maintain its readers, but I felt the writing could have been stronger.

This books thesis is focus on "what" you are going to do before working out "how" you are going to do it, which is the first step in innovative thinking/brainstorming and problem solving. I've just saved 2 hours of your time and the cover price of the book.

The book is details anecdotal case studies of the of this concept - which is not new and does not contain new tool to help with this process. Content could have been covered in a 20 page paper and did not need a 200+ page book.

There a better books by Edward De Bono Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step (Perennial Library), Think!: Before It's Too Late and Six Thinking Hats on this topic.

If you're thinking about starting a business, have a business and are looking for new ideas or have a business in trouble, then this just might be the book for you. First off, the book isn't overly long and it's very well written, so reading it won't tax you and the examples are intriguing enough to keep you interested. In fact, I found reading Rethink to be kind of fun, which one would not think a girl who spends most of her time delving into cookbooks would, but I did.

Mr. Merrick believes that a lot of businesses get bogged down in the "How" or how to do something and forget about the "What" or what is it the should or could be doing. Mr. Merrick of Microsoft fame (I'm a Mac person, but I won't hold that against him). He believes many businesses would profit by rethinking what they've been doing and I can see where that would apply in one's personal life as well. He also points out that businesses must be able to adapt to change and gives examples. Companies that are willing to change when they have to will survive when the business climate changes.

Again, I enjoyed this book more than I ever thought I would. I enjoyed reading the examples, especially about Amazon and Ing. I'll be passing the book along to Hubby Dub to read, because he likes these kinds of books, but he can't abide dry and boring writing. He won't find any of that here.