Letter
from Lhasa, number 343. Forget Strategy. Get Results
by
Roberto Abraham Scaruffi
Tobin, M., Forget Strategy. Get Results. Radical
Management Attitudes That Will Deliver Outstanding Success, Wiley, 2014.
(Tobin 2014).
Michael Tobin
This a book about
thinking differently. One needs constantly rethinking the way one does what one
does. You always operate in adverse waters. For success, you need to think
differently and to find inventive solutions.
Even if some fear is
normal and immanent, it is better to act as one were fearless, so to remove
whatever fear. Usually, people fear what does not exist or what they do not
know. So, appreciate the excitement and take the lesson from whatever
situation. Danger is real while fear is a choice, a paralyzing choice. Consequently,
it needs to be eliminated.
The author presents his
four freedoms for business.
1. The freedom to have a
vision. A vision is better than a strategy. A strategy may even be absolutely
useless and harmless. A vision is liberating and it is adaptive relatively to
changing contexts.
2. The freedom to do
things differently. “Best practice” creates patterns are ways for not solving
problems, for replicating them. Innovative ways create and exploit new
chances.
3. The freedom that technology
offers. Technology is now ubiquitous and assists those who know how to exploit
it even only as simple users.
4. The freedom to trust
your instincts and your staff.
Flexibility. Vision is
flexible, while strategy is rigid and static. When you have nothing to prove
anymore, and you are beyond the fear of being broken in front of other people,
you are ready to absorb new ideas.
Facing unhappy
situations, there are basically three options: love it, leave it, change it.
There is also a fourth one, do nothing, although for one going on disliking
one’s own situation be really not a great choice. Of course, in extreme cases,
no one of this options works. In such a case, one has to pursue other,
decidedly more difficult perhaps, options. It is quite different if the
problems are inside you or they are stick on you from external omnipotent
forces. In the former case, you are part of the problem[s]. In the latter, you
have to deal with apparently unsolvable problems elsewhere created and made to
appear as your problems. They are ‘yours’ only because they are made to happen
to you while not really depending on you.
Failure is part of life
and of business. Anyway, don’t let you to be influenced by what other people
think or seem to think. In addition, between success and failure there is a
wide range of possibilities. Failure is not bad by itself. It is only bad the
inability to learn from it. Don’t worry too much about mistakes if you can
learn from them.
The fear of failure may
be of some help but not when it paralyzes you. In such a case, it transforms
from a normal and physiological anxiety into absolute paralysis, failure
without even trying, or apparently trying although actually pursuing
fiasco.
The greatest successes
come from the faith to take risk, more than from business skills.
The best way to sell a
product is to sell yourself. Selling yourself is the beginning of everything.
Only faith drives you through
difficult times, when everything seems lost. Faith in what? Faith... ...Just
faith!
A vicious circle may be
broken by extremely atypical means. Sometimes, it is just a question of
fortune. When you act, fortune will assist you!
Use adverse experiences
for creating and strengthening your fortitude.
In business, one needs
to have fun from what one be doing.
Tobin, M., Forget Strategy. Get Results. Radical
Management Attitudes That Will Deliver Outstanding Success, Wiley, 2014.
