Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

The summer break was a good time for a bit of rest and reflection, especially given the down-and-up year we had in 2011.

Naturally for me, part of this time was spent with a couple of books borrowed from the growing office library – a couple others much harder going than this one here:

The Book	What we thought
“Great by Choice Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All” by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen	More food for thought

Having previously read “Built to Last”, “Good to Great” and “How the Mighty Fall” by Jim (and others) I was not disappointed with a few more points of insight the authors have added with this latest piece of analysis. read more »

Had almost reached the end of this book and was thinking that (whilst it did contain some worthwhile information), it did not totally do it for me….

The Book	What we thought
“Know-How: the 8 skills that separate people who perform from those who don’t” by Ram Charan	Solid, not stellar – but the letter’s worth reading!

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…and then I reached his “Letter to a Future Leader”, included at the end of the book (p265) …

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In ”The Profit Principle” the authors make the challenging statement that:

“The only reason to go into business is to make money. …
If you’re lucky, you’ll make that money doing something you love.  If you’re really lucky, it will also lead to some greater good – but don’t let delusions of grandeur get in the way of your profit and loss statements”
(p92 in my copy, my emphasis added)

This statement, on the one hand, is very sensible – but, on the other hand, is a direct challenge to many others who empathise that a business must have a purpose that is more than just making money, if it is to be sustainable, and successful:

(a)  Jim Collins calls this “more than profits”;

(b)   Daniel Pink talks about the importance of Purpose.

(c)  Jason Baptiste notes that if entrepreneurs “got into entrepreneurship first and foremost for the money” then they “are in the wrong business”

Hence there is an apparent paradox between these two points of view.

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Have seen this posted about before, but never taken the time to look – it was an Anthill article “The best three-minute video about leadership you will ever see” that prompted me to hit play.

A bit weird and wacky, but relevant to us – even in an industry that could be thought of as boring:

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Not sure about “the best” tagline – but this video is very instructional, and entertaining at the same time.

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In long-hand, you will be known as our:

General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants

That’s a bit of a mouthful, so we have shortened it to a variety of titles used on this blog and elsewhere:
1)  GM Software
2)  Chief Software Engineer
3)  Director of the Product Development “Factory”

I would stress that all three aspects of the role are important.

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