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 »

My twelve year journey with this company – seeing it grow its customer base, and product range, from nothing to be quite substantial – has been one of great learning for me.

Of my greatest areas of learning has been with respect to others within in the company.  I have struggled, at times, due to my lack of prior experience and preparation.

For some time I’ve been pondering the apparent paradoxes across a variety of books and other materials I’ve read – with respect to the concept of Strengths and Weaknesses.

Where I have read this, it has been with respect to an individual’s own strengths and weaknesses – however I believe that the pointers that I’ve learnt are also applicable at an organisational level (where a strength is more commonly termed “competitive advantage”).

After quite a bit of reflection, it currently* seems that to be truly strong, an individual (or a company) needs to have the right combination of all three of the following factors:

* I say “currently”, as it seems that the learning journey I am on almost guarantees that my view will become even more nuanced in future.

read more »

Picked this book up some time ago, perhaps after seeing Daniel Pink give this presentation of the importance of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.

Read it back then, and have re-read recently as I’ve been casting my mind forward to the next recruitment initiatives.

The Book	What we thought
“Drive – the surprising truth about what motivates us” by Daniel Pink	Well worth it for us

.

The content of this book is very much along the lines of the talk at TED – which  means that, if you are not aligned with the belief that Intrinsic Motivation is more important than Extrinsic Motivation (after watching the lecture), then the book will probably do nothing further for you.

read more »

Back around November 2009 read an article by Roger Martin promoting his new book, and posted about it here.

The book arrived and I read it some time ago, but some developments more recently prompted me to pick it up again.  Given the reliance our company has on product innovation, it was worth reading (even a 2nd time).

The Book	What we thought
“The Design of Business – Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage” by Roger Martin	Not a large book, but packs a punch

read more »

In some ways, I believe that it is.

I’ll spoil the punch-line -  eighteen months ago I posted about how 10,000 hours of “dedicated practice” are required to reach true mastery of any discipline.

This book is one of several that take up this theme, and which were referenced in the news articles linked in the post above.  Other books include “Outliers”, plus many others we have not read.

The Book	What we thought
“Talent is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin	Well worth reading for greater depth than the articles quoted in the post above

read more »

Read this one late in 2010 – so this is a delayed post (delayed by a number of things, including the floods).

The Book	What we thought
“Strategic Intuition” by William Duggan	Worth a Read

read more »

Beginning in early March, I have been progressively posting about each of our core values.

A.  Why focus on Values?

To provide context – i.e. to provide the reason why we do what we do.

Increasingly in future, we will be referring back to these core values to provide us a grounding as our business grows – they will define the basis for our culture (the way we do things around here).

It is through reference to these values that we will be able to rapidly grow our number of clients with only a relatively small growth in the size of our team.

read more »

For those who found value in the previous post about the 10,000 hour prerequisite required to achieve “Guru” status in your chosen field, there was a related article in the AFR recently.

The article “Open your mind to growth” (15th September) was written to promote the release of the book “Mindest: the new psychology of success” by Stanford psychology professor, Carol Dweck.

read more »

As noted previously, I have challenged all employees (and a few absent shareholders might participate, as well) to select an area of value to the company and undertake (in that area) to progressively develop their capability till they reach “Guru Status”.

That’s why we found these three articles to be of great interest.

”A star is Made” by Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt
New York Times.   7th May 2006
(note, Dubner and Levitt are from Freakonomics)

“Success is all in the mind” by Shelley Gare
The Australian.  24th January 2009

“A wealth of explanations for earthly riches” by Sue Halpern
AFR.  7th August 2009

For employees, there’s copies of all 3 articles saved for each in our eLibrary:
L:\Market Information\By Issue\Management

read more »