Read How Online

Authors: Dov Seidman

How

Table of Contents

 

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Preface

PROLOGUE

 

Part I - HOW WE HAVE BEEN, HOW WE HAVE CHANGED

 

CHAPTER 1 - From Land to Information

 

LINES OF COMMUNICATION
GETTING FLATTENED

 

CHAPTER 2 - Technology’s Trespass

 

THE TIES THAT BIND US
DISTANCE UNITES US
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
THE AGE OF TRANSPARENCY
THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
THE INFORMATION JINNI IS OUT OF THE LAMP

 

CHAPTER 3 - The Journey to HOW

 

JUST DO IT
THE CERTAINTY GAP
THE LIMITATIONS OF RULES
OUTBEHAVING THE COMPETITION
HOW WE GO FORWARD

 

Part II - HOW WE THINK

CHAPTER 4 - Playing to Your Strengths

 

HELP
YOU CAN JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER
LOOKING OUT FOR NUMBER TWO
THE EVOLUTION OF WHAT IS VALUABLE
BELIEVE IT

 

CHAPTER 5 - From Can to Should

 

RULES AS PROXIES
DANCING WITH RULES
ON THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE
UNLOCKING SHOULD
RISK AND REWARD

 

CHAPTER 6 - Keeping Your Head in the Game

 

DISTRACTION
SMALL LAPSES, LARGE COSTS
DISSONANCE
DOING CONSONANCE
FRICTION
PUTTING IT IN THE WHOLE
KEEPING YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME

 

Part III - HOW WE BEHAVE

CHAPTER 7 - Doing Transparency

 

BEYOND PROXIES AND SURROGATES
ICU, UC ME
THE MARKET DEFINES YOU
SAY YOU ARE SORRY
INTERPERSONAL TRANSPARENCY
SIG, DON’T ZAG

 

CHAPTER 8 - Trust

 

THE SOFT MADE HARD
HOW HIGH IS THE CEILING?
GOING ON A TRIP
TRIPPING
DOING TRUST
TRUST IS THE DRUG
TRUST, BUT VERIFY

 

CHAPTER 9 - Reputation, Reputation, Reputation

 

REPUTATION IN A WIRED WORLD
REPUTATIONAL CAPITAL
MISMANAGING REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
A SECOND CHANCE

 

Part IV - HOW WE GOVERN

CHAPTER 10 - Doing Culture

 

THE SUM OF ALL HOWS
THE SPECTRUM OF CULTURE
THE FOUR TYPES OF CULTURE
FIVE HOWS OF CULTURE

 

CHAPTER 11 - The Case for Self-Governing Cultures

 

SELF-GOVERNANCE ON THE SHOP FLOOR
FREEDOM IS JUST ANOTHER WORD
TAKING CULTURE FOR A TEST-DRIVE
CLOSING GAPS
VALUES IN ACTION
A JOURNEY TO CULTURE
WHY SELF-GOVERNANCE IS THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS

 

CHAPTER 12 - The Leadership Framework

 

LEADERSHIP
WALKING THE TALK
THE FIRST FIVE HOWS OF LEADERSHIP
CIRCLES IN CIRCLES (A THOUGHT)
THE LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK, CONTINUED

 

Afterword

Hows Matter

Acknowledgements

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Copyright © 2007 by Dov Seidman. All rights reserved.

 

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

 

Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico.

 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at
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http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

 

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

 

Seidman, Dov.

How : why how we do anything means everything . . . in business (and in life) /

Dov Seidman.

p. cm.

“Published simultaneously in Canada.”

Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN : 978-0-470-57103-3

1. Success in business. 2. Business ethics. 3. Values. 4. Organizational effectiveness. 5. Technological innovations. I. Title.

HF5386.S4159 2007

650.1—dc22

2006103097

 

To my mother, Sydelle, for my first and lasting sense that HOW matters

 

To my wife, Maria, for the HOW that matters most to me

Preface

This is a HOW book, not a
how-to
book. What’s the difference between
how-to
and HOW? Everything.

In the twenty-first century, it isn’t what you do that matters most. In fact, if you line up all the winners in business today, you will notice that few win anymore by what they make or do. If you make something new (or just better, faster, and cheaper), the competition quickly comes up with a way to make it still better and deliver it at the same or even lower price. Customers instantly compare price, features, quality, and service, effectively rendering almost every what a commodity.

This is not just true of businesses; to a large degree, the same holds true for the way individuals get ahead and accomplish their goals. Specialized knowledge or expertise differentiates you for a moment in time, but it likely won’t carry any of us through an entire career. Changing jobs, companies, and even industries now often involves adapting knowledge skills to a new set of conditions.

Yet, the drive for differentiation—personal, professional, and organizational—lies at the heart of all our business endeavors (and many of our personal ones as well). We all still want to stand out, to be bold, to be uniquely valuable, to distinguish ourselves from the competition, to do things others can’t copy, and to be number one. We always will. But in a commoditized world, we are running out of areas in which to do so.

There is one area where tremendous variation and variability still exist, however. One place that we have not yet analyzed, quantified, systematized, or commoditized, one which, in fact,
cannot
be commoditized or copied: the realm of human behavior—
how
we do what we do.

Think about it. If you make stronger connections and collaborate more intensely with your co-workers, you can win. If you reach out and inspire more people throughout your global network, your productivity skyrockets. If you keep promises 99 percent of the time and your competitor keeps promises only 8 out of 10 times, you can gain critical advantage in the marketplace. If your interactions with others deliver a more meaningful customer experience, you engender a loyalty that brings them back again and again. When it comes to
how
you do what you do there is tremendous variation, and where a broad spectrum of variation exists, opportunity exists. The tapestry of human behavior is so diverse, so rich, and so global that it presents a rare opportunity,
the opportunity to outbehave the competition
.

The world today, powered by vast networks of information, connects and reveals us in ways we have only just begun to comprehend. Groundbreaking technological advances have put us in intimate contact with others about whom we often know little and understand even less. As a result, many of the tried-and-true ways of working together and getting ahead no longer apply. These same advances have also given us unprecedented power to see through the walls of organizations and evaluate not just what they do, but how they do it. I’ve come to believe that the innovations of the twenty-first century will come not just in new products, services, or business models and strategies, but in new ways to create value and differentiation, innovations in HOW. The best, most certain, and most enduring path to success and significance in these dramatically new conditions lies not through raw talent and skill, but through behavior over time. This book illuminates the power and possibility of this very simple idea.

Who am I to be telling you this? I’m a businessman, and I’ve come to understand this after a 13-year entrepreneurial journey that has given me hands-on experience working with people from the shop floor to the boardroom as founder and CEO of LRN Corporation, a company that helps global enterprises of all sizes learn to win through HOW. My journey started modestly enough, as many such business journeys do. In college and graduate school, I studied philosophy, and then went to law school. After I graduated, I spent time working in a private law firm. Toiling away in the law library, it dawned on me that someone somewhere had researched the very issue I was working on, and inevitably knew more about it than I did (which was zero). I saw an opportunity to make legal knowledge accessible to a large number of people in business at a low price, so I built a network of the finest legal minds that could deliver expert knowledge in a far more efficient, democratic way. In short time, the business flourished, and we found ourselves helping some of the largest companies in the world confront their legal challenges and manage their risk.

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