Pile On Motivation

Join 21K other subscribers

Tag: Great By Choice

  • 10X organizations and their Fanatic Discipline

    10X organizations known as 10Xers in Jim Collins’s book Great by Choice are consistently high performing companies who are extremely consistent in action, adhering to strict values, goals, performance standards and methods. They are relentless, monomaniacal and unyielding in focusing on their quests.

    Such organizations exhibit Fanatic Discipline leading to what is called the 20 Mile March wherein they set clear and consistent goals and targets and are not enticed to aim higher even during good times..

  • Three Characteristics of Leaders who exemplify Level 5 ambition

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book Great By Choice , stated below are the three defining characteristics of Level 5 leaders who are indeed Great By Choice..

    1. Productive Paranoia – to keep looking out for UNKNOWNS from time to time
    2. Fanatic Discipline 
    3. Empirical Creativity – Try to have first hand experience before believing facts

     

  • Why hyper vigilance is needed in an infinite game?

    An infinite game player exhibits “Productive Paranoia” to stay hyper vigilant even when the situation seems rosy red.

    Failing to stay hyper vigilant by zooming in and out to disruption can land up a player into extinction in the near future.

    Kodak Camera failed to understand the disruption of the digital camera.

    MySpace failed to preempt Facebook.

    There are numerous such examples where a once successful player went into extinction for not being able to preempt the future led by disruption.

    Adopted from Simon Sinek’s book The Infinite Game and Jim Collins’s book Great By Choice

  • The 5 stages of decline of great companies

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book titled “How the Mighty Fall”

    The 5 stages of decline of great companies are:

    1. Stage 1 – Hubris born of the success
    2. Stage 2 – Undisciplined pursuit of more
    3. Stage 3 – Denial of Risk and Peril
    4. Stage 4 – Grasping for salvation
    5. Stage 5 – Capitulation to irrelevance or Death

     

  • Creating huge margins of safety to keep playing the infinite game

    The infinite game of business is where the players are unknown , time in unlimited and the rules are unknown.

    The goal of players in an infinite game is to keep playing the game.

    10X companies or high performing companies in the infinite game of business , exercise productive paranoia , empirical creativity and fanatic discipline to create huge margins of safety.

    In the infinite game of business when the tide is rough these huge margins of safety safeguard a high performer being knocked out.During good times for luck to help these high performers derive high return on luck firstly they have to survive the rough times via the huge margins of safety.

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book titled “Great By Choice”

  • Asymmetry between good luck and bad luck

    The interesting asymmetry between good luck and bad luck is that:

    A single stroke of good luck , no matter how big the break , cannot by itself make a great company.

    But a single stroke of extremely bad luck that slams you on the Death Line , or an extended sequence of bad luck events that creates a catastrophic outcome , can terminate the quest.

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book titled “Great By Choice”

  • How high performers turn bad luck into good results?

    High performers shine when clobbered by setbacks and misfortune.

    These are ones who use difficulty as a catalyst to deepen purpose . recommit to values . increase discipline and respond with creativity.

    They heighten productive paranoia and use resilience to overcome all obstacles to reach greatness.

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book titled “Great By Choice”

  • How Gary Kildall’s Digital Research missed the bus?

    Gary Kildall and his company Digital Research had come up with an advanced operating system DR DOS for shipping to IBM PC’s.

    Due to a glitch in Microsoft’s operating system , IBM had become eager to sign a contract with Digital Research for shipping it’s OS in all IBM PC’s.

    But due to lack in discipline Digital Research missed the bus and could not become the modern day Microsoft.

    Unlike Digital Research 10X companies do not make such mistakes and ensure high return on luck when presented with such golden opportunities.

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book titled “Great By Choice”

  • When AMD squandered “good luck”

    AMD gave Intel a run for its money when in the mid 1990’s AMD’s K5 processor had all features of Intel’s Pentium processor and was sure to grab a lot of Intel’s market share.

    The opportunity AMD had got with its K5 chip to topple Intel’s market leader position was squandered when the K5 chips came to market later than expected due to issues in getting the chips delivered to market on time.

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book titled “Great By Choice”

    Please find below the link from wikipedia.com that talks about all such things related to the K5 chip.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K5

  • What is “Return on Luck”

    Adopted from Jim Collins’s book titled Great By Choice

    High performers or 10X performers make the most of an opportunity.Luck for them is “preparation meeting an opportunity”

    These are high performers who make the most use of luck to get high ROL or Return on Luck to leave competitors by the wayside.

    Think of Bill Gates and how he got exposed to computer during Baby Boomer age and how he made the most out of the opportunity