Left on Red E-Book

Bill Glynn

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 255

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

In Left on Red, venture capitalist and business innovator Bill Glynn reveals how visionary thinkers and risk-takers build great companies by doing the opposite of the expected. Today?s coolest and most successful businesses?including Google, Apple, and YouTube?were built by people who break the rules and bring radical ideas to life. If you?re an entrepreneur or an executive, this book gives you the inspiration and the guidance to bring your radical ideas to life?and change the world in the process.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

Foreword

I - The Visionary

Chapter 1 - GETTING IT

THE VISIONARY

THE RIGHT ON RED ORGANIZATION

LEFT ON RED ORGANIZATIONS

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED

WHERE ARE ALL THE VISIONARIES?

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 2 - BUSINESS IS WAR

WAITING AT THE INTERSECTION

BASIC TRAINING

BUSINESS WARFARE

THE SCOREBOARD NEVER LIES

CHITCHAT

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 3 - THE GREAT ESCAPE

THE LEADERSHIP BRAIN

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

II - The Future

Chapter 4 - NOT NEW MEDIA—IT’S A NEW MEDIUM

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

A VIRTUAL SOCIETY

iPOD, WALKMAN, WHAT’S NEXT?

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 5 - WEB 5.0

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

TELE VISION

THE POWERFUL AND INTERACTIVE FUTURE

THE GOLDEN ERA

INFORMATION UTILITY

JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

BACK TO FUN AND GAMES

BEYOND THE PLANET OF THE APES

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 6 - WEAINTGOTSH#%.COM

VENTURE INTELLIGENCE

A NEW WORLD ORDER

HISTORY REPEATS!

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

III - The Art of a Deal

Chapter 7 - DEAL DU JOUR

TERM SHEET

THE DEAL OF THE DAY

NEGOTIATING A TERM SHEET

DUE DILIGENCE

YIKES! THE TERM SHEET AGAIN

A BAD DEAL

CONTRA DEAL

ANATOMY

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 8 - THE TWO-BY-FOUR

MORAL OF THE STORY: DON’T GET WOUNDED

THE GOOD NEWS

THE STRATEGY

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 9 - THE INTELLECTUAL DESERT

THE ART OF DISCOVERY

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 10 - RETURN ON INNOVATION

ROI

BREAKING DOWN THE ELEMENTS OF INNOVATION

LEFT ON RED ORGANIZATIONS

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 11 - GO LARGE OR GO HOME

FOOD FOR THOUGHT. WORDS TO THE WISE. AND HERE’S SOME ADVICE

MARKETING, MARKETING, MARKETING

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

IV - The Strength of Social Capital

Chapter 12 - SHAKING HANDS AND KISSING BABIES

BUILDING YOUR COLLECTIVE IQ

SUPERCONNECTORS—THE BLACK BOX

THE CHESSBOARD

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 13 - PENGUINS AND POLAR BEARS

PENGUINS

CHAOS

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 14 - LIFE LEVERAGE

A LEG UP

DEALS ARE DRIVEN BY PEOPLE

ROCKET FUEL

ORGANIC VERSUS INORGANIC

THE CHANNEL

CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

THE STABLE

HUNTERS AND GATHERERS

PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 15 - THE SERENGETI

A BUSINESS SAFARI

ELEPHANT HUNTING

THE LAWS OF THE LEADERSHIP JUNGLE

PAINT THE PICTURE—BE THE BALL

THE REAL DEAL

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 16 - THE WORLD IS A STAGE

THE ART OF COMMUNICATING

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 17 - IDEATION: THE NEW ECONOMY FUEL

MIND POWER AND THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA

THE NEXT BIG THING

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

Chapter 18 - TAKE THE WHEEL

FIRST THINGS FIRST

A WINNING CULTURE

YOUR LICENSE TO DRIVE

THE POWER OF SELF-APPRAISAL

CONNECTING THE DOTS

NURTURING THE NETWORK

AVOIDING A CRASH

STOP! THE LIGHT IS RED

THE DANGER OF YIELDING

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

AFTERWORD

INDEX

Praise for Left on Red

“Bill Glynn has a unique ability to cut through the clutter and immediately identify what the key issues are facing businesses, executives, and entire industries, and solve them in real time. He can be brutally frank and about as subtle as a sledgehammer but it is impressive how many times he turns out to be right.”

—Thomas Tull, CEO, Legendary Pictures

“In all my years of doing business with some of the world’s greatest leaders and most creative personalities, Billy Glynn is one of the smartest executives I’ve met. Left on Red is a manual for those who think differently.”

—Joel Katz, Media Icon

“Innovation is a way of life. To achieve it, companies must unlock the potential of their employees and surround themselves with thought leaders, allowing everyone to think differently.”

—Glenn Armstrong, VP Business Innovation, Amway

“Billy Glynn’s Left on Red is exactly what America needs right now to accelerate change and innovation.”

—Tony Jeary, Strategic Facilitator and Coach to the World’s Top CEOs

“Zone in. You don’t want to miss a thing here, lose your head, or worse, risk being left behind.”

—Greg Ray, CEO, International Speakers Bureau

Copyright © 2008 by Bill Glynn. All rights reserved

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

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Glynn, Bill, 1968-

Left on red : how to ignite, leverage and build visionary organizations! /

Bill Glynn.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-23023-7 (cloth)

1. Organizational effectiveness. 2. Leadership. 3. Success in business. I. Title.

HD58.9.G64 2008

658.4 ′ 092—dc22

2008011994

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank God for life’s canvas that I am fortunate to paint on.

Most notably I honor my wife, Brittany, who has made my life worth living, and her family for their love and grace. My mom, father, and sister, relatives and the Sunday Morning Breakfast Club that helped me become who I am.

A special thanks goes out to so many who have inspired me over the years. Thank you so much, Thomas Tull, for everything. Joel Katz, Arthur Maxwell, David Argay, Jon Nieman, Barry Landis, Don Perry, Jay Allen and so many more I couldn’t possibly name them all here, thanks to you, too.

This book would not have been possible without the maverick thinkers, excellent editors, and team at John Wiley & Sons. My personal thanks to Matt Holt and Jess Campilango for giving me a voice and Tammy Kling at The Writers Group for her collaboration in helping my words come alive on these pages.

FOREWORD

As the twentieth century ended, it was becoming clear that the old way of looking at the world and its business opportunities was no longer useful.

During the 1990s, a group of young entrepreneurs rewrote the rules for starting and growing companies. (Now, it is important to note that they didn’t get every attempt right, so we saw many start-ups go down in flames. My take on their failure was that they had incomplete business DNA: lots of genetic material for great ideas but big gaps of missing “how to run a business” genetic code.)

From that seething sea of radical change, great companies appeared and are now worth billions and hundreds of billions of dollars. Here is just the short list: AOL, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo!

Something else also changed during this time that is worth noting. Many of us remember the Jack Welch/GE era of success based on dominance in your market—first or second or get out. The trouble with Welch’s philosophy is that it trained those who applied it to see the world in an ever tighter focus—creating a special kind of “tunnel vision” if you will.

Tunnel vision has a great short-term advantage because it keeps everyone concentrated on one thing. That gives an organization determined commitment and clarity of purpose. But that very advantage turns into a dangerous disadvantage in the long term. By looking at the future through a tube, these companies were blocked, by that same tube, from seeing an array of unintended consequences that were forming off to the sides. And, even worse, they could not see opportunities that they would have seen had they been in specific markets in even a marginal way. The inability to see those consequences and miss emerging markets was a direct result of tunnel vision—extreme focus on one thing!

As you read Left on Red, you will see the remedy for tunnel vision through Billy Glynn’s stories and philosophy. It’s what I call “funnel vision.”

Think of a kind of “time funnel” situated in the present that extends into the future, narrow at first and then widening as it reaches into the future. You, as a leader, as an entrepreneur, sit in the present tense at the narrow end. Now, instead of having your vision constricted by a tunnel view, you can see a much wider array of alternatives in front of you. You see not just your strategic target in the center of your vision, but you can also see, surrounding your target, possible actions, events, and consequences that are unfolding as you lead your organization toward its vision.

With this wider perspective, you stay on target with what you had determined was valuable yet still see what is happening at the margins, at the edges.

Learning to look at your opportunities this way is one of the benefits of Left on Red. Where do the new great ideas come from? Billy Glynn will show you.

How did Microsoft miss Google? Billy Glynn will help you understand.

Billy Glynn has funnel vision in abundance. Every time I have conversed with Billy about an idea, he has almost immediately understood not just the value of the idea itself, but also the importance of the edges, the periphery of the idea. And, the cascade of consequences that comes with it.

This capacity—to see widely as you look toward the future—is invaluable if you want to start a new company, develop a new idea, lead a revolution.

Left on Red is a book about how to better see the business opportunities of the twenty-first century. It is filled with examples of the way Billy Glynn attacks an idea and explores its implications. What Billy has done with his book is given you a chance to see how his mind works. Again and again he offers insights into how you can see new opportunities and evaluate new opportunities that can form the basis for new businesses.

I will warn you that you may not agree with all of Billy’s dictums. But that is not important. What is important is that he shares with you the sharp, incisive mentality of a twenty-first century entrepreneur. I am sure of this: You will learn things about starting a business you never knew before.

And that’s worth its weight in gold.

Joel Barker Futurist, Filmmaker, Inventor

I

The Visionary

1

GETTING IT

The grand play of life goes on—and you can contribute a verse. What will yours be? Who will remember you and what you have done?

On January 2, 1897, Ragnar Sohlman, a chemical engineer in his twenties, was shocked to read the published last will and testament of his employer, Alfred Nobel. Ragnar had worked in Nobel’s laboratory in San Remo, Italy, for three years. His boss was Sweden’s most famous visionary, a millionaire who had received patents for his groundbreaking invention of dynamite. Nobel produced dynamite on a large scale across the globe during an era of massive infrastructure development of tunnels, bridges, commercial buildings, ports, and railways, where extensive blasting was needed.

When Nobel died of a stroke on December 10, 1896, the world would soon learn that the great visionary left behind an idea as powerful and explosive as the product he became best known for in life. The world would also see that Alfred Nobel was a master at choosing Left on Red thinkers to work with him to bring his dream to reality.

When Nobel’s last will and testament was published in newspapers across the world, his young protégé Ragnar was shocked to read: “As Executors of my testamentary dispositions, I hereby appoint Mr. Ragnar Sohlman, resident at Bofors, Värmland, and Mr. Rudolf Lilljequist, 31 Malmskillnadsgatan, Stockholm, and at Bengtsfors near Uddevalla.”

The will read:

“The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”

This last clause caused great controversy among Nobel’s family, the public, and even the government. No man of great wealth had ever done anything as bold and humanitarian before. The will was unprecedented, and no one knew how to execute his last wish.

THE VISIONARY

Nobel no doubt knew that only a visionary could change the world, which is why he chose the man he had mentored in life to execute his dream.

Visionaries see the unseen. They have an uncanny ability to bring wild dreams to fruition from the tiniest seedling. Visionaries are rare and rise up unexpectedly. Sometimes they create world-altering new products and movements, as did Nobel, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple founder Steve Jobs, and Google co-founder Sergey Brinn. Others are beaten down, victims of their circumstances or fiber, their great visions and ideas held dormant. Nobel was a controversial and forward thinker for his time. His ideas often caused conflict with governments and businesspeople who did not share his vision. But that never stopped him. In life, he changed the business model for development and infrastructure and building. In death, his vision produced positive social change for the world.

This chapter is about vision. It’s about getting it and understanding what little corner of the world you want to occupy, conquer, or change. Call it breaking the mold, bending the rules, spinning the wheel of life, or taking a Left on Red, which is generally illegal in most states. The story of Nobel is compelling because it involves risk and reward, paddling upstream, a path less chosen, and most of all thinking in terms of tomorrow and how the memory of who you are will define your legacy.

The grand play of life goes on—and you can contribute a verse. What will yours be? Who will remember you and what you have done? Kind of gives you something to think about, doesn’t it? Will you bide your time according to someone else’s plan and schedule, or will you do something different?

THE RIGHT ON RED ORGANIZATION

I deal with entrepreneurs, misfits, and people with grandiose ideas that are often translated into businesses that change the world or at least a part of it! So forgive me for saying that most companies do not want to risk thinking and acting differently. They create cultures of process and order, building products and selling services from that foundation. They are Right on Red organizations, like the major airlines that follow one another down the competitive path year after year, concerned only with what Airline A is doing in the marketplace, instead of considering what they can do to effect real change. American makes a change to its cabin interior, and Delta does, too. Delta reduces its airfares in a specific market, and American responds with a competitive fare. Airlines A, B, and C spend more time watching what the others are doing than actually innovating. But every once in awhile a visionary comes along and changes the shape of the box.

When was the last time you heard of a U.S. airline offering in-flight massages like some of the foreign carriers do? Not to say it hasn’t been done, or can’t be done, or even should be done, but there’s a lot to be said for unconventional entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and others like him who just cannot be confined.

LEFT ON RED ORGANIZATIONS

The breakthrough companies that effect world and social transformation are often like Nobel. They think differently and actively seek people who think differently. They are Apple, Google, Second Life, and social change organizations like Ashoka. Ashoka is an organization that envisions a world where everyone is a changemaker. A world that responds quickly and effectively to social challenges where each individual has the freedom, confidence, and societal support to address any social problem and drive change. Ashoka CEO Bill Drayton puts it this way: “Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.”

But where do these changemakers come from? Some are born, some are created by external life events branded on their souls. Nobel had been homeschooled with no traditional rules to follow. He was sheltered from the traditional educational system with its rows of desks and order and process, and it made no difference to him what had or hadn’t been done before. This is often true for many entrepreneurs who create phenomenal ventures and businesses that make most people scratch their heads and wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?” To an individualist, the only thing that matters is what can be.

In the venture capitalist arena I see this all the time. Someone thinks of an idea, presents it, but doesn’t have the courage or brains or street smarts or perseverance or ideation or network IQ to make it happen. And then, sometimes, along comes a person with all of those things, and more.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED

Thomas Edison invented a lot of things, most famously of course the lightbulb. Most people know that he failed several times before he succeeded, but he actually failed more than one thousand times to invent just that one product! Finally, somewhere along the way it worked—voilà! All of a sudden, who cares how many times he failed? The fact is he invented a lightbulb. Recently, there was an article that highlighted the richest, most successful, formerly bankrupt entrepreneurs, executives, and billionaires. The moral of the story? Try and try again. I’ve failed enough to know that when you’re delivered a knockout punch you just have to get up again.

One of my biggest failures in business was an endeavor I refer to as BuildNOT though we actually named the company BuildNet, a business that evolved as a major league play to capture the building industry by storm. At first, it was the biggest and most amazing deal I had ever been a part of. Keith Brown, the CEO, was a true visionary with charisma, strong morals, and high intellect. We were the first ones in the deal and helped develop the business plan while building a top-shelf management team. Next came the first big merger with Fast—a large construction software business from General Electric. Soon the business took on a life of its own, acquiring more than 80 percent of the desktop and scheduling work flow software used by builders and a substantial part of that used in the suppliers’ back offices. This meant if it rained and a jobsite had 40,000 parts spread all over a dirt lot and the builder needed to put them together again, the computers would notify vendors not to deliver more that day. It was a system of organization and inventory for builders. Also, because most builders work using the 80/20 Rule, they could directly order materials for the entire home and set up their critical path to manage everything from payments to work flow and subcontractors. Eighty percent of all homes that builders build are exactly the same, so the bill of materials can be auto-input and used over and over again as a standard. Only 20 percent are customized. This makes for a great use of the 80/20 model.

Now, the problem. Much of the business was leveraged with stock and debt to acquire other businesses. Some of us pushed the company into going public early to use investor funds to pay down debt, and we even raised $120 million for the deal, which, at that time, was the largest private raise in the region. But the senior team members made a tragic decision. They decided that building a deeply integrated back office tying all the systems together under one umbrella for the ultimate B to B system was the best way to use the $120 million, even though the business was doing more than $100 million in revenue at the time. But this tactic didn’t make sense. Because we owned the supplier’s back office and the builder’s desktop, the model was ME to ME, and there was no urgency for B to B. Get it? They didn’t.

By the time they filed a Form S-1 to go public, the bursting of the dot-com bubble closed the window on IPOs. A year earlier the company was massive. A year or so later it was winding down into bankruptcy. I would have made more than a hundred million dollars on that deal, but what can you do? You can’t always hit ’em out of the park. The moral is to control your deals and businesses as long as you can. Bring in the best management, the best money, and the smartest people and make sure they all buy into a common vision. Or at the end of the day, some things might be out of your control and you might get a knockout punch.

It is a simple and basic fact that any visionary, no-box, Left-on-Red thinker living among us will sometimes fail and often be looked at cross-eyed. Sometimes their crazy antics will be ridiculed (think Branson, Bush, Trump) even while they are leading the pack. Whether you agree with them or not, being a visionary is hard to comprehend and difficult to capture. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

WHERE ARE ALL THE VISIONARIES?

For the most part, companies tend to hide, stifle, or tuck away visionaries in a dark room or in a cubicle. Only today’s best of breed companies perpetually seek employee anomalies, regularly solicit ideation, and use every means necessary to improve their businesses. They seek and find dynamic new products and markets to develop by continually cultivating the intellectual base within their business.

Ultimately, these companies find ways to cultivate intrapreneurship, vision, and new ideas. They provide a business environment that promotes and influences innovation, keeps vision and imagination flowing freely, and supports failure and risk taking with tolerance. These are the companies that see the entire movie and not just one image or static point in time. Ideas are always flowing, changing, meandering, and cascading into new ideas and actions. Forward-thinking companies nurture visionaries.

If one goes a step further out onto the business branch, there is a distinction between forward-thinking organizations, large or small, and the next level: the breakthrough businesses.

Breakthrough businesses rarely become noticed until it is too late to play catch-up. These are the companies that are built by underrecognized visionaries that otherwise would have created the breakthroughs for some big company. As a venture capitalist who has seen a lot, it’s been my experience that most breakthrough businesses begin as ideas in the heads of visionaries inside corporations, which they finally escape to start their own businesses. Often the results are so powerful that social change occurs, and the fabric of industries is torn and sewn back together to form new fashions. Many times, all of this happens when everyone else is asleep at the wheel. These are the companies with Venture Intelligence. They are big, bold, and fearless, and their leaders go beyond forward thinking. These are the people who live way outside the box—or never saw one to begin with. When these types of entrepreneurs lead organizations, the result is a culture emboldened to succeed with vision that’s instilled in the fiber of everyone from the receptionist to the CEO. Most often, they influence and create an atmosphere that rewards taking a Left on Red without getting a ticket.

These companies have an it factor and an organizational DNA that acknowledges that the contingency plan may be better than the original, not just a substitute. Failure is just a way of discovering that something doesn’t work. When Plan A doesn’t pan out, these organizations find a way to ignite Plan B or C, and the contingency plan becomes a strategy for the future that thrives, dominates, and perhaps even changes the world.

TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

• Plan B may be better than Plan A. Be open to it. Think big! Really big! If you’re an intrapreneur, think differently and strive to bring new innovations to your organization.

• If you’re an entrepreneur trying to start a big business do not settle for a small segment of the market—own the market. Use every resource you have and “perfume the pig” as we say. Get dressed up for the dance with management, a great board, great investors, great advisors, and most of all great PR.

• Leaders take note: If a visionary is paired with too many dream killers, his visions may lie stagnant. If a visionary is cultivated, his vision can change the world.

Insider’s Viewpoint

Glenn Armstrong, VP Business Innovation Amway

Innovation is a way of life: This is an aspirational goal. To achieve this, companies must unlock the potential of their employees and surround themselves with thought leaders, allowing everyone to think differently and creating open cultures where innovation is celebrated.

It’s the freedom to swing for the big bold ideas that transforms industries and businesses, and that kind of freedom and culture can’t develop and spread like wildfire without a mandate from the top. It requires strong, dedicated leadership, an innovative mindset of always thinking and rethinking, and buy-in for all corners of the organization. That’s the road to building a culture of innovation.

Amway posted $7.1 billion in sales in 2007, which was 12 percent more than 2006. Thirty-nine of our 55 Amway markets posted sales increases with impressive results in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. It’s a perfect example of a company built with an innovative spirit that has been able to link its heritage of innovation to execution and results, with the thread of legacy tying it all together.

Doug DeVos and Steve Van Andel run the business their fathers built back in the 1960s. The premise then and now is to help people live better lives, and significant family wealth has been given to children, hospitals, charities, education, and other nonprofit efforts, that will make a lasting legacy and impact on the world. In the end, that’s what true innovation is about. Transformation to create businesses, products, services, and lives of abundance.

Amway is an organization that has been able to create a culture of oneness and a business of dedication to its people, with integrity. Doug and Steve have learned from their fathers, yet further enhanced their vision and corporate culture around entrepreneurship, constant change, and innovation. It is truly incredible to see a company sweeping the world and moving with such speed, while accepting all ideas and foresights without pride of ownership. Doors are literally always open. All employees are encouraged to think inside the box, outside the box, and with no box at all. My role is to guide a program of innovation that will build business opportunities for all Amway stakeholders, incubate and nurture new ideas, and to bring new ideas, services, and product to benefit consumer’s lives. What a great opportunity.

Prior to coming to Amway, I was honored to work with Bill Wrigley, a fourth-generation Wrigley who inherited the company, and I saw legacy in action firsthand. Bill understood that innovation is what built the company, and it was innovation that would provide the path forward. He was focused on innovation, and immediately constructed a beautiful functional building dedicated to it! It is the Global Innovation Center located on Goose Island in Chicago, a soaring glass innovation greenhouse with inspiring atriums and creative spaces to foster innovation. This center sparked innovative thought and action around the world. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in these great innovation efforts, and it’s been amazing to witness large legacy companies with founders and family members who hold a true passion for the business and desire to influence and change people’s lives for the better.

At Amway, our core products range from nutrition to cosmetics and from home care to water treatment. The quality of the products is exemplary and in supplements and skin care we have the best of nature and the best of science. With a high-quality team and family-oriented business ethic, we’re focused on creating a winning innovation culture. This will get the entire organization involved and expand the thinking and actions beyond their comfort zones. And that’s an integral part of legacy. Being willing to take a left on red by thinking differently, to innovating and bringing great ideas to fruition.

2

BUSINESS IS WAR

Business is war is a simple concept. Act or be acted upon. Act or someone better armed, better prepared, with a better plan will step right over the carcasses—even yours—left rotting on the field of battle.