The author uses the word “know-how” as something of a individual core competency for a CEO or company leader to perform or bring the “substance” to a company. A person of good “know-how” can turn around a failing company or produce consistent high return for the company. He outlines the following 8 skills:

1. Positioning and Repositioning. The ability to find an idea for the organization that meets customers’ demands and makes money. A lot of times, the leader need to change the business model to extract more profit from the market or remain viable, by zeroing in on the central idea that meets customer needs and makes money. Walmart had to re-position itself to offer its customers a wide assortment of good quality merchandise at the lowest possible prices. Moving from the rural area to the metro area by taking on the big guys. The 2nd tweak lies in leveraging its strength in logistics and IT to move into groceries. The classic example now is the newspaper industry.

2. Pinpointing External Change. The ability to identify patterns that place the organization on the offensive and connecting the dots. Ask yourself the 7 simple questions: 1) What is happening in the world today? 2) What part of my frame of reference has worked for me? What hasn’t worked for me? 3) What does it mean for everyone? 4) What does it mean for us? 5) What would have to happen? For macroeconomic trends to create opportunities, certain things have to happen. 6) What do we have to do to play a role? 7) What do we do next?

3. Leading the Social System. The ability to get the right people with the right behaviors and the right information to make better decisions and business results. Here is the Social System Test:
a) The built-in conflicts that are part of every organizations are being surfaced. b) These conflicts are resolved in a timely way by people committed to delivering results. c) Information flows horizontally across silos and is not hoarded or deliberately distorted. d) The right questions are raised so that you can look at your business from both “50,000” feet” and at ground level and conduct brutally honest dialog. e) Operating mechanisms are designed so that they result in high quality, timely decisions are help deliver the aspired results. f) You know the points of intersection where operating mechanisms are needed for people to make trade-offs and share information. g) Appropriate and continuous improvements are made in the working of the operating mechanisms: creating new ones, combining some, eliminating others. h) Each operating mechanism is connected in a unfiltered way to sources of external information. i) Leaders have the psychological courage to confront reality and shape behavior of participants in line with the value of the business. The right behavior and values are reinforced and those who deviate are dealt with.

4. Judging People. The ability to calibrate people based on their actions, decisions and behaviors and matches them to the job’s non-negotiables. How to spot the future leaders: a) They consistently deliver ambitious results. b) The continuously demonstrate growth, adaptability, and learning better and faster than their excellently performing peers. c) They seize the opportunity for challenging, bigger assignments, thereby expanding capability and capacity and improving judgment. d) They have the ability to think through the business and take leaps of imagination to grow the business. e) They are driven to take things to the next level. f) Their powers of observation are very acute, forming judgments of people by focusing on their decisions, behaviors, and actions, rather than relying on initial reactions and gut instincts; they can mentally detect and construct the “DNA” of a person. g) They come to the point succinctly, are clear thinkers, and have the courage to state a point-of-view even through listeners may react adversely. h) They ask incisive questions that open minds and incite the imagination. i) They perceptively judge their own direct reports, have the courage to give them honest feedback so that direct report grow; they dig into cause and effect if a direct report is failing. j) They know the non-negotiable criteria of the job of their direct reports and match the job with the person; if there is a mismatch they deal with it promptly. k) They are able to spot talent and see the “God’s gift” of other individuals.

5. Molding a Team. The ability to coordinate competent, high-ego leaders.

6. Setting Goals. The ability to balance goals that give equal weighting to what the business can become and what it can achieve.

7. Setting Priorities. The ability to define a path and direct resources, actions, and energy to accomplish goals.

8. Dealing with Forces beyond the Market. The ability to deal with pressures you cannot control but affect your business. How not to be between a rock and a hard place: a) get the management team psychologically prepared for the fact that societal issues will arise and can pick up stream fast given today’s high transparency and the Internet. b) As you examine your company’s positioning, you need to anticipate what societal issues might be raised and what kinds of advocacy groups might raise them. c) Develop a methodology for dealing with such issues, first in terms your personal psychology, and second for the organization. What are your methods for picking up early warning signals of issues that are just emerging or gaining traction? How will you assess the power of various causes? d) Be prepared to exchange information and build bridges with advocacy groups to help shape the issues and solutions. Go on the offensive.

Citing case studies from his consulting practice, Charan identifies personal traits of leaders that help or interfere with the know-hows.

1. Ambition. The drive to accomplish something but not win at all costs.
2. Tenacity. The drive to search, persist and follow through, but not too long.
3. Self-confidence. The drive to overcome the fear of failure and response, or the need to be liked and use power judiciously but not become arrogant and narcissistic.
4. Psychological Openness. The ability to be receptive to new and different ideas but not shut other people down.
5. Realism. The ability to see what can be accomplished and not gloss over problems or assume the worst.
6. Appetite for Learning. The ability to grown and improve know-hows and not repeat the same mistakes.

This book went through the 8 skills with fairly good examples to backup his points. Of course, if a person has all the 8 know-how skills, he/she should make a good CEO indeed. Often times, there is “luck” involved in having the right positioning strategy at the right place at the right time. Perhaps, that would make the 9th “know-how.” The narration of the audio book was good and the flow was as smooth as one large body of idea that I had to borrow the physical book to re-capture the 8 skills.

I picked up this book from the new book section of the library. The title was catchy and the book was short. So I picked it up and read it.

This book reminds of the “Goal” book with similar style that turns the learnings into a story line. It’s about this guy, Thomas, of 30 years old, who has been working in a profession (CPA) that does not bring out his passion. He was fortunate enough to meet this old guy in Italy, who guided him using the David sculpture of Michaelangelo as the stepping stone. The learnings are summarized in the following (or p.92 of the book):

1. Find the Angel (gift/beauty) within you. Know your strengths first or see the beauty inside (like Michaelangelo saw in the marble that was used for the David sculpture.

2. Follow your own passion. Like Michaelangelo did; he turned away from his father and found a mentor. “If you do not follow your passion, you will always be unhappy.”

3. Be confident (have faith) in your strength. As “David” was portrayed by Michaelangelo as a confident warrior in front of Goliath. Indeed, having the confidence seems to be the right first step or you’ll never start.

4. The beauty is in the details. The fine details are what separate the experts from the novices. Michaelangelo sculptured fine details in the “David” sculpture and truly show his crafts. In other words, one must walk the talk.

5. The hand creates what the mind conceives. (Mind over body). Michaelangelo was first a writer that perceives how he wanted the “David” sculpture to represent before he started the work.

6. Plan and prepare. The artists frequently sculpture a ‘test run’ or a small sculpture before embarking on a new statue.

7. Start with swift action (like pick up the hammer, aim, and strike the marble). One must start. “Action is the beginning of accomplishment.” Don’t let “fear of unknowns” or fear of succeeding get in the way.

8. Embrace the stages of chipping, sculpting, sanding, and polishing. Reading of the “classic” books, authored by people who already passed away may be very helpful because their contents stood the test of time. “Sanding” of life wears us down but they give us substance and make our lives meaningful. “Every negative situation can bring a positive outcome if we look for it. Those who are successful are those who can turn adversity into achievement.” Yesterday, I happened to be checking out Forbe’s richest 20 people in the world. I counted nearly half of top 10 list dropped out of school, including Bill Gates. It goes to tell you that trial and tribulations bring out the best of people. “Polishing” (looking good) will always come last.

9. Sometimes success takes years, so be content.

10. No one starts with the Sistine Chapel. (Don’t expect big, quick accomplishments).

The storyline may seem a bit corny but the teachings are deep. For those who have yet to find their passion, this book is a great boost. For those who are pursuing their passion now. The last few lessons can serve as great encouragements to “hang” in there and continue to push forward.

This is a memoir of Lance Armstrong, the seven-consecutive-time champion of Tour De France. Before reading this book, I had this impression he must be really talented and victories must have come easy to him – winning the superbowl of the bicycling sport for seven times in a row. This book earned me new found respect for him. This is another success story of a person who had been all but written off and proceeded to make a comeback in a big way.

1. How it all began.Lance Armstrong was born in 1971 into a poor family. His father practically abandoned him and divorced his mother at his age of 2. Upon his mother’s re-marriage, he was adopted by by step father and took the surname of “Armstrong.” He wasn’t very impressed with his step father. Throughout his young life, he participated in swimming, biking, and triathlons, where he found himself talented in endurance sports – probably due to his high VO2 max and his ability to block out pain. However, this may have caused him to seek out diagnostic of his testicular cancer so late. But his ability to tough it out may have helped him tremendously during the chemotherapy and the come-back of his biking career.

2. Relationship with his mother. His relationship with him mother was amazingly close because she was always there for him especially during his fight with cancer. Though he sounded resentful of his mother’s failed marriages, he remained close to his mother and his mother to him. He was very proud of his mother’s rise from a KFC clerk to a program manager, while lacking college education. His mother reminds me of Forest Gump’s mother, always faithful, caring and loving.

3. Fighting cancer and winning over cancer as Tour De France. His description of the struggle with the testicular surgery, brain surgery and chemotherapy was rather vivid and personal. The doctor later gave him an odd of survival at 5% or less. Killing cancer is like poisoning your own body and hope that your body can survive longer than the cancer cells. I now have great sympathy for people who go through this kind of treatments.

4. Cancer survivorship. Lance went through a spout of the cancer survivorship, which is similar to people who lived through great tragedy and found themselves not able to go back to their normal life due to the confusion with the purpose of life and self awareness of one’s own limitation. I would probably feel the same way if I had survived a stage 3 cancer. It would be very confusing to me.

5. Against all odds:Lance Armstrong’s story can easily be titled “Against All Odds.” What’s the odd of a US sport jockey turned into a 7-time champions of the Tour De France, a coveted trophy of a sport dominated by Europeans. And stacked against these odds are the fact that he came back from a stage-3 testicular cancer. Quite an amazing story. Like my dentist friend, Dr. Wu, said, “the toughest are the guys most victimized.” How true!

6. Biking as a sport.A lot of my friends are into biking. It never quite appealed to me due to its long, boring, enduring nature. This book really changed some of the negative aspects of biking – it’s no different from living a life. Sometimes, it’s long and boring and sometimes it’s an uphill battle that you’d need to peddle really arduously just to make some small advance. And sometimes, it’s all downhill and you must focus on the road and the turns so you won’t “crash.”

7. Fame and money corrupt. Lance’s love story with his wife, Kik (Kristin Richard) was really touching and the classical. But based on Wikipedia, he divorced her in 2003, a few years after publishing this book. I don’t mean to be judgmental, but I think having the fame and wealth does corrupt a person. Prior to the discovery of his cancer, he was very cocky and was on top of the world. Honestly, he wasn’t a very likable person. The cancer brought him down to earth, mortality and maturity.

This is truly an inspiration book, a most read for someone fighting the terminal disease and a must read for someone who thinks he/she had it all. And for the regular guy like me, this book serve as a warning that I had it good. Don’t complain and keep my eyes on the road. You never know when the road may turn up or down.