Monthly Archives: August 2008

Book Reviews

Book Review: “E-myth Re-visited” by Michael E. Gerber

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This book is all about small business. People go into small business for the wrong reasons and ended up working themselves to exhaustion and quit. The author clearly categorize the three roles of a small business: Technician, Entrepreneur and Manager.

Most people tend to go into business because they’re the best technicians, which are not sufficient to sustain a business. The other two roles are just important to ensure success. The author used the story of Sarah in her “All about pie” store to get his points through – very effective.

In order to be successful, the business owner must turning something repeatable into an operation manual can be duplicated. If it’s not duplicatible, it can not be franchised.

Gerber coined the phrase “The Turn-key revolution”: the business format franchise. “The true product of a business is the business itself.” Ray Kroc’s treated McDonald, the business, as a product in itself.

The Franchise Prototype: Every possible detail of McDonald’s business system was first tested in the Prototype and then controlled to a degree never before possible in a people-intensive business. Once the franchisee learns the system, he is given the key to his own business, thus the name: Turn-Key Operation. The franchisee is licensed the right to use the system, learns how to run it, and then “turns the key.”

“To the Entrepreneur, the Franchise Prototype is the medium through which his vision takes form in the real world. To the Manager, the Franchise Prototype provides the order, the predictability, the system so important to his life. To the Technician, the Prototype is a place in which he is free to do the things he loves to do – technical work.” “It is a proprietary way of doing business that successfully and preferentially differentiate every extraordinary business from every one of its competitors. In this light, every great business in the world is franchise.”

Go to work on your business rather than in it, and ask yourself the following questions:
1. How can I get my business to work, but without me?
2. How can I get my people to work, but without my constant interference?
3. How can I systematize my business in such a way that it could be duplicated 5,000 times, so the 5,000th unit would run as smoothly as the first?
4. How can I own my business, and still be free of it?
5. How can I spend my time doing the work I love to do rather than the work I have to do?

To win the Franchise Prototype game, the following rules are to be followed:
1. The model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers, and lenders,
2. Will be operated by people with the lowest possible level of skill. Creating business results that are systems-dependent rather than people-dependent.
3. Will stand out as a place of impeccable order.
4. All work will be documented in Operations Manuals.
5. Will provide a uniformly predictable service to the customers.
6. Will utilize a uniform color, dress and facilities code.

The business development process:
1. Innovation: Ask continuously, “What is standing in the way of my customer getting what he wants form my business?” or “what’s the best way of doing this?” Innovation is the signature of a bold, imaginative hand.
2. Quantification: Take data points – use the management information system.
3. Orchestration: Eliminating descretion, or choice, at the operating level of your business. “If you haven’t orchestrated it, you don’t own it!” It’s the glue that holds you fast to your customers’ perceptions, the certainty that is absent from every other human experience, the order and the logic behind the human craving for reason.

The business development program must consist of the following seven distinct steps:
1. Your primary aim – the vision to bring your business to life, provides you with a purpose, energy, the grist for our day-to-day mill.
2. Your Strategic Objective: a clear statement of what your business has to do ultimately do for you to achieve your Primary Aim.
3. Your Organizational Strategy
4. Your Management Strategy
5. Your People Strategy
6. Your Marketing Strategy
7. Your Systems Strategy
From #5~7, the contents read like a mini MBA program.

The story in the book is a bit corny but effective in getting people to understand. I consider this book a must read for someone who wants to go into business himself/herself.

Landlording

Fixing the “crippled” 3-way switch

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The Unit#1 tenant complained that their 3-way switches for the staircase light sometimes work and sometimes don’t. At first I thought it got to be the bad light bulb or poor wiring due to aging. So last week I went there and checked the light bulb and re-connected the wires by cutting out the old segments of the wires and re-stripping and re-connecting the wires. I also noticed the wires were inserted into the slots on the switch instead of forming a loop around the screws in the side the switches. I then found out the poor job that the tenant or her friend had done to fix the problem, resulting in poor connection. After re-connecting the wires to the switch the right way, I figured the problem had been fixed.

Not so, she claimed. The “intermittent” problem still persisted. I then went back and checked that there is no intermittent problem. Instead, the problem was that when the switch upstairs is in the “off” state (as far as the light is concerned) the switch downstairs cannot turn on the light. And yet it’s OK the other way around. After studying the 3-way switch on Google search, I refreshed my memory of the principle of the 3-way switch before I went to the apartment. This Youtube video was particularly informative.

After arriving at the apartment and studying the wires from the switch, I was able to figure out that the wire connection was the switch-switch-light configuration. I then sketched on my hand of what has been installed vs. what the way it should be. The solution was quite obvious that my tenant has reversed the position of the wires between the common hot-wire to the light and the hot-wire from the downstairs switch, resulting in this particular problem. Upon reversing the positions, the switch are now working just fine. Thanks to the power of the Internet, even an electronic engineer can handle the most difficult household electrical problem. 🙂

Movies

Movie Review “Batman: The Dark Knight”

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Today, we finally went to see the movie “Batman: The Dark Knight.” We weren’t sure if our daughter can handle the violence but we went anyway. We had a hard time keeping her staying in her seat.

The movie was way too long. It seems so many characters were added in to make the movie longer than necessary, e.g. Harvey Dent, the two-face villain seems to be two-for-the-price-of-one villain. Is it necessary? Probably not. But it makes the love triangle among Bruce Wayne, Rachel, and Harvey, a bit more interesting.

The Joker was portrayed by Heath Ledger, his last performance before his sudden death on January 22, 2008, just a few months before the premier of this movie. Joker seems to be the ultimate nemesis for the Batman that almost results in his turning himself in. The Joker is particular adept at pushing people’s buttons and bringing out people’s weaknesses or simply inherent human weaknesses. For example, he uses the prisoner dilemma game when he set up the two fairy boats to face the threat being blown apart if they don’t take the first action. He also pushes Harvey Dent to become a villain from a go-by-the-book city attorney. Joker has a couple of good lines. I particular like “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Isn’t that the truth? Sooner or later, people will find faults in you and bring out the worst in you. Batman is the classic example.

I didn’t care for the constant blow-up of bomb, car wrecks, fire on money, hospital’s being blown up, Rachel’s being blown up, and etc. There seems to be non-stop destructions in the movie. Joker seems to have more resources than the entire Gothem police department.

The Batman has a few new tricks up his sleeves like the dog-proof suit in keeping with the spirit of “continuous improvement,” and the ability for the computer to track all of the cell phone call conversation on the fly. The Batmobile was crashed and self destructed but the Batmotorcyle was equally impressive – just like a video game.

Overall, I rate this Batman movie a ‘B’. The wonderful acting of Joker makes his character quite believable and I actually feel sorry for him, being a freak among his organized-crime friends. There is a couple of good twists like Gordon’s fake death and his saving Batman’s life, and fact that people don’t want to blow the other people us give us a glimmer of hope for humanity, contrary to Joker’s belief.