Author:Louis Patler PhD
On the cover of this book it says Named Management General Top Ten
Business Book of 1999 and Louis Patler is to change what Mark McGwire
is to baseball Jay Condor Levinson (author Guerrilla Marketing series
of books)
Firstly, and perhaps unfairly, who is management general to
make such a pronouncement and secondly, is it a compliment that Louis
Patler is to change what Mark McGwire is to baseball? I mean, if I said
Michael Howard is to politics what Cyril Smith is to hang gliding, many
people would be in the dark as I am over Mark McGwire.
My first comment stems from the fact that on page 217 of the
book, Patler provides a link and lots of kind words for Management
General … so, cynically, perhaps it’s a bit of mutual back slapping?
A more telling test is this: have you heard of Thoughtware; and
have you heard of !eadership? The wacky spelling, !eadership, is
intentional.
You may well have heard of another book that Patler co wrote,
If it ain’t broke - BREAK IT! That phrase has certainly reverberated
around the world. Curiously, that book is billed as being a New York
Times best seller. Do they mean that it isn’t a best seller by any
other definition than theirs? Just curious!
Well, to this book: it’s really a lot like lots of other
management guru, how I done good, I am filthy rich on the back of this
sort of stuff, are you? A lot like Tom Peters’ slop basically: lots of
quotations from books, articles and television programmes. Lots of
pithy sayings from himself or people he has met; and lots of down to
earth philosophy that we really should appreciate that we cannot live
without.
The book is an eclectic mix, therefore, of all sort of things: huddled together under these section and chapter headings:
- attitude!
- attitude
- the future
- service
- “good lucky”!
- perspective
- ideas
- innovation
- strategy
- perspective
- leadership
- talent
- retention
- globalism
- !eadership
- appendix A: the new tiltset
- appendix B: the new Thoughtware
The book starts with a prologue: here’s the start of it
My assistant, Ann Luckiesh, has a sharp eye for business wisdom.
A few days ago she sent me an email from home with the heading: “If
your horse dies, dismount!” Seems like a rather obvious and simple
statement. Unfortunately, in business we have the tendency to delay,
skirt or complicate matters, and employ a few too many strategies. As
the rest of her email illustrates, too often when the horse dies, we:
- buy a stronger whip
- change riders
- say things like, “This is the way we have always ridden a horse.”
- appoint a committee to study the horse
- arrange to visit other sires to see how they ride dead horse
You get the idea: this sets the tone for a lot of the rest of the book: Patler himself says that
The tone I have tried to set in the pages that follow is
somewhere between that of the Harvard Business Review and an email to a
good friend or mentor.
Don’t misunderstand me: in general, I do like books like Tilt!,
although I find Peters as unreadable as I do Michael Porter’s work. I
know, that’s my problem as they are two highly respected people in
their respective fields and who am I?
The best approach to reviewing a book like Tilt! is to dip into it: at random, this is what I have found worthy of sharing:
Service: The “ABCD” awards: above and beyond the call of
duty Patler recalls the day he was the facilitator at a Food service
Summit Leadership Conference and the COO of McGuffey’s Restaurants told
the story of how a waitress of his had won an ABCD award for solving a
problem with a four year old waaaaaaa, waaaaaa boy who didn’t want
anything other than a Big Mac. Awful end to the story in my opinion but
definitely good service! (see pages 41 and 42!)
Innovation: the Monty Python Interview Exercise: M-PIE …
whenever I have an issue or topic that puzzles me and find myself at an
impasse, I find the smartest, zaniest person I know and ask them to
interview and push me on the topic … in this case … I am trying to make
a distinction between “creativity” and “innovation”.
Patler then relates the transcript of his interview with Rick Crandall PhD … questions only, here:
- why isn’t the average business creative?
- so what is the difference between creativity and what you mean by innovation?
- so, it’s a major change, not just a variation on a theme?
- what can the average employee to if they’re not in a creative - let aloe innovative - environment?
- tell
me more about people maintaining their own enthusiasm, creativity,
morale, in an organisation in which they’re underpaid, overwhelmed and
under appreciated
- could an individual change the culture of
an organisation by planting the first grain of sand that irritates the
organisation to create a pearl?
and so on, see pages 82 - 90 for the rest of the questions and Patler’s answers.
I’m sorry Mr Patler but either Rick Crandall PhD is not in the
least bit wacky or you’ve edited his wackiness right out of what he did
and said!
!eadership: This CEO earns a dollar a year! Netscape
Communications chief executive Jim Barksdale … said he would accept
only $1 in salary one year, counting instead on the company’s stock to
increase his personal fortune …In a document filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission, Netscape said that Barksdale will forgo his
salary and bonus because he “believes that his compensation should be
linked to the long term interests of the company’s stockholders.”
In this case, let me contrast Barksdale’s apparent altruism
with something from Alfred Rappaport from an article in the Harvard
Business Review (How to Link Executive Pay With Performance March-April
1999):
As the Stock Market began its ascent in the mid 1990s,
executive pay always the subject of heated debate, mounted along with
it. That's because among the largest US companies, stock options now
account for more then half of total CEO compensation and about 30% of
senior operating managers' pay. One problem became particularly clear
during the bull market's astonishing run: even below average performers
reap huge gains form stock options when the market is rising rapidly.
The sad and stark reality is that stock options are so popular
because even a moderate set of performances can be more than amply
rewarded if only because of inflation. The FTSE 100, for example, is 20
years old now and has risen from 1,000 to around 5,000 in that time …
we can see what a 20 year share option would, therefore, on average do
for the CEO even if s/he hadn’t really performed that well.
Moreover, Rappaport also points out that any rise in the share
price says nothing of the performance of competitors … it says nothing
about the CEO’s performance relative to his benchmarked peers.
As another aside and as a matter of interest, I took at look at
Jim Barksdale’s page on Netscape’s site and I have to say it suffers
from some astonishing lapses:
- Want to write to Barksdale? Can't, no link given
- When did Barksdale put his personal page together? No idea, undated
- How
do you navigate out of that page to other pages in the site? Can't,
unless you follow one or more of the hyperlinks that litter the page.
Some links go to other Netscape pages but others go to external sites.
- Want to click on the buttons/links to the Annual Report or Awards? Can't because they give you an error on page message!
More than that, the page has been optimised for Netscape but in
Internet Explorer it looks a real mess and is an advertisement for no
one!
I don’t want to be too unkind but is there a link between such
a terrible page and Netscape’s overall performance in the Browser Wars?
What price stock options with this performance?
Finally, appendix A is called the new tiltset and comprises a set of to, by, for exercises. To, by, for? Yes, for example:
3 The Fishbowl
TO: to keep meetings moving, to open up new lines of discussion when there are lulls.
BY: Ask participants to write out their biggest concern the largest
barrier faced and/or the toughest question/topic they want addressed.
All are written on small pieces of paper and dropped in a fishbowl. At
random times or as needed … someone reaches in and, bingo, a new topic
emerges.
FOR: The purpose is to keep involving new and important issues, to encourage discussion and communication.
There are 11 to, by, fors in appendix A and they are probably
useful for teacher and trainer alike: number 2 (paper aeroplanes) will
appeal to the smart aleck in you and number 9 (backcasting) appeals to
me!
So I might have given the impression that this is not a good
book and that it was a mistake to publish it. Well, I bought it at a
huge discount six years after it was first published. I doubt that many
people will remember thoughtware and tilting either. However, there are
snippets in the book, lots of them too, that rattle a few brain cells
and may cause people to pause for thought from time to time. That’s not
a bad thing.
What is thoughtware, though? Mindset, Skillset and Toolset …
read the book to see exactly what Patler is thinking here but I imagine
you can work it out from this review.
Why tilt? That’s more awkward and here’s what Patler says in the preface of the book:
… given today’s business environment. there is no such thing as
“a level playing field.” … If you want to “tilt the field,” simply tilt
your head.
Let me finish with a niggle: on the back cover of the book it
says Capstone Publishing www.capstone.co.uk Well, take a trip to that
site and you’ll find that you end up at Capstone Finance who, it seems,
are ready to lend you anywhere from £30,000 to £3,000,000 …
Reviewed by Duncan Williamson - see all the courses Duncan runs for OSL Training