Every now and then you run across a business leader who has worked successfully across multiple business segments. Very occasionally, you find a business leader who has successfully built businesses from the ground up across multiple business segments.
If you are lucky enough to find a business leader like this, you need to learn as much as possible from them as fast as you can!
And this is where, Jeff Morrill comes in!
It is no secret that the business book market is a “red ocean” of competition where it is almost impossible to create a differentiated product. So, when I come across a business book that I know will make a huge impact to organizations, I always try to share what I have learned from the book with others.
David Jenyns book SYSTEMology is one of those books!
For business veterans, SYSTEMology will be a wake up call for what we should have done or still need to do within our business.
For those new to business leadership, SYSTEMology is a great resource that provides the background and the tools necessary to systematize your business. This systematization will decrease workloads while increasing quality, repeatability, and profitability.
Jenyns defines four levels of business systematization as:
The book review for this week is Elevate by Robert Glazer
Robert Glazer is a serial entrepreneur who has founded a number of businesses including Acceleration Partners and Brand Cycle. One of his secrets to success is his passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity to continuously improve and outperform.
I know many of you are probably asking what a business blog is doing talking about collagen. So, let me tell you!
As business leaders, we tend to focus so intently on our business, especially when we are facing the challenges brought about by COVID, that we forget about one of the most important things . . . our health!
And that is where collagen comes in.
Most of us are familiar with protein. Collagen, one form of protein, makes up about one-third of your body’s total protein. It is important for our muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, skin, and other connective tissue.
There is no future in the status quo . . . Just ask Sears, Blockbuster, Novatel, Blackberry, Nokia, and the list goes on and on!
There is no future in doing things the way we have always done them! Status quo always ends in irrelevance and obsolescence!
As business leaders we need to continuously challenge ourselves and our organizations to innovate and improve. We need to shake up our industries and stop doing things because we have always done them that way. Rather, we need to start doing the right things smarter, more cost effective, more rapid, and error free!
For example, in the project engineering world, projects have continuously escalated in cost over the years. We have all heard of projects that started at $X billion and ended up costing 2 or 3 times $X billion! Now there are many reasons for this (refer to my mega-project article) but one of the major reasons is that we are simply not challenging the status quo. Instead, we doing things the way we have always done them . . . it seems more comfortable that way because change is uncomfortable!
Although an engineering project today has basically the same objectives as an engineering project 20 years ago, how we get from start to finish needs to be fundamentally changed! Engineering companies need to step back and re-evaluate their businesses to remove legacy mindsets, legacy tools, and outdated processes while implementing new and relevant ones.
Take the automation engineering world as an example. It is undergoing dramatic change because of technologies like:
