How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things: Breaking the 8 Hidden Barriers that Plague Even the Best Businesses by Neil Smith, 226 pages
In
this book, Smith describes several problems businesses face
that block good ideas from being implemented, and offers ways to break
through them. The barriers range from avoiding controversy, to poor
management of time, to organizational silos, and a lot of them seem
pretty obvious once Smith points them out. However, he does offer some
great personal anecdotes to illustrate these issues and the potential
solutions to them. Toward the end of the book, Smith also offers the
principles he and his company (which is a consulting firm that helps
companies institute change) abide by, and he details his 100-day process
for creating the plans for these changes. Again, the principles are
logical and seem like common sense once you read them, but Smith's
description of his process is pretty boring.
Smith did a
good job holding my attention through most of the book, but once he got
to that process and started throwing in acronyms left and right, he
lost me. Another problem I had with this book is that it's aimed almost
solely at the CEOs and other higher-ups at large companies (and by large
I mean 15,000+ employees). While some of the elements may be applicable
to smaller businesses or non-management employees, a lot of it won't
be.
One last quibble: I don't think this book is
accurately named. Yes, the title makes you giggle a bit, but there's
nothing about avoiding dumb things; it's all about creating
opportunities or righting dumb processes that are already there.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
St. Louis is one of the 100 Resilient Cities
Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation.
St. Louis' induction into this program, consisting of 32 cities at the moment but will increase to 100 over time, includes the appointment of a Chief Resilience Officer and the development of an action plan to battle the city's biggest challenges. It was reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in December, and just last week (1/28/15) this was noted in Sorkins Directory of Business & Government News Leads:
Publish Date: 1/28/2015
ST. LOUIS CITY OF
1200 Market Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
Phone: (314) 622-5800
Sq. Ft.: ua Employees: ua
Website URL: stl-mo.gov
Notes: Stl is receiving cybersecurity advice from Microsoft by providing expert advice for free. The expert advice is being funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Stl is among 35 cities included in the second group of communities to receive this service and has been named 100 Resilient Cities by the communication giant.
President & CEO: Bobby Sandage
St. Louis' induction into this program, consisting of 32 cities at the moment but will increase to 100 over time, includes the appointment of a Chief Resilience Officer and the development of an action plan to battle the city's biggest challenges. It was reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in December, and just last week (1/28/15) this was noted in Sorkins Directory of Business & Government News Leads:
Publish Date: 1/28/2015
ST. LOUIS CITY OF
1200 Market Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
Phone: (314) 622-5800
Sq. Ft.: ua Employees: ua
Website URL: stl-mo.gov
Notes: Stl is receiving cybersecurity advice from Microsoft by providing expert advice for free. The expert advice is being funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Stl is among 35 cities included in the second group of communities to receive this service and has been named 100 Resilient Cities by the communication giant.
President & CEO: Bobby Sandage
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