I just finished reading a Jeff Benedict’s book “How to Build a Business Warren Buffett Would Buy: The R. C. Willey Story.” If you don’t live in Utah, Nevada or Idaho, R.C. Willey is a chain of home furnishing super stores that dominates the markets it serves in those states.
R.C. Willey is famous for [...]
Posted on May 6th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Leadership, Mergers & Acquisitions | 2 Comments »
More than 15,000 hours were put into the Good to Great project by author Jim Collins and his team. In the research, they identified companies that had been following at or below the standard market performance for at least 15 years, and then had a huge increase, dramatically outperforming the market over a 15 year [...]
Posted on May 5th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Leadership, Self Improvement | No Comments »
In Built to Last, the authors said:
In examining the history of visionary companies we were struck by how often they made some of their best moves not by detailed strategic planning, but rather by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and–quite literally accident.
This week I read an interview in Founders at Work with Paul Buchheit of [...]
Posted on April 29th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Google, Innovation, Leadership | No Comments »
We each have a serious problem. Everyone around us knows about our problem but us. The problem is that each of us cannot see that we have a problem. This is self-deception. Each of us engage in self-deception at times, and when we do, we live and work as if we are trapped in a [...]
Posted on April 28th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Leadership, Life Lessons, Relationships, Self Improvement | No Comments »
All companies have goals, but many of the most successful companies set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (”BHAGs”). There is a big difference between merely having a goal, and being fully committed to a huge, daunting challenge–like a mountain to climb.
Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, [...]
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, e-Business | No Comments »
According Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in Build to Last, the “tyranny of the OR” leads businesses to feel that they can only choose one option or the other, but not both, such as:
Change OR stability,
Conservative OR bold,
Low cost OR high quality,
Creative autonomy OR consistency and control,
Invest in future OR do well in short-term,
Make progress [...]
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Social Enterprise, e-Business | No Comments »
In Built to Last, authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras talk about a hypothetical person who could look at the sun or stars and tell the exact time down to the second. That person would be an amazing “time teller”. However, wouldn’t it be much more amazing if that person created a clock which could [...]
Posted on April 14th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Leadership | No Comments »
In Built to Last, the authors identified “Visionary” companies which met very rigorous standards of sustained greatness. The authors did not find any specific ideological content as being essential in these visionary companies. However, the authors did find that it was essential that the companies have a core ideology of some sort, and [...]
Posted on April 14th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Ethics, Social Enterprise, e-Business | No Comments »
In preparation to write the book Built to Last, authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras and a team at Stanford University researched highly successful (“visionary”) and less successful companies for six years. Their research debunked many myths commonly held in the business world. The following are some of the myths and findings that I found [...]
Posted on April 14th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Social Enterprise | No Comments »
Disneyland and Disneyworld are the most famous and successful theme parks in the world. The Walt Disney Company is now the third largest entertainment company in the world with 133,000 employees and $60 Billion in revenue. According to Fortune magazine, in 2007, Disney is America’s most admired entertainment company.
According to Newsweek, the Disney brand is [...]
Posted on March 25th, 2008 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Adoption, Book Reviews, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Faith, Innovation, Leadership, Life Lessons, Self Improvement | No Comments »
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