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Title: Breaking Bad Habits
Subtitle: Defy Industry Norms and Reinvigorate Your Business
Author: Freek Vermeulen
Narrator: Daniel Henning
Format: Unabridged
Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
Language: English
Release date: 11-14-17
Publisher: Recorded Books
Ratings: 2.5 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: Business, Management
Publisher's Summary:
It's very likely that best practices - ideas, processes, and strategies that are commonplace in your industry - are actually hurting your business. Although best practices can help businesses operate more competitively and efficiently, they are often outdated, harmful, and a hindrance to innovation. The problem is, managers and executives are usually blind to the negative effects of best practices, so they don't question their purpose or measure their effectiveness. As a consequence, outdated or harmful practices spread and persist without their knowledge.
In Breaking Bad Habits, Freek Vermeulen, a strategy professor at London Business School, offers the tools to identify bad practices, eliminate them from your organization, and then move on to create new sources of innovation and growth by outthinking your competitors. Brimming with examples of norm-defying organizations in an eclectic range of industries, Breaking Bad Habits will make you rethink your long-held beliefs about industry norms while encouraging you to reinvigorate your business by breaking out of the status quo.
Members Reviews:
Fun and insightful read
Great book -- crisp, witty writing and lots of insights about how to rethink your business.
âWe are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.â
I agree with Aristotleâs comment, presuming to add accepting less than excellence (e.g. âgood is good enoughâ) can also become a habit rather than remain an isolated complacency. As decades of research by Anders Ericsson and his associates at Florida State University clearly reveal, an individualâs peak performance is the result of rigorous discipline and repetitive practices (âdeep workâ) -- under expert supervision --
over an extended period of time.
In the Preface of this book, Freek Vermeulen observes, some âorganizations are also filled with practices â habitual ways of doing things â that are sometimes inefficient and bureaucratic, and that makes our blood boil.
âSometimes these inefficient practices and strategies spread and persist for decades, or even longer. They persist just like viruses persist in nature. They take on lives of their own and continue operating despite leading to suboptimal results in companies that embody them. The good news is that smart managers can purposefully identify and eradicate them, and then turn them into a profitable source of renewal and innovation. That is what this book is about.â
Vermeulen has identified what he characterizes as âThe Ten Commandments of Business Innovation.â Here they are, accompanied by my brief annotations:
1. Cut out the benchmarking: Whatever works well somewhere else probably wonât work as well here.
2. Reverse benchmark instead: Look for a practice that everyone else relies on.
3. Experiment if you can (but make sure to do it well): Test only what you can control and measure.
4. Monitor entrants and companies in distress: Who has nothing to lose? Who has everything to lose?
5. Ask insiders for concerns: That is especially true of people who interact directly with customers.
6. Ask outsiders for suspicions: What do others see as vulnerabilities to exploit?
7. Create bundles of practices: One-stop need fulfillment/problem-solving
8. Take aim at a chunk of the market: Where are the vulnerabilities to exploit?
9.