Download or read book Rethink Chapter 8 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 8: Revolutionary Rethinking at ING DIRECT. In the time of theRoman Empire, money changers set up shop in courtyards where they conducted their business on a long bench called a bancu. In Renaissance Florence, business loans were made across a banco, a desk covered by a green cloth. So it was inevitable that the builders of the echoing 19th century marble temples to Mammon, intent on awing the public as well as their commercial clients, would call their edifices “banks.” And if any single word described the banking process in those days, it was “static.” Bankers were set in their ways. The 20th century ushered in change that shook up the bankers’ world. Technology in the form of wire transfers, telephone banking, and the ATM transformed many of the “hows” in the industry. Banks began to shed their awesome trappings, woo their customers, and imitate retail stores. Then, in the new millennium, still another shock wave rippled across traditional banking operations in the United States: It was called ING DIRECT USA, an online bank that had rethought its business, deciding to put aside the “hows” and, instead, focus obsessively on the rapid shift in the “whats” that had become most valuable to customers. This revolutionary bank has become a role model for creative cost-cutting and significant innovation. Based in Wilmington, Delaware, ING DIRECT USA is a division of the Dutch conglomerate ING Groep NV, an insurance and banking colossus. ING DIRECT, launched in September 2000 by its chairman, president, and CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann. To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 3 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 3: Identify the "Whats" That Are Truly Valuable. Having made the decision to rethink your “whats” and use them as your unit of analysis, you’re now ready to begin the process of identifying and examining their desired outcomes, and judging how to improve their performance. To start, you need to determine which “whats” are truly generating high value for your company. Just to be clear, when I describe a given “what” as having “high value,” I mean that it is contributing to overall performance or differentiating your company from its rivals in some significant way. For example, ship-product might be a high-value “what” in your company because its outstanding performance sets your company apart from its competitors. Or even if its performance is nothing special, it might provide high value simply because it satisfies customers--and customer satisfaction helps keep costs constant. You will want to pinpoint “whats” having high value so that you can focus your “how” improvement efforts where they will count the most. You also need to determine their current performance levels and why they perform as they do. Don’t even think about changing a high-value “what” unless you possess an in-depth understanding of the cause of its performance. Is it the people, the process, the technology, or some blend of those “hows?” As you move through the rethinking process, prepare to encounter some surprises. Your most valuable “whats” might be those you least expect. Witness the experience of Alcoa, the giant manufacturer of aluminum and aluminum products based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 7 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 7: Unravel (and Follow) the Rules. In rethinking yourbusiness to put aside “how” in favor of “what” as your unit of analysis, your view of your company has been expanded through the lenses of value, performance, interconnectedness, and predictability. Now it’s time to think about government regulation. That is not to suggest that the laws and rules set forth by the various branches of government are anything new; they have long loomed large in every company’s business plan and daily operation. What this chapter offers are new ways to incorporate compliance needs into your planning. The tale of Intrade, the Dublin-based, online prediction market, is instructive. For the first four years of its life, the company barreled from strength to strength. The lure was strong: Members could buy or sell futures contracts on upcoming events–anything from the outcome of an election to the likelihood of Osama Bin Laden’s capture. If the price of the contract rose high enough or sank low enough, members could make a bundle. The founder and CEO, John Delaney, didn’t have to worry about promotion. Intrade’s market predictions were so accurate that the media followed them closely and often. In 2004, for example, it accurately predicted the outcome of the presidential election and all but one member of the U.S. Congress. Why so accurate? According to Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, “Everybody has information from their own little corner of the universe...” To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 11 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 11: Morph Again and Again. When Shakespeare wroteHamlet’s great soliloquy, “To be or not to be,” he not only defined human ambiguity, he also foreshadowed the uncertain future of the play. No other drama has been more often recycled, reimagined, reinterpreted, or rethought by successive generations of critics and dramaturges. Shakespeare’s acolytes reinvented Hamletby masking the play’s hero with all sorts of disguises, reflecting their eras and their endlessly varying interpretations of the drama. The vacillating Danish prince has been variously cast as an oedipal English son, a singing Indian rajah, a Japanese Noh noble, a manly daughter, and an effeminate man played by women. The script has been shortened to a speedy 15-minute performance, lengthened to a glacial four-plus hours, and staged without Act 5 (no grave diggers, Osric, or fencing match). Among its countless venues, it was first played at sea on a sailing ship off Sierra Leone in 1607. Thanks to its antiroyal edge, the play has been reworked worldwide to protest assorted bêtes noires, including Germany’s corrupt Kaiser Wilhelm, repressive Communist regimes (Chinese, Czech, Polish), and greedy American tycoons. It has even survived animation, ranging from Spike TV’s cutesy characters (all LEGOs) to Disney’s likeable The Lion King(a Hamlet named Simba). When it comes to business, the unprecedented uncertainty and volatility facing leaders today create turbulence as great as any that buffeted Hamlet. Companies must constantly monitor and massage how they do what they do to adjust to new technologies, new competitive threats, and ever-changing market conditions. To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 9 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 9: Rethinking at Eclipse. Back in the 1970S, people laughed when PC pioneers predicted that a computer would soon adorn every desk in America. Vern Raburn had the last laugh. As Microsoft’s vice president in charge of application soft ware, Raburn helped make that prophecy come true. Three decades later, Raburn found another career, general aviation, and this time he combined predicting with rethinking. Anticipating that private aviation was ripe for revolution, he theorized that his own new six-seat, twin-engine Very Light Jet (VLJ) could be perfectly positioned to take advantage of the new trend. That’s because his aircraft would cost half as much to buy and operate as any of its private-jet rivals. To tip the scales in his direction, Raburn assembled an impressive collection of manufacturing “whats” while discarding some not-so-golden oldies, and he reimagined many of the “hows.” As it turned out, Raburn stumbled when it came to the hard business of execution, but his clear vision and his decision to rethink provides a worthwhile lesson for businesses everywhere. Raburn’s first epiphany was borrowed from Silicon Valley. “Historically in aviation,” he explains, “the term ‘value proposition’ meant that a better plane justified a higher price. In the business I come from, it’s the other way around. You make the product better, and you charge less.” Raburn helped do that for computers, and it’s what his Eclipse Aviation Corporation set out to do for aircraft. Although Eclipse 500s have yet to make a big dent in today’s congested skies, more than 200 have taken off across the country. To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 5 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 5: Make (and Break) Connections. When you rethink your company and study it using the “what” as your unit of analysis, you can see that, at its core, it is a tightly woven fabric of connections--emotional, financial, technical--that cut across organizational boundaries. Pull on one thread and many others might move. The clerk in accounting is related to the chief dispatcher who went to school with the director of advertising. A glitch in production or a spurt in sales can send shock waves from one end of the company to the other, from design to delivery, and it might well affect the bottom line. So before you act upon your knowledge of which “whats” are high in value and low in performance, before you set in motion a process-improvement program, you need to examine the connections between and among your target “whats.” A failure to do so can wreak havoc with a company’s profits and prospects. Dell Inc. learned that lesson the hard way. Dell was launched in 1984 by a young entrepreneur with a brilliant strategy. He would sell made-to-order computers directly to customers, primarily businesses, without benefit of retail outlets. The brick-and-mortar middlemen were charging too much, Michael Dell concluded, and giving customers ridiculously inadequate technical support to boot. He intended to sidestep both pitfalls. In particular, his company was going to provide outstanding tech support. And it did that famously, until the day it didn’t, infamously. In the early 2000s, in pursuit of lower overhead, Dell began to outsource the resolve Customer-Questions/Problems“what.” To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 4 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 4: Know What You Are (and Aren’t) Good At. Michael Jordan is oneof the best basketball players in the history of the game. No argument. But back in 1994, he made a serious mistake. He assumed he could be one of the best at another sport as well. Jordan was a natural athlete who could roll a bowling strike backward from between his legs, score well in pro-amateur golf tournaments, and smash batting-practice baseballs out of the park. When he announced that he was going to try his hand at professional baseball, few skeptics were bold enough to suggest that this career turn would be anything but another Jordanesque dazzler. Jordan had led the National Basketball Association (NBA) in scoring for seven consecutive years, sparked the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1992, and led the Chicago Bulls to three straight national championships before deciding he had enough and was ready to retire from basketball. He told sportswriters that his late father had actually wanted him to be a major league baseball player. In fact, Jordan said, his greatest accomplishment in sports was being named most valuable player on his boyhood Babe Ruth League team when it won the state championship: “I batted over .500, hit five home runs in seven games, and pitched a one-hitter to get us into the championship game.” But that was then. Now, at 31, Jordan was no kid, and he faced a steep learning curve. After an underwhelming spring training season with the White Sox in 1994, he was sent to the minors. To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink written by Ric Merrifield and published by Addison-Wesley Professional. This book was released on 2009-03-06 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's a totally human condition, a trap that ensnares virtually everyone. Just as when we tie a route to a destination so much so that when someone else takes a different route "why are we going this way?" it usually doesn't matter "how" you get there. This "how" trap also takes place at work, people intertwine "how" they do their job with the outcome of "what" they are doing that sometimes obvious decisions are masked, and missed. We know how to focus on process: the how of business. That's why this book shows that we're leaving so much value on the table and that's what this book exposes with vivid examples, while at the same time offering guidance on ways you can take advantage of this new business lens. Business architect Ric Merrifield shows how to rise above the clutter of your "hows" to expose what does and doesn't need attention. You'll learn to identify the activities most critical to success and those that that are borderline, redundant, or even counterproductive. Along the way, Merrifield presents powerful case studies from companies as diverse as ING DIRECT and Eclipse, Amazon.com and Procter + Gamble: firms that have learned how to cut costs, strengthen innovation, and profit from change all at the same time.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 10 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 10: Rethinking at Cranium. Back in 1997, Richard Tait was a dynamic Scottish immigrant working for Microsoft in Seattle and amusing friends with his unwavering ability to lose at Scrabble. After a particularly humiliating defeat, Tait asked himself, “Why isn’t there a game that gives everyone a chance to shine?” He convinced Whit Alexander, an old friend, to help him develop a board game that would challenge multiple talents and let all the players win. They called it Cranium. A decade later, the inventive partners were comfortably seated atop an organization that had sold more than 22 million games, books, and toys in 40 countries and 10 languages. Their Seattle-based enterprise is now one of the most successful ventures in the history of independent game companies, and the Cranium game holds the sales speed record among independents. How did Tait and Alexander wend their way through a crowded marketplace to reach their current eminence? By tapping the brain matter encased in their own craniums to rethink their business, and then eliminating, adding to, and reinventing their “whats” and “hows” to create a business model that is unique among their peers. Cranium is exactly the game Richard Tait had in mind when he despaired of ever winning at Scrabble. It has something for just about everyone, from word puzzles and fact-based questions to sculpting, sketching, acting, and even humming. And for a growing band of Craniacs (not to be confused with the sinister Craniac robots that inhabit Nickelodeon’s animated ChalkZone series), the game is addictive. To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book Rethink Chapter 2 written by Ric Merrifield and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eBook version of the printed book. Read the following excerpt from Rethink, Chapter 2: The Thinking Behind Rethinking. When businesspeopletalk about the extraordinary productivity gains of the last decade, the lion’s share of credit typically goes to technology. I protest. Although it’s true that major advances in the machines and soft ware that gather, process, and distribute information have made possible whole new ways of organizing work in a company, business productivity owes just as much to operational design theory. In fact, innovative design concepts such as the time-and-motion studies of the early 1900s, the total quality management(TQM) programs of the ’80s, and the reengineering initiatives of the ’90s led to enormous gains in business efficiency. Today, we’re poised for another productivity breakthrough, but to take full advantage of it, we need a new and more powerful approach. This book offers precisely that--a groundbreaking way to lift productivity by maximizing the value of your company’s “whats.” Unit of Analysis: The Task In his landmark 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations, Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith called attention to a revolutionary development in the nature of work in his day. Machines were just beginning to replace manual labor, and most goods were still made by hand, with each worker performing all the operations needed to make the final product. Smith described a far more efficient procedure at a pin factory: One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations... To continue reading, purchase and download now.
Download or read book ReThink the Internet written by Trisha Prabhu and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stop hate. Promote Kindness. Be an Upstander. ReThink the Internet. Do you have to ask someone’s permission before posting their photo? How can you tell if something on the internet is true? What should you do if you see someone bullying a friend online (or #IRL)? In a series of fun stories, innovator, inventor, social entrepreneur, and upstanding digital citizen Trisha Prabhu goes through the hows, the whats, and the whys of digital citizenship, showing readers how to lead with kindness and stop internet hate. For people who are just getting their first phone to others who have been scrolling, swiping, clicking and posting for years, this book makes us all consider what our role is in the digital world and how, together, we can make it a force for good.
Download or read book Rethink Reinvent Reposition written by Leo Hopf and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-18 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is your business struggling to stay afloat? Are you overwhelmed by the challenge of building an organization that can be a market leader? Well, now is the time to stop going in circles—find a new direction and re-imagine your company. In this hard-hitting guide, renowned international corporate consultants and professors Leo Hopf and William Welter show how to breathe new life into your firm. Using revealing case studies from Seagate to Harley-Davidson, they offer such key strategies as: Repackaging products to widen the range of your target demographic Revising your profit model to improve your margins Moving up- or down-market to attract new customers Using core competencies to enter new markets Conducting business at a different time to reach new customers You'll need to take a risk to reap the rewards. But this blueprint for growth will supply you with the confidence to start on a different path. So forget the same-old tired tactics. Instead, make things happen by making over your business! It's crucial to the livelihood of your enterprise, and Hopf and Welter give you everything you need to get it right.
Download or read book SUMMARY Now Discover Your Strengths By Marcus Donald O Clifton Buckingham written by Shortcut Edition and published by Shortcut Edition. This book was released on 2021-06-18 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. By reading this summary, you will discover how your strengths and those of your employees will revolutionize your business. You will also discover : that your strengths come from your talent; that your weaknesses don't matter, as long as you manage to contain them; how to adjust your managerial techniques to each of your employees to be more efficient; that someone who uses their talents is more effective than someone who relies on learning; how to rethink your company to make talent its driving force. Many companies spend fortunes on training to compensate for their employees' weaknesses. But they are turning the problem upside down by simply trying to limit the damage. Instead, you need to recognize the unique and enduring talents that make up your team and realize that an individual can only grow personally and professionally by focusing on his or her strengths. By integrating these two principles, you take the decision to create a more stable, more enjoyable and more successful business model. But of course, all of this requires you to review your methods! Are you ready to revolutionize your company's managerial techniques to increase your performance? *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!
Download or read book RE written by Al Lautenslager and published by Morgan James Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As consumers wrestle with tightening credit, inflation, economic slowdown and uncertainties, unemployment, debt, the housing crises, global unrest, mortgage foreclosures, and prognostications of doom and gloom, doing something different is more important than ever. Repositioning, reengineering, renewing, rejuvenating and reenergizing are all rising in priority as they relate to improving businesses, careers, hopes, dreams, personal development and life in general. As a result, Life improvement, battling status quo, ambition, the pursuit of happiness, dealing with change, or exploring the possibilities, are all or in part, on the mind of many today. All of these are related to change, improvement, doing things again or different or re-__________ (insert your Re: word of choice here). This book is the response to the point in time, life and history that our generation is in. It boils down to Re-newing, Re-viving, Re-inventing, Re-engineering, Re-positioning, Re-juvenating your business and life.
Download or read book Rethinking Law and Language written by Jan M. Broekman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ‘law-language-law’ theme is deeply engraved in Occidental culture, more so than contemporary studies on the subject currently illustrate. This insightful book creates awareness of these cultural roots and shows how language and themes in law can be richer than studying a simple mutuality of motives. Rethinking Law and Language unveils today’s problems with the two faces of language: the analogue and the digital, on the basis of which our smart phones and Artificial Intelligence create modern life.
Download or read book Rethinking Map Literacy written by Ming Xie and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-03-29 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides two conceptual frameworks for further investigation of map literacy and fills in a gap in map literacy studies, addressing the distinction between reference maps and thematic maps and the varying uses of quantitative map literacy (QML) within and between the two. The text offers two conceptual frameworks and uses specific map examples to explore this variability in map reading skills and knowledge, with the goal of informing educational pedagogy and practices within geography and related disciplines. The book will appeal to cartographers and geographers as a new perspective on a tool of communication they have long employed in their disciplines, and will also appeal to those involved in the educational pedagogy of information and data literacy as a way to conceptualize the development of curricula and teaching materials in the increasingly important arena of the interplay between quantitative data and map-based graphics. The first framework discussed is based on a three-set Venn model, and addresses the content and relationships of three “literacies” – map literacy, quantitative literacy and background information. As part of this framework, the field of QML is introduced, conceptualized, and defined as the knowledge (concepts, skills and facts) required to accurately read, use, interpret and understand the quantitative information embedded in geographic backgrounds. The second framework is of a compositional triangle based on (1) the ratio of reference to thematic map purpose and (2) the level of generalization and/or distortion within maps. In combination, these two parameters allow for any type of map to be located within the triangle as a prelude to considering the type and level of quantitative literacy that comes into play during map reading. Based on the two frameworks mentioned above, the pedagogical tool of “word problems” is applied to “map literacy” in an innovative way to explore the variability of map reading skills and knowledge based on specific map examples.
Download or read book Creative Anger written by Rhoda Baruch and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are a nation of plenty, of opportunity, and luxury, but we are also a nation flush with fury. Homicides, assaults, domestic abuse, youth violence, and even road rage are too common, let alone everyday outbursts of temper that harm family members, friends, peers, and co-workers. The market for anti-anger, mood-stabilizing drugs is booming, as is the market for anger management counseling and classes. What is happening? In this book, a team of experts who've been traveling the nation presenting workshops on Rethinking Anger start by telling us this: Anger is normal; nature hardwired into our brains for protection. But here is the paradox. Anger out of control destroys, yet anger understood and controlled is a constructive force, one that can be used for creativity, change, and growth. Authors Baruch, Grotberg, and Stutman show us how to take charge of this powerful emotion, so it can be used in constructive ways, rather than destructive. Using the anger energy constructively can release creative potential and be liberating. We are a nation of plenty, of opportunity, and luxury, but we are also a nation flush with fury. Homicides, assaults, domestic abuse, youth violence, and even road rage are all too common, let alone everyday outbursts of temper that harm family members, friends, peers, and co-workers. The market for anti-anger, mood-stablizing drugs is booming, as is the market for anger management counseling and classes. What is happening? In this book, a team of experts who've been traveling the nation presenting workshops on Rethinking Anger start by telling us this: Anger is normal; nature hardwired into our brains for protection. But here is the paradox. Anger out of control destroys, yet anger understood and controlled is a constructive force, one that can be used for creativity, change, and growth. Authors Baruch, Grotberg, and Stutman show us how to take charge of this powerful emotion, so it can be used in constructive ways, rather than destructive. Using anger energy constructively can release creative potential, and be liberating. Ten years of research and workshops have honed the knowledge and skills of this author team, and here they guide us to taming our anger into a positive force. This book will be useful to all trying to tame their own anger, or that of others close to them. It will also be of interest to teachers, counselors, managers and students of psychology.
