"...out-learning the competition"
HEADLINES:
May 15th Jim Collins' Four Hour Presentation -- mark your calendars now - Jim Collins is the opening four hour keynote for our 2012 FORTUNE Leadership Summit in Atlanta, May 15 - 16. And we'll beam him LIVE 15th May to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Delhi, Mexico City, Monterrey, Mumbai, and Munich. He'll also keynote our Australian Growth Summit in Sydney March 15 - 16 which we'll also beam to Perth.
Jim Collins Book Released Today! -- Jim's latest and last business book he plans to write is the culmination of another 9 year death march. Entitled Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, Collins and co-author Morten T. Hansen look at what they call "10x" companies - seven companies that beat the S&P 500 by a factor of 10 over the 30 study period of 1972 to 2002. $10,000 invested in Southwest Airlines in 1972, for instance, would have grown to $12 million by 2002, 63 times better than the general stock market. So how did they do it as they navigated the same chaos as everyone else?
Jim Collins' Exclusive Excerpt -- "be in the know" and take 7 minutes right now and read FORTUNE's exclusive excerpt entitled Jim Collins: How to manage through chaos. To quote the magazine, these 10x companies "...aren't more creative. They're not more visionary. They're not more charismatic. They're not more ambitious. They're not more blessed by luck. They're not more risk-seeking. They're not more heroic. And they're not more prone to making big, bold moves."
Jim Collins' Findings? -- What they do, first, is accept full responsibility for their own fate. "10Xers then bring this idea to life by a triad of core behaviors: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia. And they all led their teams with a surprising method of self-control in an out-of-control world." You must read the Amundsen and Scott story in the FORTUNE excerpt to get the context for this critically important aspect of leadership, focused first on what Collins calls the 20-Mile March, one of the six key findings of his research. I'm reading the book furiously today to get to the other five.
Jim Collins Interview -- take 7 more minutes and read FORTUNE's separate interview of Jim Collins where he discusses some of the other findings like "Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs." He also discusses the important role that luck plays, good and bad. It's one of the reasons they hold "freakishly" high levels of cash and maintain a conservative balance sheet. He also names his choice for entrepreneur of the decade!
Another Critical Book -- while you're ordering Jim's new book, jump over and grab a copy of Andrew Sherman's most important book he's ever written - Harvesting Intangible Assets: Uncover Hidden Revenue in Your Company. The modern day version of the 1915 classic Acres of Diamonds, your company is likely full of valuable intellectual property (IP) waiting to be uncovered and put to work. And the failure to protect this IP properly can cost you dearly down the road. In a game where brains have replaced brawn, take your company through Sherman's book, chapter by chapter, following the lead of the top IP lawyer (and perennial lawyer for EO) working for the third largest law firm in the world, Jones Day (P&G's law firm). Sherman gets entrepreneurial firms and provides a practical guide we can all follow. Give a copy to your CFO and have them start digging!!