Titan Down….The End of “On Demand”?….LinkedIn for the Successful….Friendly Firing….Econ Recon: Five Myths that Refuse to Die

“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”

 Andy Grove
Co-Founder and CEO of Intel
1936-2016

Titan Down

If you can, try to imagine a world without the microprocessor.

Some CEOs grow businesses, others create businesses, others create an industry…and a special few recreate the world. Such was the contribution of Andy Grove who died this week at the age of 79. His enduring claim to fame will be as one of the founders of Intel and for many years its driving force.

After surviving Nazi occupied Hungary during World War II and then escaping the subsequent Communist occupation, Grove found his way to the US and became the quintessential American success story. Grove bet Intel’s future in the 1980s when he redirected  Intel’s focus away from memory chips to microprocessors in a ‘bet the company move’ that has become one of the truly great American business stories.

Do yourself and your career a favor and learn more about this legendary CEO. Start with his obituary in Forbes and then study his book, “Only the Paranoid Survive”. In it you’ll see that “Grove’s contribution to business thinking concerns a new way of measuring the nightmare moment every leader dreads–the moment when massive change occurs and all bets are off. The success you had the day before is gone, destroyed by unforeseen changes that hit like a stage-six rapid. Grove calls such moments Strategic Inflection Points, and he has lived through several. “

Andy Grove, rest in peace…and thank you.

The End of “On Demand?”

A vision, a mission, a competitive strategy and a great business model are all crucial ingredients for a successful enterprise. When it comes to business models, Uber’s success has spawned not only imitators in the form of direct competition, but a flock of unrelated companies that have borrowed Uber’s innovative “on demand” business model.

As it turns out, most of these Uber “Wanna be’s” are “not gonna be.” Is the “Uber” model only for Uber? Is its business model applicable only to ride sharing? Check out this short article from the New York Times that looks at companies who are finding out that the Uber model doesn’t translate. Are you betting your company on an “on demand” model that may not be appropriate?

LinkedIn for the Successful

Few online offerings have been more successful than LinkedIn. Its success is due to the “network effects” by which it grows more valuable as it grows larger. You may be “on” LinkedIn, but is it working “for” you? Check out this summary of “Seven Unusual Things Successful People Do Every Day on LinkedIn”. Each of the seven items features links to more information on the “how to” for implementing these tactics.

Friendly Firing

Terminating an employee is never easy. Most managers never receive any formal training in school, nor work at a company with well thought out procedures for an action that affects not only the employee but the company itself. There may be not be a good way to fire someone, but it is possible to make the best of a bad situation. This one page article from HBR suggest some best practices for the most unpleasant task an executive can face.

Five Economic Myths that Refuse to Die

It’s an election year and the economy will loom large in whatever passes for debates. Both sides will have vocal positions on trade, taxes, income inequality and other issues. You’re like to be much more informed about these issues by checking out this short article that summarizes Five Economic Myths that Just Won’t Die  backed up by some hard numbers.