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"Investors have heard many decry the decade of the 2000s as the 'lost decade.' A dollar invested in the S&P 500 on the first trading day of 1999 saw it worth just 65 cents a decade later (3/31/09 is our cutoff point). This "underperformance" is seen by many as a failure of the U.S. economic engine. If we look at the Top 20 performers of the S&P 500 during that same time period, we see a vastly different story. Instead of a 35% loss during that time, the Top 20 earned an average 426% return in stock price, excluding dividends. What accounted for this differential performance during this "lost decade"? This manifesto offers some insights based on an analysis of the Top 20's business environment and strategies deployed during the 2000s. Then, we recount some lessons that any firm can use to build a solid economic future."
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"The next quantum leap will occur when a critical mass of people realizes that one of the major purposes of life is JOY.
Until then, most people will accept an ersatz, an imitation, or a roundabout way of creating joy.
Is JOY a BMW? (That's the advertising campaign the company has been running).
Not really. Sorry, but no. With all due respect to BMW, joy has nothing to do with a (great!) metal box on wheels. That's transportation. And if you do not feel joy unless you have money to buy this car, you're really screwed. Because next year, joy is going to be your own private Boeing. Or a trip to Mars. Or watching shooting stars on Jupiter."
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"Your job as a leader isn't to eliminate dissonance–your job is to make conflict productive. Right Fights enable you and your team to stop fighting about everything that doesn't matter and start fighting, in a high-minded manner, about what really matters.
I promise you this: Master the competencies of Right Fights and you will achieve sustainable breakthroughs and effect real organizational change. The fuel of human invention is found in dissonance, diversity, competition, and even conflict. That's how you win in the marketplace.
Start by asking yourself: Is this the right fight to fight?"
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"Before any significant and sustained increase in the creation of good middle-class jobs can take place, the voice of the entrepreneur who is the source of all breakthrough innovation and job growth must be heard.
Sadly, however, entrepreneurs are just about the only Americans without a voice in Washington. Big Business certainly has a voice. So does labor, as do teachers, retailers, insurers, doctors, environmentalists and just about every interest group you can think of.
Only entrepreneurs lack an effective organized voice. This despite the fact that, as the distinguished economist Jonathan Hughes once put it, entrepreneurs are 'the vital few' upon whom all of society depends for economic progress."
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"Some days it feels like the information age has morphed into the interruption age. But what if those interruptions turned out to be our best opportunity to make a difference in our workplaces?
As leaders, we make choices all day, every day. The "knock on the door" happens over and over again in some form – phone calls, meetings, emails, and text messages with questions to answer, concerns to address, problems to solve, and fires to put out. There are big issues and small issues, planned sessions and surprises, and they come at us endlessly and from every direction. We have to make decisions without having all the available information, and we need to make them right now. The workload is expanding, and the time we have to deal with each issue is shrinking.
But what if we could step back and look at all those interactions with a fresh perspective? What if, instead of seeing them as interfering with our work, we were to look at them as latent leadership moments? What if these moments were the answer to transformational leadership in today's busy world?"
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