The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 90-102

91 Look for the offbeat credential, the gap in the resume for the two years she was off climbing mountains in Tibet or teaching kids to read in rural Texas.

93 Education, technology and entrepreneurship are the three great creators of wealth in the modern economy. Brian Quinn Tuck School, Dartmouth.

101 But the focus is on the "feel good" and not the $900. "People don't last long if all they care about is commission,"

102 The key is showing your people they need long-term customers, not short-term dollars.

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 126-128

128 ...gtg lies in the discipline to do whatever it takes to become the best within carefully selected arenas and then to seek continual improvement from there.

Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with ego-less clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn that potential into reality. The lack of discipline to rinse their cottage cheese. (David Scott)

Up Your Cash Flow / Goldstein 75-76

76 Cash Collections.

Generally, there are four alternative methods that can be used to determine how cash is going to be collected. Use the alternative you feel most comfortable with.

Alternative 1. If you are in the 100 percent cash-and-carry business all sales are collected in the month the sales are made.

Alternative 2. Be arbitrary.Guess what you believe the collections will be during each month of the year.

Alternative 3. Go back to prior years to see what each month's relationship of collections is to the year's total. Apply that percentage to the total annual collection you expect to receive.

Alternative 3. Assume that a month's sales will be converted to cash consistently in the months following the month of the sale. (45% in the month of the sale, 40% in the first month following the sale, and 15 percent in the second month following the sale)

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 85-90

90 Hire neat people you like, we can train the burgers part.

If you want an environment of trust, care, compassion--which is the only kind of environment that will lead to trust, care, and compassion for customers--then stay the hell out of people's personal lives!

Reward people based on accomplishment, rather than on being a model employee. People...do some of their best work away from the desk...Dullness is the just reward of people who work all day and never take serious breaks.

Add 10 "differentiators" to every product or service every 60 days. Little improvements.

Never hire Mr. (or Ms.) Right!

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 125-126

126 Disciplined people. The transition begins not by trying to discipline the wrong people into the right behaviors, but by getting self-disciplined people on the bus in the first place. Next we have disciplined thought. You need the discipline to confront the brutal facts of reality, while retaining resolute faith that you can and will create a path to greatness. Most importantly, you need the discipline to persist in the search for understanding until you get your Hedgehog Concept: Finally, we have discipline action. The comparison companies often tried to jump right to disciplined action. But disciplined action without self-disciplined people is impossible to sustain, and disciplined action without disciplined thought is a recipe for disaster.

...the point is to first get self-disciplined people who engage in very rigorous thinking, who then take disciplined action within the framework of consistent system designed around the Hedgehog Concept.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 76-85

81 If you can succeed in creating a shared mental model of your work together, you'll be successful in bridging the obstacles of telecommuting. Shared mental model. I like that. Translation: Talk, talk, talk...

83 That's right, let people try it for free. Whether it's salad dressing, software, or Saturn, offer tasting, tryouts, and test drives. First, no one can be happy with your product until they've tried it. Second, you'll convey your passion about the product. Remember, passion is contagious--spread from person-to-person, mouth-to-mouth.

85 You're as good as your last assignment.

Reward excellent failures. Punish mediorce successes. Phil Daniels.

Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody controls anything.

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 123-125

125 The point of this analogy is that when we looked inside the gtg companies, we were reminded of the best part of the airline pilot model: freedom and responsibility within the framework of a highly developed system.

The gtg companies build a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn't need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.

Up Your Cash Flow / Goldstein 73-75

75 Cash is one of the most expensive commodities we use in running our business.

...the cost of cash (interest) is one of the largest expense items a company has.

Ask your bookkeeper to grab a sheet a paper and title it "Cash Flow from________to____________" (use only a 15 day period)

A. Cash at the beginning of the period___________

B. Estimated Collections for the period___________

C. Borrowing Anticipated for the period__________

D. Total Cash available____________

E. Bills to be paid (subtract)_________

F. Loan Payments to be made (subtract)__________

G. Payroll and payroll taxes (subtract)__________

H. Ending cash for the period (subtract lines E,F, and G from line D)_____________

After doing the above, at least you know where you will be in the next two weeks. This will give you a very short-term cash projection and allow you to manage your float more effectively. Ideally you should have this kind of projection for at least six months to one year in advance.

Once your profit and loss budget is completed, it is necessary to convert the profit and loss numbers to a cash flow forecast.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 178-184

184 The greatest challenge for the Information Age manager is to create an organization that can share knowledge.

E-mail is a major cultural event--it changes the way you run the organization.

When work is carried out through networks, an organization's structure changes whether you want it to or not.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 75-76

76 Interviewing tips/tools
-Don't over schedule
-Save the Big Guy/Gal till last.
-Find a comfy setting.
-Try small talk (maybe)
-Prepare. Read everything you can
-"Please give me an example"...most important words in the interviewer's arsenal.
-Most of the purpose of an interview is to gather stories--practical illustrations of precisely how things work (or don't). Measure your effectiveness by the number of "sagas" the interview produces.
-Think small. It's the details your are after. "Walk me through the process, please." "Here, let's sketch it on the chalkboard."
-Get to the front line. The devil is in the details, and the details are usually at the front line.
-Don't measure your interview effectiveness by the seniority of those you've talked with. Measure it by junior-ity.
-Don't stop burrowing until you understand. The best interviewers ask the dumbest questions. Remember, you're being paid to ask stupid questions.
-Forget generalizations.
-Seek out "the way we do things around here".
-Take me through yesterday.
-Don't let notes age
-Practice (and observation) makes better.
-Final word: few things set me off faster than reviewing somebody's interview notes and finding a dearth of evidence--concrete examples and minute details that illustrate the big point.

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 122-123

123 Responsibility Accounting

Build a culture full of people who take disciplined action within the three circles, frantically consistent with the Hedgehog Concept.
1. Build a culture around the idea of freedom and responsibility, within a framework.
2. Fill that culture with self-disciplined people who are willing to go to extreme lengths to fulfill their responsibilities. They will "rinse" their cottage cheese"
3. Don't confuse a culture of discipline with a tyrannical disciplinarian.
4. Adhere with great consistency to the Hedgehog Concept, exercising an almost religious focus on the intersection of the three circles. Equally important, create a "stop doing list" and systematically unplug anything extraneous.