Up Your Cash Flow / Goldstein 19-23

22 What were people looking for...People want help.

23 We, the leaders of our business, cannot run our companies on an overabundance of inconsistent economic theories. We cannot run our companies on the theoretical notes of what leadership characteristics we should have. It doesn't matter. We are the leaders, like it or not. We are the people who must make things happen.

We must strive for greater profitability. Of course, product and service are vital factors, but unless we learn how to adequately control the expenses of our business, we are at the mercy of unseen forces.

We must develop a system that allows us to monitor the key financial elements of our companies and we much come to understand what financial numbers really mean.

We must also develop a plan for the future that gives us guidance while it provides us with goals.

Power and influence are vital forces: we must develop as much as necessary to make our voices heard when our interests are at stake.

We must learn how to delegate authority and to train people to perform vital tasks withing the organization. We must protect our most valuable asset--our employees

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 132-135

133 Superior management of structural intellectual capital played a key role in H-P's resurgence.

135 Information systems group is attacking overinvestment in knowledge. Leveraging through specialization. Simplification and automation Inventory management: Minimizing the cost of intellectual capital by providing knowledge on demand.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 38-39

39 Build credibility in the field. What works with outsiders also works inside the company. You're a junior staffer. You've got a hot idea. Your boss is busy with what she considers more important ideas. How do you boost yours up the priority ladder?
Don't keep nagging the boss, for heaven's sake. (It's self defeating and gets you nowhere.) Instead, steal the time, by hook or by crook, and get out into the field. Make friends with people, sell them on your idea, induce them to test it--and give them all the help you possibly can. Then let them sell your idea to your boss. Your credibility become their credibility--and theirs is typically better than yours.
Sure, they take the credit. Now it's their idea. (That's the point.) What, then, is the payoff for you? The grapevine never fails: People know it was you who sparked the fire, and eventually that information finds its way to the top.

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 97-98

98 A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. IT IS AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT YOU CAN BE THE BEST AT. The distinction is absolutely crucial.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 130-132

132 Two kinds of intellectual capital. First, the semi permanent body of knowledge that grows up around a task, a person, or an organization; second, tools that augment the body of knowledge by bringing relevant data or expertise to people who need them when they need them. To these add this: While plenty of quotidian information processing goes on in all companies, value-added knowledge work is rarely routine; because each sale, each project, each legal brief is unique, it's impossible to predict in advance what specific knowledge it will need to call on.

...two purposes that structural capital should serve. One, ...to codify bodies of knowledge that can be transferred, to preserve the recipes that might otherwise be lost. The second purpose of structural capital is to connect people to data, experts, and expertise--including bodies of knowledge--on a just-in-time basis.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 37-38

38 Study your butt off. Know more about your client (or coworker) than the next person, and you've got a leg up.

One hour of preparation for every minute of a client meeting.

Building credibility from the outside in (and avoiding internal politics in the process)

...that you can insulate yourself from a lot of hassle by building up external credibility.

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 95-97

97 If you become the best at something, you'll never remain on top it you don't have intrinsic passion for what you are doing. Finally, you can be passionate all you want, but if you can't be the best at it or it doesn't make economic sense, then you might have a lot of fun, but you won't produce great results.

What can we potentially do better than any other company, and equally important, what can we not do better than any other company? And if we can't be the best at it, then why are we doing it at all?

98 A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. IT IS AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT YOU CAN BE THE BEST AT. The distinction is absolutely crucial.

Up Your Cash Flow / Goldstein 19-19

...effective leaders have these traits:

Good Leaders Like What They Do: ...the general rule is that the love of what one does breeds the greatest success.
Good Leaders Have a Desire for Wealth: ...The ideal situation is obviously loving what you do and making money at it.
Good Leaders Are Curious: They always look for better ways to do things. They are curious about the future.
Good Leaders Have Courage: They have the courage to take reasonable risks.
Good Leaders Are Persistent: They tirelessly try to improve their business and themselves.
Good Leaders Have the Ability to Motivate: They motivate employees to be more productive, bankers to lend more money, and customers to return. Effective leaders are focused on people and human values.
Good Leaders Have a Strong Ego: Ego satisfaction can be the strongest motivation for success. Many of the most successful business people are driven by powerful egos.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 124-130

129 ...new building blocks of structural capital--patents, product and process improvements, databases, networks--can remodel or replace the old architecture.

130 Those who learn to take advantage of this increasing amount of information economically will be much more successful.

Information overload is all-too-real phenomenon that points to an important challenge in managing intellectual capital.

Passion for the value of intellectual capital should not come at the expense of basic principals of management. A business person must strive unendingly to use assets more efficiently, get more out of them, make do with less. Assets that are unused are a drag on performance. If physical exams followed generally accepted accounting principles, fat would be counted among a body's assets.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 35-37

37 Don't waste a single lunch.

38 Study your butt off. Know more about your client (or coworker) than the next person, and you've got a leg up.

One hour of preparation for every minute of a client meeting.

Building credibility from the outside in (and avoiding internal politics in the process)

...that you can insulate yourself from a lot of hassle by building up external credibility.

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 92-95

95 The essential strategic difference between the gtg and comparison companies lay in two fundamental distinctions. First, the gtg companies founded their strategies on deep understanding along three key dimensions--what we came to call the three circles. Second, the gtg companies translated that understanding into a simple, crystalline concept that guided all their efforts--hence the term Hedgehog Concept.

More precisely, a Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles.

1. What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important, what you cannot be the best in the world at). This discerning standard goes far beyond core competence. Just because you possess a core competence doesn't necessarily mean you can be the best in the world at it. Conversely, what you can be the best at might not even be something in which you are currently engaged.
2. What drives your economic engine. All the gtg companies attained piercing insight into how to most effectively generate sustained and robust cash flow and profitability. In particular, they discovered the single denominator--profit per x--that had the greatest impact on their economics.
3. What you are deeply passionate about. The gtg companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here, is not the stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate.

Up Your Cash Flow / Goldstein 1-19

18 Sometimes business owners become expensive clerks. The owner-managers of many small companies often become the company clerk.

19 The managerial skill of the owners and managers is the most important factor in the success of failure of a business. When people go into business, they have a good knowledge of the product or service they provide but little knowledge of managing people, marketing, finance, accounting, inventory controls, and a host of other areas needed to make proper business decisions. Least of all they have little knowledge of the proper function they must perform within their organization.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 123-124

124 ...knowledge databases allow a company to put its best people on the front line while still keeping their expertise available to the entire organization.

...open only to employees, where anyone can pose question and anyone can offer an answer.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 34-35

35 ...I've seen a lot of fast-track men and women have their dreams dashed because they left a trail of (rightfully) resentful folks in their condescending wake.

The little people will get even, which is one of a thousand reasons why they are not little people at all. If you're a jerk as leader, you will be torpedoed.

Your intelligence--as leader, consultant, investment banker, securities analyst--will, in general, be directly proportional to the number and depth of your relationships with folks six levels "down", who have access to the real data, unexpurgated.

GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 88-92

92 Those who built the gtg companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used their hedgehog nature to drive toward what we came to call a Hedgehog Concept for their companies. Those who led the comparison companies tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of a Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered, diffused, and inconsistent.

...the best, most convenient drugstores, with high profit per customer visit.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 34-35

35 ...I've seen a lot of fast-track men and women have their dreams dashed because they left a trail of (rightfully) resentful folks in their condescending wake.

The little people will get even, which is one of a thousand reasons why they are not little people at all. If you're a jerk as leader, you will be torpedoed.

Your intelligence--as leader, consultant, investment banker, securities analyst--will, in general, be directly proportional to the number and depth of your relationships with folks six levels "down", who have access to the real data, unexpurgated.