Guy Kawasaki's 10 Rules for Revolutionaries

Amazon.com link to book

This post gives a taste of one of my favorite business books and one of the most inspiring business leaders out there IMHO...

My first year in college we watched a presentation by Guy about innovation. It was a fantastic presentation that was very informative yet engaging entertaining and funny. This book is similar, while it is not funny it is the easiest to read business book I've ever come across. This is because it is split up into ten short chapters and lots of relevant examples are given. Guy also starts every chapter with a great quote which defines the chapter and the lesson to be learned from it.

The 10 rules come under three main categories

1. Create like a god, This section explains how to create revolutionary products and services

2. Command like a king, For a revolution to succeed, someone has to take charge and make the tough, insightful and strategic decisions

3. Work like a slave, Successful revolutions require lots of hard work. In this section you'll learn the three most important components of work

My favorite rule is the first one; Cogita Differenter (Think Different)

"I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was, a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long" Sam Walton

In this chapter Guy highlights the importance of simply thinking differently. He talks about purging your idols, idols are any old prejudices, procedures, and presuppositions that cloud and constrict your thinking. Zero based budgeting is the process in which every expense is questioned from the very first dollar-nothing is continued from previous budgets. "Zero-based idolising" then means questioning every business practice and trashing the ones that are no longer compelling.

Examples:

Distribution Idol: We sell through dealers, we don't sell to our customers directly

Employee Idol: Employees can't be trusted. We have to monitor their productivity and get after them when their lax"

Market Share Idol: Market share causes profitability, so let's reduce price to gain share

Guy sums up the chapter with this compelling tale. Since 1955 Disneyland made the rules for the amusement park business, for the next thirty years you either played by their rules or hardly mattered at all. Disney's rule provided safe theme rides and entertainment. Then along came Jay Stein. When building Universal Studios Florida, Stein had a different idea of how to play the game. First he threw out his company's standard operating procedure. Instead of stuffing people on a tram and showing them "how we make movies" his pitch became, come ride the movies. Stein also turned amusement park business on its head by reversing Disney's rules of be nice, gentle and politically correct. Universal Studios Florida would kick peoples butts with blood, guts,flames and explosions. Everyday there are customer complaints that fireballs are too hot and everyday thousands of people come back for more. There's not much that Disney can do about this full frontal attack because it's a prisoner of its own g rated fun but safe standards and image. Stein used Aikido marketing turning the strengths of Disney into weaknesses. If Disney tried to liven up its image it would lose its core audience and blur its image.

There are so many business books out there sometimes it's hard to know which ones to read. This is one of those books, it is also very easy to read.