Somehow it felt like we were cheating.

I didn’t understand how a small team like ours could compete with “proper” companies. As I saw it, big companies had hundreds of suit-wearing geniuses in big offices churning out perfect software.

It was not until I worked for large organisations that I realised that the way most large companies develop software is often slow, unproductive or completely broken. It is like a sickness and even big names like IBM, Microsoft or Google aren’t immune. I now think that perhaps they had it right in 1999 at the first company I worked for all along.

Rework is a book on a similar subject. It takes apart the conventional wisdom of how to run a company and suggests different approaches.

It is written by owners of the small but very successful software company called 37Signals, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier. The company produces a number of web applications and is also famous for inventing Ruby on Rails. For years they have been writing a popular blog called Signal vs. Noise. This book is very much based on that blog and if you have been an avoid reader you will not find much new. If you haven’t, it is a worthwhile and easy read.

The book itself is a series of pieces of advice with good reasoning behind them. There is nothing revolutionary or even partially new. However, all the ideas are expressed clearly, directly and at times they got me thinking. That is a good thing.

My three favourite nuggets of advice were:

- Planning is guessing
- Fire the workaholics
- Outside Money is Plan Z

If you went to business school the advice in this book will probably contradict what you were taught and give you a different perspective. It is up to you to work out whether the advice is good or not. That said a lot of it is common sense.

Rework is a short book and you should be able to read it in a few hours. If you are thinking of starting a software company and are put off because you think you need a massive amount of funding, hundreds of people or a uniquely brilliant idea to be successful read Rework and be prepared to have your mind changed.

Image credit: cjc4454. All opinions are made in the author’s individual capacity.

About The Author

Daniel Vaughan is a software development consultant from the UK and a regular visitor to Singapore. He graduated from the University of Canterbury with a BSc in Computer Science and Management Science in 1999. Since then he has worked at startups, multi-nationals and everything in between. He is currently a Web Specialist at a UK financial company.

Managing human relations within a company is not an easy task, particularly in a startup. People comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and not to mention that there is always a colleague who’s hostile and arrogant, a client who’s furious or too picky, a staff who is cynical and don’t get things done. In dealing with these rough and tough situations, what are the possible strategies that one can use to engage people back into productive communication? That’s what Mark Goulston’s book is about. In Mark’s own words, “People have have their own needs, desires and agendas … To cope, they throw up barricades that make it difficult to reach when your goals are in sync with their own.” While reading the book, Goulston threw very common situations that one will either face working in a startup with other founders, or talking to an investor or handling difficult people.

In the book, Goulston presented his own treatise in productive communication in four parts. The first part puts into perspective how the persuasion cycle works and throws a little science on how rational thought can be overtaken by an amygdala hijack (coined by Daniel Goldman, the author of Emotional Intelligence) i.e the rational part of the brain for the individual has lost control and it is impossible for you to talk facts or reason. Also, the author presented a simple story to show that getting through to somebody is not a difficult endeavour. From the start of the book, he brought out his point through a simple hostage situation and explains how the persuasion cycle works in the folllowing order: (i) from resisting to listening, (ii) from listening to considering, (iii) from considering to willing to do, (iv) from willing to do to doing and finally (v) from doing to glad they did and continuing to do.

Once the big picture is set, Goulston followed with his nine basic rules and twelve quick techniques (that make up the 2nd and 3rd part of the book) that one can apply to handle people across different points within the persuasion cycle. Of the nine, there are two rules which might be of interest to founders and employees in any startup.

The rule “Make People Feel Valuable” focuses on the insight that everyone competes for time but no one should need to compete for importance and offers the action point for the user to identify a person at work who constantly creates problems where none exist. In fact, the author recommends the following solution that the next time when the same person complains to you, just say, “What you’re saying to me is so important that I’d like you to take responsibility for coming up with a solution. When you have some ideas, call me, and we’ll get together and go over your solutions. I really appreciate your help.” .

Another interesting rule is “Check your dissonance at the door” where people might slide into unnecessary arguments abouut something in the workplace, particularly when the employee and boss are in conflict over how to solve a problem. In the book, Goulston prescribed a solution to the reader in how to defuse the solution by offering a useful insight from Warren Bennis, “When you really get where people are coming from – and they get that you get them – they’re more likely to let you take them where you want them to go.”

Finally, at the end of the book, Goulston provided seven fast fixes for seven situations which most people encounter in business. Of the two situations, it will be good for the reader to look at. One of the situations called “The Team from Hell” is a situation when a project manager is put in charge with a team with four different types of personalities: one who is really smart and you can count on, one who wants to do the least amount of work possible, one who spends all the time complaining about everyone and finally one, who wanted your assignment and is more experienced than you. The author tries to dissect the four personalities and the rules of engagement for each one of them. In fact, one of the main strategies is identify the “silos” they put up towards you.

All in all, the book is an easy read and can serve as a guide from time to time, particularly for those who are in leadership positions or even working under someone whom they deemed as “unreasonable” or “horrible”. From a personal point of view, I find it a good read that can help me to reflect about different situations I am being placed under.

Related Videos & Links:
[1] Jason Calacanis interviewing Mark Goulston in This Week in Startups #TWiST episode 21

In this book, Fannin divided the book into three parts. She explored the rise of Chinese internet companies from the perspective of the entrepreneurs. She picked the six most successful companies which she labelled the copycats, i.e. there is a western counterpart to these companies doing exactly the same thing. In this group, she picked Baidu, Alibaba, Dangdang, Chinacars,  Oak Pacific Interactive and Bokee. Of the six, I am more familiar with Baidu and Alibaba. She explored a bit more in depth about the founders. From the group, there are two groups of founders. Either these founders have spent their time in the US or they are made in China. She also described some of the strategies how these local companies have given the tech giants such eBay, Paypal and Google a hard time.

The next part of the book deals with the investors. Of interest, she discuss why some venture capitalists from Silicon Valley (Perkins, DFJ and Sequoia) have moved to China while some do not. For example, Guy Kawasaki is one of those who did not want to go to China. In fact Don Valentine, the godfather in Silicon Valley has once felt that China is too far and too foreign, and crippled with intellectual property theft, immature stock exchanges and regulatory problems before 2003, and he changed his mind after Sequoia has deeply invested in China. The last part of the book, the author identified the innovators, and selected five of them: Lingtu, Oriental Wisdom, Pingco, Maxthon and Lattice Power Corporation.

If you are looking for a book to give you a headstart on the up and coming Chinese tech companies, then Silicon Dragons will be a good one to start off with.

Author’s note: This review is first published in his personal blog.

Ultimately, I prefer an agnostic view of entrepreneurs. Here are some interesting issues to why I think that this is a must-read book for those out there. Before you really think of committing yourself to start a business, it might be good to learn some lessons from this book, because a lot of things you hear about are likely to anomalies rather than the norm.

My first impression from reading the book is that I will ask someone working in any of the government agency in Singapore to read it. In some sense, the author has specifically targeted the work for policy makers in the United States. To me, some of the lessons can be adapted for the case of Singapore. One interesting thing that the author has done is to look at some data on entrepreneurship based on several studies.You will be interested to learn that America is not as entrepreneurial as you think it would be. In fact, the data is showing that the proportion of the US population that is starting business is not growing but possibly shrinking. In fact, the author corroborated data with the US Small Business Association. If it does not convince you, On the self-employment rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, US is the third lowest with countries and rank lower than countries you would perceive to be entrepreneurial: Korea, UK, Japan, Turkey and Italy. The number of new businesses emerging is significantly much more higher than in China as compared to the US based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2005 report.One thing I enjoyed about the book is in the third chapter which he explored the genetic makeup of an entrepreneur. Specifically, he attacked the issue on what makes entrepreneurs tick. In fact, he demonstrated an interesting argument against people who thinks that entrepreneurship is a young people’s game. In reality, the chance of setting up a business at the age of 45-64 is far higher than the age groups of 18-24, 25-34 and 35-44 added together. There goes the argument that you should think of becoming an entrepreneur below 27. The argument is to tell you that there is no age limit to become an entrepreneur, and most people become entrepreneurs for reasons which you don’t read from Bill Gates, for example, they prefer to work for themselves at a lower wage as compare to working for others where they can’t find satisfaction in their lives.Here are some of the myths he talks about in the book which you might find disagreeable and surprising (which I will quote directly from the book):

• - The typical entrepreneur doesn’t start a business because of a desire to make money, for the thrill of starting a business, to support their families, or become well known; the typical entrepreneur starts a business because he doesn’t like working for someone else.
• - Education doesn’t hinder entrepreneurship; getting an education makes people more likely to start businesses.
• - Working for someone else increases the chances that a person will start a business.
• - It does not take a lot of money to start a business; the typical new business established in the United States take less than $25K in initial capital.
• - Informal investors are a more important source of capital for startups than venture capitalists.

Actually, if you think that the author seems to hammer those who want to promote entrepreneurship, I think that you are in for a surprise. The author is actually teaching entrepreneurship as a professor at an established university in the US. Somehow, I think that it is a good idea to write this book to debunk the romantic conceptions which some of us might have about being entrepreneurs.Author’s note: This review is first published in his personal blog.

Lately, there is a lot of talk about CPF changes and compulsory annuities. No matter how much everyone may be happy or unhappy about the changes proposed to our social security, it is important to ensure that you can manage your finances. Sometime back, I recommended Christopher Ng Wai Chung’s Growing Your Tree of Prosperity and some of you have read excerpts from his second book. Of course, the focus of this post is to present a review for his sequel “Harvesting the Fruits of Propserity”.

If you have read the first book, my sense is that you will like the second book. All in all, Chris started with the story about his Belgian friend Pierre (not his real name) who committed suicide and touched on the realities of today’s working world. While many people are dreaming of becoming the next big millionaires, this book is dedicated to people who want to work for a living and carry on normal lives in Singapore, despite the unpredictable forces of globalization which threaten our livelihoods at every moment. One example, we know, is that some of our jobs are now constantly outsourced to other places like India and China.

Here are a few lessons which I believe that many can draw from reading the book:

• Are you a scholar or a statistic?: While most of us agree that meritocracy, pragmatism and capitalism are the three bedrocks to a typical Singaporean view of life, the author offers a few glimpses of the dark side or what people don’t really see is a problem. I agree with Chris’ view that everyone puts the blame on the Singapore government and not themselves when they cannot live beyond their own means. What makes it more convincing is that the author exposes the few truths that most have to live with, for example, (i) the pragmatism to the point of failure: Singaporeans are efficient and productive in their work, and they are practical, but they can choose to neglect networking and realizing that they become foot soldiers to people who can outsource their jobs out, (ii) it helps to be born in the right family: Yes, some people are lucky and they are born into well to do families. It is a misconception to keep thinking that they are going to be playboys and squander their money. Some of these better off people, utilize the advantages and move to better and greater pastures. Despite all these weaknesses, there is still a way out for the normal Singaporeans to survive and perhaps make their lives better.
• MLM is a problem/disaster and not a solution: MLM is not just the bane for entrepreneurs but also for many people who are dreaming of making more money. The solution, as the author offers (which I believe to be good solutions) are to be part of the knowledge-based economy, for example, being a freelance designer by night while working in a day job.
• Charting your own finances and moving towards proper financial planning: In this book, the author lays out how one can tighten his expenses by keeping a record of daily expenditure. Later, he explained all the know-hows to understand what your CPF and insurances does for you. The author also offer some tips on what types of insurance are suitable for your own purposes and in the later chapter some ideas on doing proper investments. In the book, the author did take the pains to break down different insurance products such as life insurance policies, term life insurance, group life insurance, whole life insurance and investment-linked insurance policies.

Someone asked me why I am not reviewing other local publications about the habits of millionaires, and instead, recommending highly the books written by Chris Ng. My answer is that if they do have the secrets of success, they won’t be writing books on those topics. What appeals to me in both books, is that they promote the virtue of a person being down to earth (or in Chinese, 脚踏实地) and also tries to convince the reader that there are adequate financial planning solutions and hard work (for example, starting your own freelance jobs or start-up) than getting yourself into trouble with silly MLM schemes or some internet marketing shams.

For those might not know, the author of this book went through the stage of self-publishing for the first book and got it to market on his own. Like any entrepreneur, he has done his work and also put in his own money to see it through. The same lessons from his book and real life, I believe, are translated in the same analogy to how successful entrepreneurs work with their start-ups in the same way. If it is so easy to be successful in being an entrepreneur, we won’t be seeing one out of ten succeed in a few years time. A lot of hard work, patience and perseverance are required in that process. Most importantly, till the end, the book promotes a healthy message of optimism in life and not let the daily woes bogged you down. That is perhaps what I feel is the best thing for everyone who are working hard in their daily lives be it their jobs, family and dreams.

Editor’s Note: SG Entrepreneurs wishes Chris a happy and blissful marriage as he will be tying the knot in December 2007, and also more good sales on this local publication.

Related Links:
1. Human Capital by Chris Ng
2. MLM and Immaunel Kant by Chris Ng
3. See some of other works by Chris in Intelligent Singaporean.

About the author: Christopher Ng Wai Chung, 32, is an IT Project manager who dabbles in personal finance and wealth management. His own blog can be found in treeofprosperity.blogspot.com. He can be reached at this email address.

Broadly speaking, in the book, Chip and Dan Heath take the pain to simplify what a sticky idea is really about. They are inspired by the book “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, and sought to make this book a complement to it. Their idea is to identify the traits that make an idea stick. They broke it down into these cardinal principles:

• 1. Simple: How do we find the essential core of our ideas? If you can reduce everything down a small set of points (like 3 points which a lot of good debaters use), you will be able to convince people easily. You need to say something short which can make the idea so simple that it sticks on the person’s head like a profound truth. The golden rule as recommended by the book is to have a one sentence statement so profound that any individual can spend a lifetime following it.
• 2. Unexpected: How do you get people to pay attention to your ideas and sustain their interest for a long time? You need to break their expectations and be counter-intuitive. We can use surprise as an emotion to grab people’s attention. Of course, you cannot do it all the time, but you must constantly create alertness and cause focus. Apple does that all the time with the next generation iPods and iPhones, and the Apple fans are always thinking about what comes next. By surprising them, you can engage people’s curiosity over a long period of time by systematically “opening gaps” in their knowledge.
• 3. Concrete: How do we make our ideas clear? We need to embed ideas in terms of human actions or make use of the five senses by others. Mission statements, synergies, strategies and visions are often ambiguous to the point that it’s useless. Sticky ideas usually come with a concrete image. Details are important sometimes in making an idea stick and make it indefensible against any doubt. You remember L’oreal for cosmetics, because of the tagline “Because I am worth it”.
• 4. Credible: How do you make people believe in your ideas? You need authority and credibility. Sticky ideas have credentials and we need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves. When you are building your ideas, you need to make comparisons like how your idea can do better than the other ideas in the marketplace.
• 5. Emotional: How do you make people care about your ideas? You need to make them feel something for it. We are made in such a way that we feel things for people, not for abstractions. The hard part is to find the right emotion to harness. For example, why is it that it’s so hard to get young people to quit smoking? The reason is that they are rebelling against the establishment in telling them not to do something.
• 6. Stories: How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell stories. A lot of people are interested in how this idea come about. The more we talk about it, the more people will buy into the story.

Of course, throughout in the book, Chip and Dan Heath have established examples to demostrate whether particular stories or ideas stick in our minds. They have shown with case histories and thought-provoking anecdotes. OF course, I actually think that this book can also be a complement to another book I highly recommend: Cialdini’s Influence. They also offer a communication framework in the final pages to talk about ways in how you can make an idea stick.

You have probably encountered one of the following from people who worked with you or are your bosses: (1) personal insults, (2) invading your privacy, (3) uninvited physical contact, (4) threats and intimidation (both verbal and non-verbal), (5) Sarcastic jokes and teasing, (6) Withering email flames, (7) Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims, (8) public shaming or ‘status degradation’ rituals, (9) Rude interruptions, (10) Two-faced attacks, (11) Dirty looks and (12) Ignoring or treating people as if they are invisible. If you encounter these actions, you have more or less encountered the dirty dozen of what an asshole entails. Well, most bosses and managers are assholes, otherwise you would not be there. Believe it or not, this book also reviews that assholes are also victims of their own actions. So, what’s the solution to the problem?

Of course, John Sutton started off writing this book by presenting a proposal of the material that culminates in this book to the editors of Harvard Business Review. Thinking that he will be rejected, the Harvard Business Review did exactly the opposite. Slowly, he was convinced to write the book by the fear and despair expressed to him by people who have suffered these injustices, the tactics and tricks they used to survive and of course, the revenge stories. So, the purpose of this book, according to him, is to create civilized workplaces, which he believe is not a naive dream.

As a matter of fact, the book presents top ten steps in enforcing the no asshole rule:

• 1. Say the rule, write it down and act on it: If you are not the consistent type to follow a rule, just say nothing at all, otherwise, you end up being called a hypocrite. For leaders, it is important that you must not be seen to be inconsistent with your rules.
• 2. Assholes will hire other assholes: Sure, keep the resident jerks from hiring other people, and if you can’t, just increase the pool of good and civilized people.
• 3. Get rid of assholes fast: I often hear someone say, “Why did we wait so long to get rid of that idiot?”
• 4. Treat certified assholes as incompetent employees: Even if they are great employees but they don’t treat others well, you can certify them as incompetent.
• 5. Power breeds nastiness: Giving power away may not be a good idea, because it may turn seemingly nice and sensitive people to big jerks.
• 6. Embrace the power-performance paradox: Accept that there is a chain of command in your organization, but do everything you can to downplay or reduce status differences among the team. It means flattening your team.
• 7. Manage moments – not just practices, policies and systems: Try to make small changes in a way such that you bring about a great change. Don’t be a revolutionary, otherwise, it will backfire on you. You have to constantly find ways to get around the system, rather than fighting the system.
• 8. Model and teach constructive confrontation: Develop a culture to let people know when to argue and when to quit fighting. It is important to gather more evidence and listen to people. Stop whining over a small matter, and learn from your mistakes.
• 9. Adopt the one asshole rule:This is a way to enforce ‘reverse role model’ behaviour. It is usually easy for someone to be an asshole.
• 10. The bottom line: Link big policies to small decencies: Effective asshole management comes about when there is a virtuous and self-reinforcing cycle between the important things that the companies do and the little things that happen when people start cooperating with each other.

Of course, in this book, John Sutton also brought in the one of the biggest exhibits for asshole-hood and guess what, it’s Steve Jobs, the current CEO of Apple. He also tries to expose the positive side using the same example. I thought that it’s one of the funniest chapters I have read.

If you want to be nicer to people around you or you want to fend against assholes, this book might be a good read.

“Firs of all, because it was not a venture to start. I was building a product and that’s it.”
- Joshua Schachter, founder of del.icio.us

Instead of going linear with the book, I decide to adopt a different reading strategy with this book. I just randomly pick a founder which I fancy and read through the interview at one go. After each chapter is about a different founder, the first few people I started looking were David Heinemeier Hansson (37Signals), Mena Trott (Six Apart), Blake Ross (Firefox), Paul Graham (Viaweb), Mike Ramsay (TiVo), Paul Buchheit (Gmail). Of course, as I read on, I reflect upon how they started in the first place and what they set out to achieve. Of course, most of them are technically gifted and Jessica Livingston (the author) provided a good term for them, “craftsman”. All the founders come from different backgrounds: for example, Steve Wozniak started off as an employee in HP while working on the Apple I personal computer in his spare time. As a matter of fact, a lot of what they end up doing emerged from their favourite hobbies.

1. Start with passion and not money

All the best things that I did at Apple came from (a) not having money and (b) not having done it before, ever. Every single thing that we came out with that was really great, I’d never once done that thing in my life.
- Steve Wozniak, founder of Apple,

If there is a lesson to be learnt from this book, it’s this one that makes it the most tricky. I often think that it’s a cultural issue. Asians tend to be more pragmatic and less idealistic in their views. A lot of people in Asia don’t do crazy innovations like those in Silicon Valley, because their typical excuses are either (1) why should I waste my time to do this? (2) show me the money and I will do it. (3) I don’t see the need to do this even though it’s a good idea. Actually, Steve Wozniak succeeded because he bootstrapped the resources to build the first personal computer. You squeeze out every resource possible to make that one product you are interested in.

2. It takes a lot of mental flexibility to continuously getting the idea to the right shape

In the book, Max Levchin talks about the original form of PayPal before it came to the present version. In some sense, he wanted to find a way to commercialize something that he innovated upon security. Along the way, through engaging customers and looking for people to share his vision, he polymorphed his idea from the first idea into another one. Most founders featured in this book sees the need to adaptable. Starting up a new idea is a process of trial and error, and you will end up making more mistakes than getting everything right at the first go. In fact, sometime back, I commented to my co-founder from SimuGen about doing a start-up is like firefighting on every front and we recounted the topsy-turvy days of living on the edge to make our ends meet.

3. Do you really need the money from the VC?

Strangely a lot of these founders realized in the end that they do not need the money. In fact, they are constantly approached by the same group of hounding VCs. Joshua Schachter (del.icio.us) made a very good point that being overcapitalized is a path to failure. Sometimes, you need the money to expand against your competitors, according to conventional wisdom. Yet, for most of these founders, they did not seek out the funding but the mentorship and customers who will help them to build the product.

Of course, there are many lessons which an entrepreneur can draw from this book. I will prefer that you go and take a look. Perhaps, you will find a different interpretation from me. I thought that this book offered me a perspective that it really does not matter what age you start a company. Some people told me that you should do it when you are 17, and some feel that it’s 40. In the end, only the right time, the right place and the right conditions will determine whether you are going to take the leap and make the jump.

Recently, different bloggers, Aaron and Fearfully Opinionated have discussed the need and importance for financial education for Singaporeans in order for them to survive in our new economy. Actually, there is a simple solution to how we can help Singaporeans to get a sound financial education by reading. The solution is to read this book “Growing Your Tree of Prosperity” by Christopher Ng Wai Chung, which I strongly recommend as a beginner’s guide on financial education in Singapore. This book offers details on how you can grow your financial investments, take advantage of the global economic trends and survive in the changing economy in Singapore.

When I first came back to Singapore, I was handed a copy of this book from the author as a birthday present. After reading the book, there are two aspects of the book which I like very much and will recommend anyone to go and read if you have no idea of how to start planning on your own financials. Importantly, I have actually tried out the strategy suggested by the author and the $100,000 challenge suggested by the author. The book is written with a good review of the Singaporean’s philosophy towards wealth and materialism balanced with a pragmatic set of tools on how one can start a savings plan with the current packages offered by the local banking institutions and websites of established financial institutions. If I have the choice, I will like to have every young Singaporean to read this book when they are in junior college.

In the first two chapters, the author introduces the various problems faced by the Singapore society and talk about the worst case scenarios for our economy. This is followed by his discussion of the various mindsets prevalent in Singapore and how we should reconfigure ourselves with a different attitude to adapt and transform from simply consumerist-workers to investor workers. One aspect that I like about this book is the talk about people who are spending beyond their means to maintain their car and status. For that matter, a lot of people are getting into credit card debts because of bad financial management. It is in the first two chapters that he laid out the fallibilities of modern Singaporeans and how we should avoid it.

From chapter 3 onwards, the author introduces the $100K challenge and emphasize the need to use a technique he proposes known as “salary truncation” to achieve that goal. In his proposal, one creates a second savings account with a local bank and set a spending target for the individual such that his excess cash is shifted into this account. That accumulates till the point where the individual achieves financial independence finally with the first $100K. That is followed by his proposal on how to make investments with a sound unit trust savings plan (in Chapter 5), and engaging the Singapore stock exchange with a “kiasu” strategy (chapter 6).

One of the strengths of this book is the use of sound corporate finance and economics concepts to explain debt, inflation. The author also distills ideas from Benjamin Graham’s famous fundamental analysis concepts for the Singaporean context. My favourite section of the book is in chapter 5, where the author provides some rule of thumb investing strategies in creating a portfolio of unit trusts saving plans and also details of some unit trust funds in Singapore which the reader might be interested to look into.

Lastly, the author provided an appendix of useful forms that helps the reader to track his/her investments and some internet resources which the reader will find useful.

If you want to start learning some basic financial education for yourself and begin to create and strengthen your own “economic castle” (a term proposed by the author), this will be a good local publication to start off and perhaps, Chris will provide more details in his sequel, that will be due out in the market soon.

Acknowledgments: BL thanks Christopher Ng for contributing the preview of a chapter in his 2nd book to SG Entrepreneurs earlier this year and wishes him a happy birthday on this Christmas Day.

Related Articles written by Christopher Ng Wai Chung:
[1] The three Es of Singaporean success, SG Entrepreneurs.
[2] Status Anxiety, Intelligent Singaporean
[3] Are you a scholar or a statistic?, originally published in Mr Wang bakes good karma blog.

Just managed to get my hands on this book and it sure is a good read whether your run an organisation or are just a part of a organisation. this book covers lessons that apply to both leaders as well as frontline staff in all types of organisations. I didn’t even know that there was a book linking maneuver warfare and business when I did this previous post of mine. But this book is great in that it offers case studies that substantiate the seven guiding principles of maneuver warfare, which are :

1. Boldness - The daring to move majority or resources behind a caculated opportunity to achieve maximum results.

2. Surprise – To make use of ambiguity and/or stealth to strike where the opponent least expects and hence, is least ready to counteract.

3. Focus - In line with the first principle of boldness, there needs to be a focal point where all efforts are targetted at to avoid spreading out forces too thinly, resulting in a short-lived breakthrough which the opponent can react to and catch up given time.

4. Decentralized Decision Making – To build up initiative and leadership from the lowest ranks who are empowered to make split-second decisions that can affect the organisation as a whole. The key here is to applaude well-meaning attempts that failed honesty while punishing opportunities lost to indecision and inactivity.

5. Tempo - Keeping up the momentum of efforts to force the opposition into a reactionary position constantly. This allows for you to manage and choose the scenario of confrontation to your advantage. Push the opponent up against the wall to succeed.

6. Combined Arms – The tight integration of complementary assets and resources to increase synergies as well as to create a lose-lose scenario for the opponent. This calls for the different departments of an organisation to work closely with one another to capitalise on combined strength while mitigating individual weaknesses

7. Reconnaissance Pull – Making decisions based on information from the frontlines and not from upper management who may not havea glimpse of the actual situation. This is takeaway from the military where recon scouts are used to gather battlefield intelligence and spot the enemy’s weak points then communicate with the followup forces to “pull’ them forward through the most advantageous routes.

[Official Book Site : The Marine Corps Way]