Chris Bond's Review of "Practically Radical"
Posted by Tom Gledhill on Tue, Oct 04, 2011 @ 02:09 PM
Challenge is the theme this month. As you think about wrapping up the third calendar quarter and putting summer behind you, maybe it's a great time for change. If not, well, we're done here! But if the timing is right, consider reading William C. Taylor's "Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself." Taylor, the co-founder of Fast Company magazine, tirelessly researched this work over a number of years. If you're a fan of miniaturized case studies presented several times in different ways (um, some among us need to hear things a few times!), you can't go wrong with Taylor's book.
If you're among the legions of folks who either attend leadership conferences or get a barrage of invitations encouraging you to do so, you might know the name Tony Hsieh. As the CEO of the online retailer Zappos.com, the thirtysomething Hsieh (pronounced shay) is what Taylor calls "an executive role model." Zappos aims to create a "wow" experience for those perusing its site for shoes, belts, etc. and that mission is accomplished in part by hiring the right people to staff the phones and warehouses. And Taylor expertly tells the reader just how the company does this through something called The Offer: One week into a new hire's intense four-week on-boarding program, Zappos offers each trainee the week's pay plus a $2,000 bonus to quit! Do this math: At $11/hour, one is offered roughly a month's pay to go away. Why, you ask? Because the company wants each employee to truly commit to its culture and, frankly, it's a dirt-cheap way to avoid a bad hire. If you take the bonus, you never belonged. And how many trainees accept The Offer? According to Taylor, fewer than 3 percent. Now that's a brilliant hiring strategy.
At about 260 pages, "Practically Radical" is loaded with these types of insights, including inspirational ideas from fine organizations like the Girl Scouts of the USA (clarity of the mission) to the Swatch Group of Switzerland (reversing a slide toward irrelevance). It is a terrific book with but one flaw, that being the author's countless use of every variation of "game changer" one can imagine. But don't let that prevent you from picking up "Practically Radical." Summer's over, kids. Rewrite a bad policy. Tap into your key resources to solve a nagging problem. Change the ga... I mean, challenge yourself!
Good reading!
Chris