What does it take to build a successful business?
No matter the industry, from cybersecurity to edtech, it all comes down to effective leadership that supports your team, much Anne Brönte writes in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (also available on Audible):
No generous mind delights to oppress the weak, but rather to cherish and protect.
For more advice, here are some of my favourite Seth Godin quotes from his 2023 blog posts, together with a recommended title from Blinkist.
A company grows by getting ever better at serving its customers, its vendors and its employees. ~ More vs. better
Learn more: Competing Against Luck
Entrenched cultural organizations and icons feel more permanent than they are. Network effects, brand power and the status quo can seduce us into believing that we’re stuck with what we have, but things are rarely as permanent as they appear. ~ Build a new one
Learn more: The Voltage Effect
Helping people get to where they seek to go is more effective than hustling people to persuade them to go where you’re going. ~ Eight marketing maxims
Learn more: Find Your WHY
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for your customers, to give them what they seek, or are you trying to do something to your customers, to squeeze out extra income? ~ For customers vs to customers
Learn more: The Motive
It takes a different set of leadership and management skills to create the conditions for effective distributed work. But it’s incredibly powerful when you get it right. The method is not to count keystrokes or other false proxies of productivity. Instead, the opportunity is to offer significance. ~ The new way of work
Learn more: Scaling People
Large organizations have significant structural advantages. But the real impacts happen when they act like small ones. ~ Is it possible to care at scale?
Learn more: The Geek Way
Leaders of every stripe make one thing more than any other: decisions. ~ “What’s next?”
Learn more: Leadership Two Words at a Time
Many institutions, particularly those that measure the wrong things, put an enormous effort into what the lab specs show, but forget to invest in a narrative that encourages consumers to give them the benefit of the doubt. ~ Confusion about performance
Learn more: How to Measure Anything
Not knowing is going to happen. Acknowledging it is a sign of confidence and awareness. Finding leaders who have this skill is worth the effort. ~ “I don’t know”
Learn more: Radical Humility
Solo quests make good Westerns or legends, but almost all systems change is the result of teams of people, organized and connected in service of the longer goal. ~ The maverick and the status quo
Learn more: Everyone Leads
The brand is the story we tell, and sooner or later, it’s up to the person who did something that touched the customer. ~ Who is undermining your brand?
Learn more: The Stakeholder Strategy
The first step is to imagine what the people you serve want and care about it. The second is to figure out why they don’t have it yet. ~ Dreams and roadblocks
Learn more: Playing to Win
The goal is to have a business where the customers you have enable you to build the organization you want to build. To look forward to finding and serving new customers. And to create a tailwind so that early customer success earns you a chance for more customer success. ~ Choose your customers
Learn more: Built with Purpose
The right-sized group and ceaseless peer-to-peer organization are the foundation of culture change. ~ Small groups, well organized
Learn more: Culture is the Way
The world is changing faster than ever. Sometimes for the better. Always giving us a choice to react or respond. ~ And then that happened
Learn more: 10 Leadership Virtues for Disruptive Times
Use your brand and your interface and your software and your network effect to come up with ways to serve people that they would miss if you were gone. ~ For customers vs to customers
Learn more: The Blueprint
When a company shows up in the marketplace with a product or service that people eagerly choose to buy, it’s possible to make a profit. If there are assets and other ways to offer something at a premium, a business can actually thrive. ~ Good businesses solve real problems
Learn more: Rocket Fuel
When we build a culture of people who eagerly seek out and take responsibility, we build a culture that enables a special kind of resilient freedom. ~ The freedom loop
Learn more: Wiring the Winning Organization
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