In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, a motivational speaker played by Alec Baldwin addresses a group of salesmen. He writes three letters vertically on the chalkboard, “A B C.” He explains that the acronym means "Always Be Closing."
The way that Baldwin's character thinks about sales, I may think about reading. I think of: "ABR,” Always Be Reading. Whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I try to get in a page or two of the Times, Wall St. ...
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We’ve chatted about the importance of checklists. Checklists can be checklists literally as well as figuratively (i.e. software). Checklists help us order our thoughts and actions. Yet, the last step on each checklist should be: removing as many checklist steps as possible. This ironic strategy is necessary because steps inherently are friction, and friction is our enemy. We want to help our clients avoid the drag of clicks and thinking.
In Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, which the Bridge team is currently reading, the author Jim Collins confesses that he missed a key ingredient 25 years ago when he wrote the first edition. He states that he now realizes the most important part of achieving a great company is: getting the right people 'on the bus.’ I agree. Fourteen and a half years ago (long before I opened this book), I was lucky enough to pick up the right ‘passenger:' Moshe replied to my job posting (...
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About two weeks ago in Charleston, SC, in spin class where I sounded like I was getting a hair transplant, I enjoyed being at once together with my friends in the class and yet competing with them. When they peddled harder and stood up, I wanted to also. Our competing didn't mean that there was one winner and everyone else lost. It wasn’t a zero-sum game. In that spin class, we all won. After that class, we all felt great. Competition is an ...
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When I flew home yesterday from Charleston, while most people were seeking relief from their sunburns and reminiscing about their vacations, I was delving into The Wall St. Journal’s profile on Tracy Britt Cool, an ex- Berkshire Hathaway star. Mrs. Cool’s new company Kanbrick invests in businesses with $10m - $50m in revenue. What does Mrs. Cool look for when investing in a company? People and moats.
At Bridge, we’re reading Jim Collins’ Beyond ...
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Jim Collins, in his book BE 2.0, explains how purpose and mission are important to companies. To help explain this, he uses the metaphor of crossing a mountain range and seeing a star on the horizon. Your purpose is to reach the spot on the horizon below the star. The current mission is climbing up the mountain you’re on. The next mission is climbing up the next mountain and so forth in order to get closer to the spot on the horizon. You will have many missions, and may never ...
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In the book Great by Choice, Jim Collins posits that processes are key to an organization's success. As an example, he cites John Wooden, the NCAA championship-winning UCLA basketball coach, who trained athletes on processes that included everything from shooting to tying one’s shoelaces. In practicing, a player may perfect their shoelace tying and do thousands of repetitive free-throw shots. When we watch a game from the nosebleed seats like me (...what can I say, I’m ...
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Upon boarding my flight to Mexico last week, did I eagerly wait the arrival of the bar cart? Maybe, but not before cracking open the book Great by Choice by Jim Collins. I recommend the book because it provides new approaches to success. One takeaway in the book is not new: we’ve got to work each day. Just like the anecdote in the book’s introduction about Norwegian explorer Amundsen, we have to put in miles each day. In a race to the South Pole, Amundsen's unprepared ...
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