Our Own Bob Morris, Amazon Reviewer — At the Front Edge of a Major Trend

Bob Morris, who blogs on this site constantly, provides a wealth of information.  Would you like to know why?  Because he reads constantly — everything.  He is a former award-winning teacher, a top-notch consultant, but maybe, most of all, he loves books.  No — I mean really, really loves books.  He loves to read, he loves to think, and he loves to share what he has read.  And he is very, very good at it.

And it turns out that the world is changing because of people like Bob.  Not long ago, Roger Ebert was named America’s best critic.  And I fully agree with that designation for Mr. Ebert.  (If you have not discovered Ebert’s blog, you are missing some of the best writing anywhere).

But in an article in today’s Washington Post, Click by Click, Reviewers Gain Clout, Mike Musgrove describes how the world of reviewers and critics is changing rapidly.  It is moving from the “professional” critics, like Roger Ebert, to an ever-expanding group of people who just decided, “I could be a reviewer.”  They may not get paid for it, but their clout is growing.  The poster child in the article by Musgrove is Mark Espinosa, # 1 on the Amazon “New Reviewer List.”  But he is a distant #311 (as of this hour) on the “Classical Reviewer List.”  How does our Bob Morris rank?  # 18 on the “New Reviewer List” and # 13 on the “Classical Reviewer List.”  He has produced an astonishing 1909 reviews for Amazon.com, and that number will be obsolete in the blink of an eye.  In addition, he writes for other outlets, he blogs for us, he blogs for other sites – he is a rapid producer of high quality content.  And if you have been reading his entries, you know what I mean.  He is curious, reads wisely, and draws from everywhere.  (You can read Bob’s profile at Amazon.com here).

See — I told you that Bob Morris loves books.

But the reason for this post is not to just praise and thank Bob – it is to point out the trend.  The Washington Post article describes the growing reach and clout of the “every-person” reviewer.  Sometimes, it may just be a person with a passion.  Other times, it may be a truly qualified academician with the training to write insightful reviews (like Bob).  And, fitting with the predictions of The Wisdom of Crowds, the Amazon readers themselves decide who the most valuable reviewers are.  (Bob has received:  Total Helpful Votes: 24187 of 27206.  I’m not fully sure how this works, but this means, I think, that 27,206 times, people have indicated the worth of his reviews, and 24,187 have given his reviews the equivalent of five stars – “yes, this was helpful.”  That is an impressive endorsement from the wisdom of the crowds!).

How important are the Amazon reviews to the authors, (and to book sales)?  “When you’ve got the power of a community behind a product, that’s more important than any one reviewer for a publication,” tech industry pundit Michael Gartenberg said. “Amazon reviews are very, very important.”

We see the fruit of Bob’s labor regularly on our blog.  Because of Bob’s quality reviews, authors respect him, grant him reviews, and, expectedly, friendships are built.  All of that becomes useful to us, the readers of this blog, as Bob shares his insights with all of us.

So, Bob, I vote your posts “helpful” and give you five stars.  And the Washington Post simply confirmed what we all already knew.

“I Make Money by Making Friends” — why people network

Call it what you will.  Networking; schmoozing; conversation; customer cultivation.  Whatever you call it, it’s still the same basic truth — you make money, you build success, one relationship at a time.

This truth came through loud and clear in a conversation with an innovative CEO from a premier Austin recruitment firm.  The conversation took place on family reunion weekend in Natchitoches, Louisiana.  (If you’re ever looking for a great Bed and Breakfast just four hours from Dallas, check out Jefferson House — owned and operated by older brother Herman Mayeux and his wife Arleen).  The CEO is my brother Mike Mayeux, CEO of Novotus.  The money quote:  “I make money by making friends all day long.” And you should see him at work.  I’ve been with him while he is on the phone, I’ve been with him in a room full of people.  Mike is really, really good at making friends!

This truth has to be embodied in the right kind of person.  Mike is that kind of person.  He likes people.  He really, genuinely likes people.  So when he says that he is making friends, he really is making friends, building relationships in which he will do what he can to help others.  And one of the things he can do is help people find the right talented person to hire for a whole lot of different kinds of jobs. He is not making friends in order to get what he can out of the other person.  He is making friends for the purpose of making friendships, and all such genuine friendship is, by definition, reciprocal.  (Robert Putnam, in Bowling Alone, describes a working society as one which shares much generalized reciprocity).

Business books confirm this.  In The Power of Nice, (a book my colleague Karl Krayer presented at the First Friday Book Synopsis), the authors put it this way:  You make positive impressions on others, and then, “these positive impressions are like seeds.  You plant them and forget about them, but underneath the surface, they’re growing and expanding, often exponentially.”  This book also reminds us of what happens if we do not treat people in a friendly way:  ”Just as positive actions are like seeds, rude gestures and remarks are like germs – you may not see the impact they have on you for a while, but they are there, silently infecting you and everyone around you.”  A little more:  ”The good news is that positive emotions are more contagious than negative ones.  A Yale University School of Management study found that cheerfulness and warmth spread far more quickly than irritability and depression.”  And this reminder (with a subtle warning for those who are not genuine):  ”If you’re concerned that a compliment will come off as phony or patronizing, then almost certainly it won’t.  The very fact that you’re worried about it means you aren’t a slick glad-hander, and you won’t come off that way.”

And, as always, Never Eat Alone states it clearly and simply:  ”I learned that real networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful.”

So, here is a set of business questions for us all:

1.  Are you meeting new people?

2.  Are you making new friends?

3.  Do your friends (your new friends/your long-time friends) believe that you have their best interests at heart?

4.  Do you have their best interests at heart?

5.  Are you making money by making friends?

It took my little (ok — “younger” — not so little) brother to sum up what I have spent years reading about and trying to learn:  ”I make money by making friends all day.”

{To purchase our synopses of The Power of Nice and Never Eat Alone, and many other business books, with handout + audio, go to our 15 Minute Business Book site}.

Victor K. Fung: An interview by Bob Morris

Li & Fung Management Team, with Victor K. Fung fourth from left

Fung is led by Group Chairman Victor Fung, Executive Deputy Chairman William Fung, and Group President and CEO Bruce Rockowitz. The Company’s management team represents some of the most experienced professionals in the global supply chain management industry. Our business covers the entire supply chain, and is structured into three interconnected business networks – trading, logistics, and distribution. Each senior executive, guided by an entrepreneurial approach, and with deep knowledge of international consumer markets and trends manages a business portfolio defined by geography and product line. The depth of executive experience provides Li & Fung with a strong and talented team that has been instrumental in its continuous growth and success.
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Victor K. Fung became the Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce on 1 July 2008. He is Chairman of the Li & Fung Group of companies, with major subsidiaries in trading, distribution and retailing, including publicly-listed Li & Fung Limited, Integrated Distribution Services Group Limited, and Convenience Retail Asia. He is also Chairman of the Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council, the Hong Kong University Council, and the Hong Kong- Japan Business Co-operation Committee.

Fung holds a number of civic and professional appointments. He is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the Hong Kong Government Commission on Strategic Development, and head of a focus group for the Economic Summit on China’s 11th Five-Year Plan and the Development of Hong Kong, organized by the Hong Kong government. He has written and spoken widely on international trade matters and is a strong advocate of the multilateral trading system. He has served as Chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, as the Hong Kong representative on the APEC Business Advisory Council, and on the Informal Business Advisory Body to the World Trade Organization. He has also served as Chairman of the Hong Kong Airport Authority.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Fung holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in business economics from Harvard University. He was a professor at the Harvard Business School for four years before returning to Hong Kong in 1976. He is the co-author of Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World with his brother, William Fung, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind.

Here is an excerpt from an interview I conducted a few years ago. I hope to have the privilege of interviewing Victor again, given all that has happened — and not happened — in the global marketplace since that first interview. To read the complete interview, please click here.

Morris: The final question is for you to pose. What have you not been asked to discuss in this interview that you wish to discuss? What is your response to that?

Fung: So far our focus has primarily been on how businesses need to compete in this world. What does a flat world mean for governments and policy makers?

There are several implications for policymakers. First, the flat, networked world creates opportunities for countries to create finely tuned strategies for where to play. Whereas countries once looked at developing whole industries such as automobiles and semiconductors in a networked world, now they can work with businesses to make decisions about what processes they can best contribute to global supply chains. In Thailand, for example, the government encouraged the Thai auto industry to look for the niches in the global supply chain where it could add the most value. As a result, all of Thailand is talking about the global supply chain and which process in the chain Thailand should focus on. Thailand is looking at ways to tie its strengths into global supply chains. In a connected world, countries are increasingly making decisions about a specific vision or strategy for where to compete in that world. Will the country become a hub for manufacturing, as China has, or will it become a financial center, as in Dubai? To support these decisions about where to play, governments can invest in research, and can also support dynamic and flexible organizational structures and initiatives.

Second, policymakers need to take a careful look at the impact and implications of bilateralism, and business leaders need to urge them to do so. A multilateral world trade system is our very best hope for addressing the broad range of issues such as market access, tariff and nontariff barriers to trade, trade in services, and trade facilitation. With respect to market access and tariffs, multilateral solutions will help us optimize the efficiency of the complex cross-border flows generated by dispersed manufacturing.

Businesses shouldn’t have to design systems to qualify under “rules of origin” to obtain preferential treatment. Instead, the question should be, “What is the optimal way to deliver the best product to the right customer, and do so at the right time at the right price?” That should be the only concern network orchestrators have. Why worry about the point of “substantive transformation”? This should be on the basis of economics alone. For the future world-trading regime to mirror economic reality and to allow the use of modern business strategies, we need a single overarching multilateral framework for trade. We can have either a flat world or a patchwork of crisscrossing mountain ranges and tunnels.

Finally, as we shift our focus from competition between companies to dispersed supply networks that compete network against network, we need to change the way we look at and regulate this world. Concepts such as “substantive transformation” and “country of origin” need to be reexamined. We need new language to reflect the realities of dispersed manufacturing.

If you wish to read the entire Fung interview, please click here.

Interview: Jeffrey Fox

Jeffrey Fox

There are over 150 international editions of Fox’s ten books that have been published in 35 languages in more than 100 countries. They include Secrets of Great Rainmakers, The Dollarization Discipline, How To Become a Rainmaker, How to Become a Marketing Superstar, How to Become CEO, How to Become a Great Boss, How To Get to the Top, and his most recent book, Rain. His clients include some of the world’s most successful and most admired corporations and organizations. Fox graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Here is a brief excerpt from my first interview of Fox, conducted in 2008. Since then, he has published How to Be a Fierce Comperitor. My second interview of Fox will soon become available.

Morris: How do you define “rainmaking”?

Fox: The concept of rainmaker probably originated with the American Indian, at a time when the Medicine Man stood proudly beneath the heavens, did his mojo, and down came the rain. The crops flourished and the folks survived. In business, the rainmaker is that person who creates the revenue (i.e. the rain), produces the profitable new customer, salvages and retains the unhappy good customer. Rainmakers bring in the money that allows the organization to flourish or at least to survive.

Morris: To what extent can anyone within an organization be a productive rainmaker?

Fox: The front line rainmakers are those people who deal with customers and are expected to sell. Anyone can be trained to be a front-line customer facing rainmaker. But to become a rainmaker one must first be willing to ask the customer to commit to an action that will result in an order. Rainmakers understand rejection better than anyone else does but they still ask for the customer’s commitments. Approximately 95% of all salespeople don’t ask for the order, don’t ask for the business. Ordinary salespeople don’t ask because they fear rejection, don’t know how to ask, think it is impolite or impertinent to ask. Once a person is willing to ask customers for commitments his or her professional selling skills training begins.

Why is that so important? Because it is everyone’s job in every organization, directly or indirectly, today or tomorrow, to generate or sustain revenues. Literally everyone must strive to make rain. The brilliant marketing person who conceptualizes and commercializes ten new products is a rainmaker. The accounts receivable clerk who woos back a late paying customer is a rainmaker. The distribution channel manager who gets one additional distributor salesperson to sell one additional product is a rainmaker. The truck loader who carefully packs the product to prevent breakage and customer dismay is a rainmaker. Know how your job makes the company money, always do that job splendidly, and you are a rainmaker.

There are over 150 international editions of Fox’s nine books that have been published in 35 languages in more than 100 countries. They include Secrets of Great Rainmakers, The Dollarization Discipline, How To Become a Rainmaker, How to Become a Marketing Superstar, How to Become CEO, and How to Become a Great Boss. His most recent book is How To Get to the Top: Business Lessons Learned at the Dinner Table. His clients include some of the world’s most successful and most admired corporations and organizations. Fox graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Stephen Denning: An interview by Bob Morris

Denning is the author or co-author of several acclaimed books which include The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge Era Organizationsw, Squirrel, Inc.: A Fable of Leadership Through Storytelling, Storytelling in Organizations: How Narrative and Storytelling Are Transforming Twenty-first Century Management that he co-authored with John Seely Brown, Katalina Groh, and Larry Prusak, The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative, and most recently The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative.

Morris: Storytelling has been a popular activity for centuries. How do you explain the fact that, only in recent years have executives begun to understand and appreciate the potential value and, more importantly, the impact of the business narrative?

Denning: We are entering an era with a rapidly growing need for leadership. This is caused by the convergence of irresistible socioeconomic forces. Accelerating economic and social change in the global economy, the consequent imperative for ever faster innovation, the emergence of global networks of partners, the rapidly growing role of intangibles, which can’t be controlled like physical goods, the increasing ownership of the means of production by knowledge workers, the escalating power of customers in the marketplace, and the burgeoning diversity in both the workplace and marketplace—all these forces imply a vastly more important role for transformational leadership in the future. The ability to get results in the face of these challenges will depend at least as much on leadership as on management. It will depend on a capacity to inspire enduring enthusiasm in people over whom we have no hierarchical control.

These irresistible forces will drive organizations to develop genuine leadership capability as a necessary competence. Leadership—the ability to connect people to meaningful goals without hierarchical power to compel compliance—will become a requirement for organizational survival. Management won’t disappear. We’ll continue to have much to thank management for. It has helped us achieve the wonders of the modern global economy—its stunning scientific accomplishments and the massive improvements in the physical standard of living of most people, at least in the developed countries—and it will go on doing so.

But the challenges now facing the human race won’t be solved by better management alone. Management will still be needed, but it will be less pivotal. In fact, it will be mostly taken for granted. Our capacity to manage will give us the technical means to solve our most intractable problems. What is needed now is the will to solve them. So goals, ends, purposes—what we are trying to accomplish—move to center stage. In the world of management, the goals are largely given. Management is about finding the quickest, cheapest, and best way to reach those goals. The language of management is naturally abstract. Human goals are naturally absent from its discourse. Once the emphasis shifts toward goals, ends, and purposes, then it is natural for the language to shift from abstractions to narratives, which have goals built into them.

Please click here to read the complete interview.

Q #221: Other than business sources, where else to seek valuable insights?

In a phrase, “everywhere else.” You just never know when and where a valuable insight will appear. The key is to be ever-alert when encountering material provided by “non-business” sources. In Q&A #212, for example, I share some thoughts on how a leader is a “vessel” formulated by the Rev. Msgr. Don Fischer, pastor of my church, Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Richardson, Texas. There was a recent article in The New York Times (in the Sports section) about United States-born managers of Japanese baseball teams. When Marty Brown was hired to manage the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, Bobby Valentine (manger of the Chiba Lotte Marines) advised him to prepare fastidiously in detail-oriented Japan and to make sure that he was understood, not just heard. That’s also excellent advice for business executives.

Here is a passage I came upon while reading Edmund Morgan’s American Heroes. In it, President George Washington describes what is generally referred to as “win-win agreements”:

“…unless treaties are mutually beneficial to the Parties, it is in vain to hope for a continuance of them beyond the moment when the one that conceives itself to be over-reached is in a situation to break off the [sic] connexion. And I believe it among nations as with individuals, the party taking advantage of the distresses of another will lose infinitely more in the opinion of mankind and in subsequent events than he will gain by the stroke of the moment.” (July 28, 1791)

Meanwhile, continue to check out traditional business sources such as books and articles as well as interviews that are broadcast on the radio (National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org/) and television (Charlie Rose, http://www.charlierose.com/).

For example, here are a few from Adam Bryant’s interview of David C. Novak that appeared in the “Corner Office” column in the BusinessSunday section of The New York Times on July 13, 2009. Novak is CEO and President of Yum Brands whose chains include KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Long John Silver.

Q: Any thoughts about feedback?

A: The best way to give feedback is to start with, “This is what I appreciate about you.” They might have great strategy, good vision, they’re good at execution, or whatever you think they’re really doing well. That makes them very receptive for feedback because at least you’re giving them credit for what they’ve done. Then I say, “And you can be even more effective if you do this.” I think that really works.

Q: It sounds as if there’s an important distinction between the words “and” and “but.”

A: “And” really recognizes the appreciation part. If you say “but,” it throws the appreciation stuff out the window.

To repeat: You just never know when and where a valuable insight will appear.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob