Eat People: A book review by Bob Morris

Eat People…and Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs
Andy Kessler
Portfolio/The Penguin Group (2011)

How and why “Free Radicals” create wealth for themselves and meanwhile improve the world

Initially, I was somewhat put off by this book’s title but it certainly caught my attention and thus served its purpose in that respect. However, I wonder, how many people will let it go at that rather than read and then consider what Any Kessler has to say about various “unapologetic rules for game-changing entrepreneurs”? As my rating indicates, I think he has much of value to say…and says it well.

With regard to the meaning and significance of the book’s title, here is what Kessler observes:  “the best way to leverage Abundance and Scale and to create Productivity is to get rid of people…Now I’m not suggesting we actually eat anyone…But we do need to get rid of worthless jobs [and those who languish in then]…There’s nothing productive about [many different kinds of jobs], though they may be temporarily necessary until someone, a true Free Radical, writes a piece of code to make them obsolete. That’s how you create productivity…If you look at the world through a productivity filter, a lot more things start to make sense, especially about who is pulling their load and who is just along for the ride.”

As Kessler goes on to explain, a “Free Radical” is a change agent who is determined to eliminate anyone and anything that reduces (if not eliminates) value, however defined. Especially during the current Depression/Depression/Great Reset/Whatever, it makes no sense to leave in place barriers (human and non-human) to productivity and efficiency, that are both scalable and sustainable.

How to decide what to do and not do? Kessler offers a baker’s dozen of “Rules” (the last is a bonus) and devotes a separate chapter to each. He explains why and how all can be essential “game-changers” for Free Radicals such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Sam Walton. However different they may be in most other respects, all of them not only created wealth for themselves, but at the very same time, improved the world, made life better, and increased everyone else’s standard of living. As Kessler explains, “Free Radicals found situations to combust and destroy, but in the end, it was only to make room to build the new [and the improved] – disrupt the status quo, do more with less, advance society, drive progress rather than have progress drive them. A free Radical is someone who gets wealthy inventing the future by helping others live longer and better.” So, “eating people” is a metaphor for the process by which Free Radicals (Creators) and their allies (Servers) eliminate whoever and whatever opposes or impedes “increasing productivity, increasing society’s wealth, reinventing the way the world works and generating enough (altruistic?) profits to reinvest in their process to keep this reinvention going for decades on end. These are the real heroes in history.”

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the just published 10^th Anniversary Edition of The Cluetrain Manifesto co-authored by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger ; also, Bill Jensen and Josh Klein’s Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results, and Rework, co-authored by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.

Tony Burgess asks, “What’s your primary focus: leadership or effectiveness?”

Here is an excerpt from article written by Tony Burgess for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

(Editor’s note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on how leadership might look in the future. The conversations generated by these posts will help shape the agenda of a symposium on the topic in June 2010, hosted by HBS’s Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, and Scott Snook. This week’s focus: leaders for the future.)

What matters more, leadership or effectiveness? If you asked me that a couple months ago, I would have said that they are inextricably intertwined, and you can’t have one without the other. David Weinberger, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, recently spent a day at West Point talking with us. His central observation was that for all our espoused focus on leadership, all we talk about is effectiveness. That got me thinking.

In the U.S. Army, success is accomplishing the mission and doing so at least cost — in terms of lives. But what about when the situation is complex with ambiguous and even contradictory feedback as to whether or not you are succeeding?

Let’s get concrete here. Consider the following scenario — (Note: the names in this story have been changed). You are Chris, a 23-year old infantry platoon leader who has recently arrived in Afghanistan. You have a four-year degree and Army Ranger School under your belt, but let’s face it, you’re still wet behind the ears. Today, you’re getting a new mission: Establish an outpost in a remote valley in order to extend the influence of the government of Afghanistan into a region where there has been no government presence to date.

And why has there been no Government presence in this valley? Well, maybe because the terrain is absolutely ruthless: jagged, snow-capped mountains rise abruptly off the valley floor to 15,000 feet — the southern tip of the Hindu Kush — and the only way to get one of your humvees across the currently swollen river guarding the valley entrance is by airlifting it with a helicopter. The people in this valley speak a language that is like no other in the world, which complicates your ability to communicate and to gather intel. They follow an extremist version of Wahhabi Islam interwoven with their Pashtunwali tribal code, and they govern themselves through a tribal hierarchy led by elders from each village. Oh, and did I mention that they are fierce warriors and hate outsiders?

Your basic plan is to get into the valley and quickly establish a defensible outpost while simultaneously running patrols focused on connecting with the people and gaining understanding of the area. During your initial patrols, the few people you come across refuse to look at you and quickly scurry away. Your interpreter speaks Pashto and the people you run into either don’t speak it or refuse to acknowledge it. One day, walking through a village that is carved into the steep banks of a mountain, a man points you to the biggest dwelling and motions for you to follow. You and your patrol comply and stop outside the house. An older man, at least 6 1⁄2 feet tall but very thin, emerges. He has a dyed red beard down to his chest and the biggest, blackest eyes you have ever seen, like two oversized black olives. He speaks Pashto, and introduces himself as Haji Salar. You talk for a long time in the courtyard and, eventually, he invites you to be his guest for lunch.

Inside his mud-walled home, it’s sweat-dripping hot and smoky. You sit crossed-legged on the dirt floor, and your full body armor feels like a heavy straight jacket. In between sips of some kind of warm, thick goat milk, you keep wondering where you’ve heard this guy’s name before. Then, it hits you — Haji Salar is the father of Haji Jahangeer, the # 1 high value target in the region — a man who U.S. Special Operations Forces have been trying unsuccessfully to kill or capture for years. You ask him how his son is doing. His startled look fades quickly back to confidence, and he tells you that he has not seen or heard from his son for months and has no idea where he is.

After lunch, you depart but only after he invites you back the next day. You continue to meet with Haji Salar, both at his place and at your place, the small outpost you are building. You begin to grow a relationship. You give him supplies like bags of rice and beans to distribute to the people, and he introduces you to several additional elders. Together, you begin to talk about work projects that could begin to move the valley forward (wells, a school, road, etc.). Weeks pass in the valley, and you have not been attacked once. But your higher headquarters cautions you that intel reports indicate Haji Salar is talking to his son and reporting to him the details of your conversations, the status of your outpost, and every move you make. When you confront him about this, he denies having heard or spoken to his son for months.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

Tony Burgess is the cofounder of the Company Command and Platoon Leader professional forums, a growing network of junior officers in the U.S. Army who are deeply committed to serving Soldiers and growing combat-effective teams. This movement was highlighted as an HBR “Breakthrough Idea for 2006.”

(Editor’s note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on how leadership might look in the future. The conversations generated by these posts will help shape the agenda of a symposium on the topic in June 2010, hosted by HBS’s Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, and Scott Snook. This week’s focus: leaders for the future.)

Why we need manifestos

Anne Frank

In recent years, many business thinkers have written books that are either identified as a “manifesto” or in fact function as one. With regard to the word’s original meaning, here is what the Online Etymology Dictionary suggests: “1644, from It. manifesto ‘public declaration explaining past actions and announcing the motive for forthcoming ones,’ originally ‘proof,’ from L. manifestus “ Manifestos are usually affirmations of faith in combination with a call to action.

The rhetorical structure of a manifesto does frames issues (injustices, errors, inhumanities, universal values) within a context, then advocates an action to correct what is wrong, replace what is unacceptable, etc. Authors of manifestos tend to be iconoclasts who exemplify moral as well as intellectual courage. However, rarely are they cynics despite what their impatience with timidity may suggest.

Here are some examples among business books:

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Atul Gawande

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Seth Godin

Manifesto: Three Classic Essays on How to Change the World
Ernesto (Che) Guevara, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Rosa Luxemburg

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
Jaron Lanier

There are other documents, in my opinion, that also serve as manifestos and include By Gracious Powers, the poem written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer just before he was hanged by the Gestapo, as well as The Declaration of Independence, Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

Throughout human history, heroic women and men have said, in effect, “Here I stand. This is what I believe. And I am prepared to accept whatever the consequences may be of my defiance.” They oppose what is wrong, what is evil, what is for them intolerable.

It is worth noting that, in The Divine Comedy, Dante reserved the last and worst ring in hell for those who, in a moral crisis, preserved their neutrality.