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Winning Not Once, But Constantly
Though almost all companies are able to point
with pride to a market victory they achieved in the past. "But a few
companies are constantly fast and first to market, viewed by everyone as
innovative, scoring one big win after another, and achieving huge growth
year after year."1
The Power of Simplicity
"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the
unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." ~ Hans Hofmann
Getting simple in business helps people work
smarter and navigate infinite choices. By simplifying complex procedures and
establishing simple idea
evaluation and decision making techniques, you are making it easier for
people make decisions faster and
implement these decisions with speed.
Case in Point
Lessons from Jack Welch
Jack Welch's prescription for winning in business is:
"If you're not fast you can't win... Speed is
everything. It is the indispensable ingredient of competitiveness," says
Welch, former legendary CEO of
GE. Speed,
simplicity and self-confidence are closely intertwined. By simplifying the
organization and instilling confidence, you create the foundation for an
organization that incorporates speed into the fabric of the company....
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Case in Point
Google
'Fast is better than slow,' says
one of the Google's 10
Guiding Principles.
Google launches early and often in small
beta tests before
releasing new features widely.
"There are two different types of
programmers. Some like to code for months or even years, and hope
they will have built the perfect product... The problem is, if
you get it wrong, you get a thud, a thud in which you've spent,
like, five years and 100 people on something the market doesn't
want. Others prefer to have something working at the end of the day,
something to refine and
improve
the next day. That's what we do: our 'launch
early and often'
strategy.
The hardest part about indoctrinating people into our
culture is when engineers show me a
prototype and I'm like, 'Great, let's go!' They'll say, 'Oh, no,
it's not ready. It's not up to Google standards. This doesn't look
like a Google product yet.' They want to castle-build and do all
these other features and make it all perfect. I tell them, 'The
Googly thing is to launch it early on Google Labs and then iterate,
learning what the market wants – and making it great.' The beauty of
experimenting in this way is that you never get too far from what
the market wants. The market pulls you back," says Marissa Mayer...
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