The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change QUOTES

4 " The company’s twenty thousand workers are the best paid in the industry, but the company has the lowest labor cost per ton of steel, leads the industry in return on capital, has the lowest financial leverage of any major steel company, and has paid 142 consecutive dividends. Retaining the right people sets up the company to do lots more with less. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

5 " what A. G. Lafley, CEO at highly innovative Procter & Gamble, said about innovation. “It is possible to measure the yield of each process, the quality, and the end result.” Lafley quickly brought systematization to the innovation process at P&G, creating the Living It program, putting employees in the homes of customers to systematically observe their challenges and processes; Working It, to connect company decision makers with the front lines of their channel partners; and Connect and Develop, to combat the insular, not-invented-here blinders and realize that lots of innovation happens outside Procter & Gamble’s walls. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

6 " there are two honest reasons so many people hate the thought of the functions they perform being systematized: Either they’re too inflexible to learn a new way of doing things, or they’re scared to death of the accountability that systematization will bring. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

7 " You know what it’s like when everyone is on the same page, don’t you? Work is more fun, morale is high, and when one workday ends people look forward to the next one. When everyone’s on the same page, teams get lots done without anyone barking orders or breathing down their necks, hard work isn’t as draining, and sacrifices aren’t a big deal. Problems get solved without too much fuss, but not because everyone always agrees. It’s just that everyone does their best to communicate and cooperate, discussing any temporary rift like adults and coming to consensus quickly. The beauty of having everyone on the same page is that it doesn’t matter who is on the team—aggressive people, collaborators, creative types, bean counters, senior execs, front-line workers, old hands, or new hires—the most diverse groups overcome any obstacles and maintain their momentum. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

8 " Lancaster hired Anand Sharma, CEO of TBM Consulting Group and a man named by Fortune magazine as one of America’s Heroes of Manufacturing, to assist the company in a dramatic and swift turnaround. They shut down the assembly line one weekend, turned off the IBM material planning system the company had invested millions of dollars in, and said, “We’re never going back to doing things the way we did, and within five days we have to have a new way of doing things.” With Sharma’s guidance the forty team members selected for the reinvention mapped the firm’s current processes, collectively designed new ones, and set a series of objectives. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

9 " we’re not going to spend any money making the changes. If something doesn’t work we’ll fix it. We want creativity before capital and quick and crude rather than slow and elegant. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

10 " Lancaster says that the magic around a reinvention intervention is that the people involved in the process have a say but the establishment—the leadership—doesn’t. “I was there as one member of a team wearing jeans and working alongside everyone else,” says Lancaster, “not as a boss, owner, or CEO. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

11 " Lantech’s reinvention intervention answers one of the most fundamental questions about embracing change: Whose idea wins? The answer, of course, is that the best idea should win—not the boss’s idea, not the boss’s kid’s idea, not the strategy department’s idea, not the old idea, not the competition’s idea; only the best idea should win. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

12 " One of my favorite CEOs reminds me often that “memories are convenient.” What he means is we more readily remember events that prove we’re right. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

13 " Mean systems scapegoat and demoralize. They attack people instead of problems. They’re a relic of a primitive and superstitious past. They are not data driven. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

14 " When asked what keeps him awake at night in his new role, John responds, “Innovation and constant change got us to where we are and are still what drives the business.” He adds, “Our big challenge is making certain that every one of our workers understands that every little piece of innovation or reinvention that they can bring to the table—whether they’re a truck driver, a warehouse person, or a senior executive—is going to add to our ability to compete and grow long-term. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

15 " Lancaster takes us back to where we started, but with a brilliant twist. The test of intelligence is indeed the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in one’s mind, appreciate both, and still function. But you don’t have to be the be-all and end-all expert in your business at one side or the other. In fact, you can be the one who doesn’t excel at either. You can be the one who appreciates both and creates the conditions for both sides to flourish. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

16 " in an effort to stop the bleeding, in one fell swoop Schultz closed one thousand underperforming stores, eliminated seven thousand positions, revised the business plan downward to numbers they could hit, and embraced radical change and began making a dizzying series of small bets. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

17 " It’s significant that the revenue generated by the large numbers of small bets Howard Schultz made after retaking control of Starbucks is almost equal to the company’s total annual profit. In a good year Starbucks earns about one billion dollars on revenues of ten billion; the incremental revenue generated by his many small bets exceeds the company’s total average annual profits. A strong argument can be made that without the many small bets he made—excluding their potential effect on future revenues and profits—the company would still be struggling to make a profit. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

18 " A small business with a handful of employees might be able to handle two or three concurrent small bets, while a large company with thousands of employees should probably be considering hundreds of potential small bets and implementing scores of them. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

19 " Make as many small bets as you have people responsible for making them happen and sufficient financial resources to maximize the odds of success. If there aren’t enough resources to give the small bet a chance, you’ll never know if it might have worked out or been a possible home run. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

20 " Have some general backup ideas in mind, but don’t let the backup plan be carved in stone. That will prevent you from learning. The time to begin building formalized backup plans is during the tweaking, changing, and maneuvering that occurs while studying the results of the small bet. Backup plans become vital when a small bet that’s turned out to be successful is about to be scaled in size. "

― Jason Jennings , The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change