Three Star Leadership

For years I've been writing that long term competitive advantage comes from two things: people and relationships. Those are the things competitors can't copy.

In his book, How, Dov Seidman says the same thing and more. Only he says them more eloquently and with greater detail. The premise of the book is pretty simple.

In today's transparent world competitors can copy your products. They can offer similar services. They can cut prices. What they can't copy is the way you do business. They can't copy the things you do to build relationships and trust. Those are your "hows."

Seidman gets support from no less an iconic business leader than Jack Welch. He quotes Welch, speaking when he was GE's CEO this way: "There's no secret to the what. The secret is in the how. They can know our model, but they cannot do it. They cannot copy our hows."

Seidman isn't saying that quality products and services don't matter any more. Quite the opposite.

He says that quality has become "table stakes." You need high quality in order to even be in the game. Everybody's got quality. So it's how you do business that can give you competitive advantage.

Seidman begins the book with an overview of how we got to where we are today. He describes how today's world is both hyper-transparent and hyper-connected and how that changes the way we do business, innovate, and compete.

The second main section of the book is about how we think. He starts by discussing the need to play to your strengths and how that can lead to mutual gain and more collaboration.

Chapter 5 is about shifting from rules to values as the basis of decision making and behavior. The following chapter is about "Keeping Your Head in the Game," with ways to connect values-based thinking ("shoulds") and focus.

That sets us up for Part III which is all about how we behave. That leads us to a discussion of transparency. This quote from the book that pretty much sums up Seidman's thoughts.

"Whether it be recruiting the best talent, negotiating with a potential customer, or defending a workers' compensation claim, more than ever companies have to answer for their culture, both in the courts and in the court of public opinion."

With transparency, trust becomes more important. Seidman views trust as both currency and propellant. In that he's covering territory similar to Stephen M. R. Covey in his recent book: The Speed of Trust. Seidman's chapter is excellent and he shares research and reflection about why trust is now more important than ever.

This is really the core of the book. All of the things that go before tell us why trust is more critical today than ever. What comes after illustrates ways that trust is the red thread running through reputation and through "How We Govern" which is part IV.

That part begins with an excellent chapter on culture. The chapter's prime example is the GE Aircraft Engine assembly plan in Durham, NC where some 200 people work in self-organizing teams of 20 technicians or less and where there is only one "boss," the plant manager.

That leads us to "The Case for Self-Governing Cultures." By now, Seidman has described his "Five Hows of Culture." He's introduced the inevitable acronym, in his case related to trust. Now it's time for the least valuable part of the book.

The last chapter is called "The Leadership Framework." Seidman finds himself in a dilemma here.

He says that "I can't give you rules." Then he spends chapter twelve trying to get you to come up with the "rules" as he sees them. He can't call them rules, though, because back in chapter five he suggested shifting from rules to values. The result is a convoluted verbal dance that was fun to read, but not nearly as helpful as the rest of the book.

As little as I liked the last chapter, I thought the book was great and a must-read if you're in business today.

This is an excellent, lucid and well-supported discussion of how we got to a place where hyper-connectivity and hyper-transparency have changed the way we do business. They've made trust more important and they've made the way we do things the critical source of competitive advantage.

This book is an excellent companion to Tom Friedman's book, The World is Flat. Friedman does a great job of describing how things are. Seidman gives you a look at how they got that way and the implications for your own business.

This book is also an excellent companion to Stephen M. R. Covey's Speed of Trust. The books reinforce each other's message with different styles, data and approaches.

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