Nicholas Bate

Retreat

I was away this week-end on a retreat which is something I attempt to do on a regular basis.

What is a retreat?
A dedicated section of time which you put aside for reflection, restoration of energy and well-being. Time to meditate, time to 'centre', time 'to be'.

What are the benefits?
Allows you to restore energy, sleep levels and hence overall well-being. This in turn has implications for aspects of your life such as creativity and can be as far-reaching as improving relationships.

How do I do one?
You can Google and look at guides on good retreats. Then think what style would you like, how simple do you want it to be? Structured; what about food? And if money is very tight you can of course create your own. Take off for a day or two and stay in some cheap accomodation in the country.

Any down-sides?
Only one, really. When you allow your body to stop, its immune sytem wants to do repair work so you often get 'detox' happening which will range from headaches to iritability. But if you are aware of this the retreat is still remarkably beneficial.

Open your diary/schedule: book one for November now; make it happen.

Know Your Thought leader

Michael Porter

Essential idea:competitive advantage is driven by five forces: current rivalry/new entrant/substitute products + services/bargaining power of suppliers/bargaining power of buyers
High spot: clear models of thinking
Low spot: polarised academic approach
Key thought: 'the value chain'
Key book: Competitive Advantage
Wikipedia:'Michael Porter is an American academic focused on management and economics'
Overall positioning: skilful presenter with academic credibility

Know your Thought Leader

Richard Bandler

Essential idea: edit your thinking
High spot: creating NLP: NeuroLinguistic Prgramming
Low spot: distraction over battles re 'ownership' of NLP
Key thought: 'forget to remember the stuff you don't need anymore'
Key book: Frogs into Princes
Wikipedia:'Richard Bandler is an American author and the co-inventor (with John Grinder) of Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and creator of Design Human Engineering (DHE) and Neuro Hypnotic Repattering (NHR)'
Overall positioning: one of the few for whom the title 'genius' is actually appropriate

Know your Thought Leader

Jim Collins

Essential idea: get disciplined people to act in a disciplined manner to create a disciplined culture.
High spot: re-establishing the value of hard-data for management argumentation
Low spot: ignoring the sheer 'ooomph' factor of great leadership
Key thought: 'good to great'
Key book: Good to Great
Wikipedia:'Jim Collins is considered to be one of the major American business gurus, who is like "a student of and a teacher for" great companies'
Overall positioning: quiet, professorial approach

Know Your Thought Leader

Tony Robbins
Essential idea: if you want things to be better, you need to be better
High spot: coaching individuals to do a fire-walk
Low spot: merchandising and seminar hard-sell
Key thought: 'success leaves foot-prints'
Key book: Awaken the Giant Within
Wikipedia:'Tony Robbins is an American Life Coach, Motivational Speaker and author.'
Overall positioning: dynamic, motivational speaker

Know your Thought Leader

Charles Handy
Essential idea: portfolio working: a multi-faceted lifestyle with multiple jobs/careers
High spot: The UK's only real 'guru'
Low spot: metaphor overload (from shamrocks to empty raincoats...)
Key thought: 'there must be more to business than pure profit'
Key book: The Age of Unreason
Wikipedia:'Charles Handy (born 1932) is an Irish author/philosopher specialising in organisational behaviour and management'
Overall positioning: thoughtful business school professor

The Economy of Abundance

One of the signs of a good thought leader is the continuous development and refinement of key ideas. Chris Anderson of course has brought us The Long Tail, which has helped many refine and understand their thinking of how the internet economy works. It was also fascinating how Chris Anderson developed his ideas 'live' through a powerful combination of presenting the ideas to live audiences + 'presenting them' via his blog and getting feed-back before final publication. If you missed that fascinating process, it's going to start again.

Anderson is developing a new concept: The Economy of Abundance. Here are the esssential ideas, I believe:

1. Advances in technology mean the cost of stuff such as storage and bandwith are plummeting.
2. If such elements are ABUNDANT, then offer them for free.
3. So don't do one thing, do it all.
4. Do everything and only stop if it doesn't work.

An example: YouTube. Offer everything and allow us to choose.

I know-you have loads of questions and you believe it's too simplistic and.....I know. Follow the arguement on his site and see how an idea is refined.

It's not at all robust yet: but in 12 months time it will be. And in 20 month's time it will be a book.

Know your Thought Leader

Gary Hamel
Essential idea: core competencies or what's special about a business
High spot: strategy as revolution
Low spot: using Enron as a positive case-study pre its collapse
Key phrase: 'run a cause not a business'
Key book: Leading the Revolution
Wikipedia:Wikipedia
Overall positioning: somewhere betwwen the 'straight-laces' of Michael Porter and the maverick of Tom Peters.