Category: Books (Page 3 of 5)

A book about doing better by Seth Godin.

“The number on the car’s speedometer isn’t always an indication of how fast you’re getting to where you’re going. You might, after all, be driving in circles, really quickly,” Seth Godin

Reflections

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Something Actionable

What Everyone Else Thinks

I started this book July 11, 2024. It’s the story of the Hurricane that destroyed Galveston Texas on Sept 8, 1900. It killed over 6000 people.

Incredibly well written. I can’t put it down any easier than a mystery or romance novel. I have no idea where this book came from. I found it while doing my book reorganization – I don’t usually read this sort of thing but I probably will now.

It has over 9000 reviews on Amazon, 56% 5 stars – 3% 1 and 2 stars. I always read the poor reviews as I’ve noted before, several of the 1 and 2 star reviews on Amazon were on the poor condition of the book they purchased not the book itself! Though some people said they found it dry. I don’t know how. But I’m not book reviewer, just a reader.

Author – Alan Watts

Reflections

I’ve done a lot of highlighting in this book, the way he explains is clear and easy to understand. I haven’t decided if I’m going to read this book a second time or find something else that he wrote.

It was published posthumously nearly 50 years after he died – so perhaps something he published?? This book was put together by his son, Mark Watts, from his lectures. He says;

I selected recordings- that flowed together beautifully-from six historic events to become the Out of Your Mind audio collection

Out of your mind, Mark watts

This book was published in 1983 – I purchased it 2012 and I didn’t read it. I’m pretty sure I started it and thought because it was about manufacturing it didn’t apply to me or my business. That was of course very shortsighted.

The hardcover version that I own is not available on Amazon and has only been reviewed once. Interestingly it has been reviewed on Goodreads almost 1000 times and rated almost 20,000 times with an average rating of 4.31.

As always I went to the bad reviews first. There was 1 – 1 star review, a very long rant about what a useless book this is. I found nothing useful in this review although it seems 119 other people did. This reviewer has 20 followers. I don’t think I’ll be adding myself to the list.

I started this read on March 27th and it’s part of my themed read on Measurement and Forecasting.

Introduction

The author lets us know the book covers three basic ideas.

1. An output oriented approach to management i.e. he takes the principles of manufacturing and applies them to management.
2. The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his supervision (he identifies this as the most important sentence in the book.
3. Can business use whatever it is that motivates an athlete to put out his “personal best” consistently.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Takeaways

1. Build your process around the limiting step i.e. the most difficult, sensitive, expensive, critical step.
2. Fix problems at the lowest value stage possible.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Takeaways