Tipping Sacred Cows Summary

Tipping Sacred Cows Book Summary

Most people want to achieve a sound balance between their work and their personal life, but excessive balance can result in compromise, mediocrity and blandness. “Bland balance” can impede your ability to make the hard decisions that strong leadership demands. Aim for the opposite, bold balance, which enables you to make “brave choices,” by following these tips:

• “Audit for unnecessary compromise” – Adopt a new management mantra: Make a decision and move on.


• “Sprint in intervals” – Do one thing at a time. For example, engage in solitary contemplation of various management options and then focus on team innovation. Be practical in all your work activities.


• “Throw out your leftovers” – Don’t cling to half-finished, old ideas. Decide now.


• “Hold strong opinions weakly” – Be decisive, but stay ready to accept new data and change your thinking accordingly.


• “Build a portfolio of options” – Pursue both “high-risk/high-reward” and “low-risk/low-reward” management choices.


• “Start a stop-doing list” – Some activities have small payoffs, so don’t do them.


• “Embrace the paradox” – You are the best leader when your team functions well without you.

“Automatic Collaboration” Versus “Accountable Collaboration”

Too much collaboration can be a waste of time and produce negative management attitudes. For example, in an atmosphere of avid teamwork, leaders may view employees who prefer to work alone as antisocial. Managers can feel stymied when making decisions because too many people need to weigh in first. Nix “automatic collaboration”; instead use “accountable collaboration” by:

• “Auditing to eliminate automatic collaboration” – Don’t rely on the safety of numbers. They can be misleading.


• “Making teams temporary” – Be reluctant to assemble teams. Break them up when a project finishes.


• “Letting underperformers sink or swim” – Be ruthless about accountability.


• “Staying aligned with the bigger picture” – All teams must serve the larger corporate mission.


• “Owning your results” – “Do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it.”


• “Hunkering down” – Focus on your work. Ignore distractions.


• “Unplugging” – Don’t seek validation. Turn off all communication devices.

“Narcissistic Creativity” Versus “Useful Creativity”

Distinguish between useful creativity – modifying a proven idea in some practical way – and “narcissistic creativity” – demonstrating your creativity brazenly to no useful end. The more singular an idea is, the smaller the chance it has of leading to a “value-generating innovation.” To attain useful creativity:

• “Understand the source of your creativity”– Is it “pride, pressure” or “boredom”? If it’s a reaction to any of these forces, set it aside. Save your creativity, for delivering something new that your firm really needs.


• “Rechannel your creative energy” – Look for quick fixes and simple solutions.


• “Repurpose on purpose” – Adapt existing solutions.


• “Make a remix” – Picasso combined conventional portraiture and African tribal art to develop Cubism. One plus one can equal three.


• “Create analogies” – Parallels help people understand new ideas and concepts.


• “Fill out the (right) form” – Be sure you’ve selected the correct box before you try to “think outside it.”


• “Curate” – Plenty of great creative ideas already exist. Picking from those is more efficient than coming up with something new.

“Process Excellence” Versus “Outcome Excellence”

Excellence should always be your end-result goal, but not your process goal, the path you use to reach your final objective. Insisting on excellence in every step is counterproductive. People who constantly demand excellence often lose track of their overall goals. They worry unduly and exhaust themselves during the development process. This seldom leads to excellence. When it comes to process, good enough is good enough. To make sure your measured excellence counts:

• “Lower the stakes” – The higher they are, the more pressure they create. Keep your focus on the work at hand, not the pay-offs involved.


• “Ask dumb questions” – Seemingly stupid questions often lead to novel solutions. Don’t be afraid to ask.


• “Embrace the hacker mentality” – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg says, “Hackers…just prototype something [to] see what works.”


• “Accept the mess of progress” – Progress is always messy. Stanford professor Baba Shiv explains, “If you build a polished prototype, others will see flaws. If you build a rough prototype, they will see potential.”


• “Start a meaningful journey with a meaningless map” – Any good plan needs a useful starting point, but not a rigid path.


• “Embrace OK” – Pragmatists who get things done understand that OK is OK.


• “Play around” – Have fun experimenting.

“Outcome Fairness” Versus “Process Fairness”

Neurochemistry inclines people to be fair. Parents teach kids fairness; people intuitively insist on fair treatment. But fairness in process is not fairness in outcome. Everyone should get the same opportunity to succeed, but you should never insist that everyone reach the same outcome. Some managers want everybody on their team to get the same results. This sends the wrong signal to underperformers and frustrates overachievers. To learn to target process fairness:

• Practice “projection detection” – Not every team member needs what you need.


• “Break the golden rule” – Not everyone needs to be led as you would like to be led.


• Trust your staff – Ritz-Carlton hotels tell employees exactly how to address guests. Four Seasons hotels leave it up to the employees. Guests prefer the Four Seasons.


• “Discriminate courageously” – Treat your top people differently than the also-rans.


• “Play a bigger game” – Think about your entire enterprise.


• “Check up on others” – Watch your back.


• “Check up on yourself” – If you are treated unfairly, don’t try to justify unfair or unethical behavior in return.

“Obsessive Passion” Versus “Harmonious Passion”

Aim for harmonious passion, which is dedication that drives a person to become a better professional. Avoid obsessive passion, the kind of dedication that leads to destructive emotions in the face of project delays or work setbacks. People with obsessive passion often flame out. To achieve harmony:

• “Find your shard of glass” – Does a “sharp-edged incident” lurk below the surface and negatively affect your behavior? Find it. It will explain your obsessive passion.


• “Lead from behind” – Nelson Mandela said, “Put others in front…take the front line [only] when there is danger.”


• “Stop proving yourself right” – Don’t justify yourself or your thinking to others.


• “Start proving yourself wrong” – You aren’t infallible. Be objective about yourself and what you believe. Be your most severe critic.


• “Stay healthy with the buddy system” – Rely on good friends to tell you when you need to take a break.


• “Stay out of trouble with the buddy system” – Rely on the same friends to protect you from your more troublesome urges.


• “Look outside yourself” – To keep yourself healthy, focus on others.

“Backstage Preparation” Versus “Onstage Preparation”

“Be prepared,” the Boy Scout motto, is sensible advice but it needs refining. The best preparation and the best work occur when work and preparation coalesce. Backstage preparation – when someone spends too much time getting ready for a public performance – is the least productive. Focus instead on onstage preparation, that is, “learning as you’re doing.” For solid preparation:

• “Troubleshoot your preparation style” – The more “feedback and improvisation” you include, the better. Don’t overprepare for inconsequential things.


• “Learn by doing” – Continuing education, for example, works best with an interactive component.


• “Hold (moot) court” – Simulations prepare you for real-life situations.


• “Pretotype” – IBM used a focus group to pretest voice-recognition technology before spending time and money on a prototype. “Make sure you’re building the right ‘it’ before you build ‘it’ right,” says entrepreneur Alberto Savoia.


• “Practice with intensity” – Only perfect practice makes perfect.


• “Apprentice each other” – Use “crowd-sourced learning.”

What Water?

Writer David Foster Wallace told a Kenyon College graduating class this story: “Two young fish swim along and meet an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish nods at the youngsters and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ One young fish looks at the other and asks, ‘What the hell is water’?”

Wallace’s message: Understand the reality in which you live. “Unexamined beliefs” surreptitiously undermine you. Consider your core beliefs and nurture the values that define you. Your perceptions directly affect every leadership choice you make. The way you recognize and establish meaning is your most crucial leadership skill. If your view is skewed, the result will be bad decisions. Strive to see your sacred cows clearly.