Success Videos: Jamie Dimon at Harvard

I've watched Jamie Dimon's career unfold for over a decade now and it is gratifying to notice the harmony between his articulated principles and the actual results he has achieved. This video is probably the most extensive exposition of his principles that I have found. I'll mention a few points of importance, but the video is well worth watching in full.

Lifted almost verbatim from Denton's "Executive Charisma" is the injunction to treat all employees, from clerk to CEO, equally. Now "equally" , for Dimon, means, with intellectual honesty, without politics, and with loyalty to a vibrant J.P. Morgan, not loyalty to a particular person's job, title, salary, etc.

Another key quality for the leader (and the organization) is lifelong learning. One key quality that emerges over and over in the stories of leaders such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger, and others is the central element of reading as a central activity for any successful person. I would say, in my observation of my fellow human beings, I have never seen any rule more frequently ignored. And they wake up at age 60 and wonder why their life's a mess.

A few other gems: Seek the best models, not the second-best. Continuous improvement. Seek relentlessly for the facts. Seek the full information. Get "the right people in the room"...i.e. the people who will be implementing or otherwise dealing with the results of your executive decisions.

I won't belabor my commentary, please watch this remarkable video.

Success Secrets: Reading and Thinking

Here is a short video by investor (and Warren buffett disciple) Monish Pabrai and a long video of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. In both videos it is clear that the key to these peoples' success is not hyperactivity, but reading and thinking. They spend huge parts of their days reading, and they rank it as their most important activity. Even Pabrai, already a Buffett admirer, was struc by how "empty" Buffett's schedule was. You don't look very busy when you're reading, but the results speak for themselves.

Success Videos: Craig Barret's (In)Telling advice

I was listening to one of my favorite Podcasts, Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders, which was presenting a talk by Craig Barrett , former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Intel. In the middle of the podcast, as Barrett was discussing advice to the students, he mentioned this as his first concept:

“There is no replacement for sophisticated problem-solving methodology in life”

I repeat, for emphasis

“There is no replacement for sophisticated problem-solving methodology in life”



Note, he did not say “in business”. He said “in life”. This statement is the core of why this blog exists. Simple problem-solving methods don’t always work. From-the-gut “solutions” don’t always work. Life is complicated. Life is probabilistic. Modern life contains many many domains of expertise that have to be dealt with, either by learning, or by retaining the services of someone who has learned that domain. Even a “rising tide” may not lift your “boat” without expertise and problem-solving skills. Here are some of the methodologies I have come across throughout this blog, which relate to Barrett's advice:

Kepner and Tregoe "The Rational Manager"

Michel Michalko "Cracking Creativity"

Plan/Do/Check/Act , or, the Deming/Shewhart Cycle, mentioned by Barrett in his talk

G. Polya "How To Solve it"

But, in reality, this entire blog exists for the purpose of searching out methodologies that reach across domains, from business, to personal planning, to solving life problems. and Barrett's statement is a concise and telling reinforcement of this idea, probably the best statement, from a distinguished source, of what I am attempting here.

Success Videos: McKinsey Quarterly interviews John Chambers

I just came a cross a McKinsey Quarterly video interview with Cisco's John Chambers. I continually marvel at the intimate connection a listener can have with the greatest minds on earth, now that the Internet is in full bloom. In the days before the Internet, weeks or months might go by before you could hear anything remotely "deep" about science, business, technology, etc on any of the 3 (!) TV channels you had access to. Airtime was simply too valuable to "waste" on anything that didn't appeal to millions. Well, those days are over. The Web is alive and crackling with brilant ideas from all corners of the world, providing undreamd-of insights fromthe eladers in every field.

What's interesting about the Chambers interview is how many principles of personal success and achievement he discusses, in the context of his work running Cisco, one of the largest corporations in the country. Here are a few of the principles Chambers discusses in this remarkable interview:

Opportunity must be seized quickly.
This is as true (or more so) in personal achievement as in corporate achievement. I always think back to this principle as so beautifully expressed in A.Z.H. Carr's "How to Attract Good Luck". Opportunities are short windows, and in this time of technological hyperdrive, the time windows of these opportunities are even shorter than ever.

Build Replicable Processes Around Successful Methodologies
Whether it's the "gold standard" processes embodied in the Toyota Production System, or the highly successful individuals mentioned in the wonderful book "Rich like Them", a key element of success is finding a successful methodology and then creating replicable, specified actions to repeat that process over and over. There is a "virtuous spiral" in what Chambers is doing, because if the methodology is replicating management methodologies throughout the corporation, you get a "sorcerer's apprentice"-like result of exponentially growing outputs. Sort of like fishermen teaching fishermen how to teach fishing.

The Reality Principle
Because Chambers works hard to see the world the way it actually is, instead of how he wishes it to be, he has been able to lead the company through decades of changing technologies and changing business conditions. He tells us that he shares the leadership role with his clients, and is willing to be led by them and their needs. He also tells a key story of being willing to change his mind as he embraced Web 2.0 as a game-changing technology, thanks to his ability to listen to those around him , and act on what he learned.

Success Requires Quantity
Chambers has over 30 key priorities he is personally working on. The company is posied to make a huge amount of acquisitions. But quantity is not just a key driver of business. Great athletes need to win consistently ...large quantities of games. Great concert artists must play hundreds of concerts per year , all at peak levels of skill. Charles Murray, in his magisterial work on genius, Human Accomplishment, explains that the great geniuses were all incredibly prolific: Michelanfelo, Bach, DaVinci, Edison, all poured fourth huge quanities of brilliant outputs...gifts to the world in abundance. In our personal achievements, we should get involved in a pursuit that allows us to produce robust quantities of whatever our aptitudes generate: ideas, products, articles,books, businesses, whatever.

Success Requires Long Time Perspective
Chambers: "The results we get today are because of what we did five years ago". He tells us he thinks in hierarchical time frames of distant future (5-10 years), medium term (2-4 years), and the "execution" time frame of 12-18 months. All great enterprises, great families, great investors, etc know how to play down the board. To have "long time perspective". Chambers is gifted in being able to exist within three time frames at once. Quite an achievement.

Remove Under performers
Lastly...This interview is short (5 segments about 5 minutes each) yet, at east twice, he makes it clear that employees who are not in sync with the vision and management practices at Cisco don't last long. Makes sense. he has over 60,000 committed employees to think about, and can't afford the negative momentum of uncommitted or cynical employees. Like Chambers, we need to put aside what does not work, in order to throw our energies into what does.


Related Posts:

How to Attract Good Luck - Part 1

How to Attract Good Luck - Part 2

How to Attract Good Luck - Part 3

The Toyota Production System Part 1

The Toyota Production System Part 2

The Toyota Production System Part 3

The Toyota Production System Part 4


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Success Videos: David Swenssen, Yale Endowment

In a recent post, I mentioned the latest edition of David Swensen's Pioneering Portfolio Management. Here is a remarkable video of the man himself, speaking to Yale students about the methods he uses to create his phenomenal investment results for Yale's Endowment.

Success Videos: Jack Welch at MIT

Here's a great video of GE ex-CEO Jack Welch speaking at MIT in April, 2007. One of Welch's core principles, among his many, is that he deals with what actually is, rather than what should be. We are so blessed in this Internet Age to be able to get hours and hours of instruction from the actual leaders, the actual winners in their fields. We are also blessed by the fact that so many leaders (Welch, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and others) live so long. Why? because it is more difficult, statistically, to be a "fluke" if you have a multi-decade track record of success. Someone who has been succeeding, without major derailments, and with minimum scandal, for 30 or 40 years is very likely to be the "genuine article", and to posses the true markers, the true principles, of success and achievement. These are people whose voices we should be listening to, an heeding, as we go about achieving our own goals.

Success Videos: Marc Andreessen at Startup School

As I was writing my last post about Marc Andreessen's take on Charlie Munger, I came across a great video of Andreessen speaking at Startup School . I strongly recommend watching the entire video, but here are a few important points outlined by this successful and seasoned entrepreneur:

1. If you are concentrating on anything besides your core competency before you really have a core competency, you are kidding yourself. The core competency is the best ticket to all the other entrepreneurial functions (hiring great people, getting backers, etc).

2. That core must be first and foremost generated by you and your inner group. It's much easier to hire an echelon of employees to administrate your breakthrough than to have them help create your breakthrough.

3. "A" people hire "a" people and "b" people hire "c" people. Corollary: the level of a work group (engineers, vice presidents, etc) defaults to the level of the lowest-quality member of that category. To avoid this error: attempt to raise the average performance level with each new hire. Without constant and ruthless attention, employee quality will drop.

4. Luck is a timing phenomenon. Good ideas abound and repeat (Friendster, Facebook). Timing is the difference between success and failure and is often random. Don't confuse a function of randomness (i.e. timing) with genius. The implication , as Ben Stein says, is , you must develop your capabilities and then hang in there: "stay at the table" till you win.

5. Finally, pay attention to commitments. In the context of his talk, he was referring to financial commitments. In this respect he reflects the teachings of banking wizards Sandy Weill and Jamie Dimon both of whom support the concept of a "fortress balance sheet"...a strong preponderance of assets over liabilities.

As I listened to Andreessen I was also struck by his skill at conceptualizing. Beyond being a brilliant engineer, he takes a conceptual view of his art...as Brian Tracy might say "What am I trying to do, and how am I trying to do it?". His respect for the random nature of reality, as well as his quick humor are hallmarks of his ability to think beyond the task-focus of the moment...and yet he reminds us over and over, if you don't hit that core task with all you've got, you're just kidding yourself.

Success Videos - The Inspiration of Jim Rohn

Here is a video collection of short clips by master motivator Jim Rohn. Like Charlie Munger, he has the insights of a long and successful life, and, like Munger, he synthesizes these insights masterfully.

A few of my favorite concepts from this video:

Finding is reserved for those that search

This reminds me of Ben Stein’s concept of Activity and Mobility. You have to get moving. You have to stay active in the pursuit of your goals. Success doesn’t find you, you have do go out and find it.

Seize opportunities quickly

I have seen this concept over and over again in my research, starting with How To Attract Good Luck.

Produce All You Can

I have heard Rohn mention this in many of the programs of his that I have watched. It is a great way to unlock potential. To turn off the inner parent who does not want to be superceded, or the misguided advice of friends who might be envious. A great way also to short-circuit self-sabotage.

Stay The Course…hang in there

This also reminds me of Ben Stein’s remark “stay at the table” meaning, you need a long time to fully realize success. There is really no proof that you will succeed, until you succeed. How long does it take? As long as it takes.

There are many other great snippets of Rohn here, particularly on the subject of communication, and I think that those who do not know Jim Rohn’s work will want to go forward and get hold of his tapes and videos.





Techtags: Jim Rohn Ben Stein Attract Luck Personal Development

Success Videos: Mohnish Pabrai

In a recent post, Imitate the Best, I mentioned superinvestor Mohnish Pabrai, author of The Dhandho Investor who, himself imitated the best, by absorbing and adapting the ideas of Warren buffett. Here is a video interview of Pabrai.


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Techtags: Mohnish Pabrai Dhando Investor Warren Buffett Value Investing

Success Videos - Joel Greenblatt and Trusting the Data

In my previous post, Part 1 of my review of Tedlow's book on Andy Grove, I discussed my interpretation of a few of Grove's success principles:

1. Get the data.
2. Come to terms with the data as quickly as possible and…
3. Act fearlessly on the data that you find.

This video clip, featuring master investor Joel Greenblatt, actually embodies these principles, and contains a cautionary note about abandoning them. Greenblatt, author of The Little Book that Beats the Market , has one of the best investing records pf the past 20 years. One of his methods, described in his book, and in this video, involves a formula that he tested and verified.

In his talk, he mentions some similar testing work done by another fund manager, who prematurely sold his interest in the fund when the real-world results didn't work out like the testing, only to see the fund post magnificent returns shortly after he sold it.

I believe I know what fund Greenblatt is talking about, since I read the book written by the "mystery fund manager". I also have been an investor in that mutual fund, and have indeed reaped stellar returns. Why? Because I trusted the data...perhaps even more then the researcher himself.

Anyway, this video of Greenblatt is yet another huge benefit of living in the times we do. As little as 10 years ago, material of this kind, a one-hour conversation with a leading genius in his field, would have been unavailable. Only broad-band type videos, aired on network TV , would have been available. And only if you'd happened to be watching. And only if your interests matched those of 100 million average Americans.



We are truly blessed to be able to press a button and get such specialized , and immensely valuable information.






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Techtags: Joel Greenblatt Value Investing Little Book That Beats the Markets

Success Videos - The Wisdom of Charlie Munger

I have frequently posted on the need for lifelong learning, and for constant reading as a key method of personal success.

Charlie Munger, investment partner of Warren Buffet, spoke of this necessity recently at the USC Law School Commencement. The video is here.

I recommend people listen to this address once per month. It is so loaded with wisdom and experience that multiple listening are necessary to take it all in.

Here are a few quotes:

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not
even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every
night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help,
particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.”

“What will
really fail in life? What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and
unreliability. If you’re unreliable it doesn’t matter what your virtues are.
Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your
conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability”

A rough transcript of the address is available here.

Techtags: Charlie Munger Warren Buffett Success Reading Wisdom

Success Videos -Google's Eric Schmidt

A fascinating interview with Google's Eric Schmidt. He tells us that the basic nature of innovation is unchanging, even going back hundreds of years. Some great insights into the characteristics of entrepreneurs (the drive and passion are immediately recognizable and can't be taught), and a great insight into Google's seemingly chaotic business model (the creative side is wide open, the "business guts" are highly organized). A truly enjoyable video:





Techtags: Eric Schmidt Google Entrepreneur

Success Videos - Know Yourself

A great short video about a key career strength... Knowing yourself!

Success Videos - Writing Your Resume

Here's a great video on writing a resume which I originally found via Sutree.com, a superb source for instructional videos. Presenter Rich Alexander makes the following points:

1. There is no perfect resume
2. You can have multiple resumes
3. Start the resume with an objective
4. State what you did (specifically)
5. Do research. Who are you giving the resume to?
6. Stay relevant. Must pertain to the objective
7. Be specific
8. Be organized and to the point
9. Show mature reasoning in your previous job changes
10. Be Yourself





Techtags: Resume Career Jobs

Success Videos - Michael Fischer on Saving and Investing

Financial blog Getrichslowly has linked to a remarkable series of videos by Michael Fischer of Savingandinvestingbook.com Fischer clearly knows whereof he speaks, having spent nine years at financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs. What comes across clearly is Michael’s deep desire and commitment to help others just see how important finance is in all of our lives. The videos are:

Introduction
The power of compounding
Providers and users of capital
The difference between debt and equity
What is leverage?
An introduction to financial statements
Why do financial markets exist?
What is a bond?
What is a stock?
What is a stock market index?
The importance of diversification
What is a mutual fund?
Types of mutual funds
The difference between active and passive management
An introduction to dollar-cost averaging
The impact of time
The three enemies of growth
Coping with high-interest debt
Getting started
5 popular misconceptions about money

Fischer has included many examples, and has clearly put a lot of time, thought, and organizational skill into these videos. Well worth watching.

Techtags: Saving Investing Wealth Retirement Financial literacy

Success Videos - Paul Graham on Startups

Below is a classic video from Paul Graham, programmer, entrepreneur, founder of startup incubator Y Combinator and , importantly for this site, master next-generation business philosopher.

Graham has the extremely rare ability to reflect on his own process, and to articulate the nature of the explosive and limitless business epoch we are now in. And his wry wit is a double-rarity.

A few of Paul Graham’s ideas as I see them:

He is a tireless proponent of business startups (especially web startups).
He believes there is no limit to the number of potential business startups, because there is no limit to the amount of new ideas that people want. And, he implies in this video, there never has been, in all of human history.

Graham’s vision is that creating a startup company, getting rich, end completing the “chore” of earning a living early in life is a viable option for many many young people, and clearly he sees this path as much closer to a mainstream career option is common.

I might add that there are, as I see it, many reasons for this to be true.

Products are now often mostly informational: digital not physical.

Since products are both created and delivered via information, the huge capital requirements to create an industrial-age product have shrunk dramatically.

In the Industrial age, the huge economies of scale needed to make affordable products, could only be achieved by hugely capitalized, enormously large companies. Often these products were simple products as well. Oreos. Corn Flakes. Bathroom tissue. Now, a huge capital base is not required to create an attractive, cheap product, and furthermore, products can be complex and detailed. This also, as a corollary, implies that huge variety of differentiated products can be created.

Similarly, in the Industrial Age, distribution was difficult. Physical objects had to be distributed and there was limited shelf space. There were costs. Bottlenecks. Middlemen. In the Digital Age, none of these concepts apply. Distribution is perfect and instantaneous. Products can be nearly free, and highly differentiated. We can use more products, on our desktops, in a day, than our grandparents used in a lifetime.

Back to Paul Graham:
In this video, besides articulating his breakthrough vision of the new primacy of startups, he articulates remarkable insights into the startup process. In many ways he recalls the ability of a Peter Drucker to synthesize and explain the dynamics of startups. One of Drucker’s dicta: “The Purpose of a business is to create a customer” is, in essence restated by Graham: the main focus of a startup is to attract users. There are many more key points in the video that reflect classic business principles, although he refashions them to focus on the startup space:

Speed is a key driver of success.
Continuous improvement is key (also a big-business concept, and epitomized by Toyota).
Stay flexible. Let the customer shape the business.
Commitment is more important than brains.
Avoid excuses that prevent new initiatives.

Graham’s vision is the pulse of the age. He reminds me simultaneously of Emerson, Brian Tracy, Drucker, and Edward DeBono.

Tech Tags:Paul Graham Y Combinator Startups Entrepreneurship

Success Videos - Gates, Hurley, et al at Davos

One of the great benefits of our Web 2.0 world is the instant access we have to the ideas generated by the seminal movers and shakers of our era. This "Web 2.0" discussion from the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 2007, is a case in point.

Here, on one stage, are Bill Gates, YouTube founder Chad Hurley, Flickr founder Caterina Fake, and numerous others, discussing the meaning and significance of the revolution called Web 2.0.

Bill Gates once again proves his unique capabilities as a sweeping visionary. He sees the future going toward more natural input devices (speech, 3D), toward making markets ever more granular ,searchable, and customized, and notes the hyper-speed naturee of customer usage as an immediate feedback mechanism for morphing an internet-based business ever more closely (and quickly) to the needs of the customer. I predict this video will be a classic.

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Techtags: Bill Gates Caterina Fake Chad Hurley YouTube Flickr Web 2.0 Davos

Success Tools - The Marshall Goldsmith Library

Marshal Goldsmith, a highly successful executive coach, and Author of What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, was recently featured on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. On the podcast, Goldsmith mentioned that he also hosted the Marshal Goldsmith Library. I recently checked it out and it is a treasure trove of executive coaching experience

Goldsmith, whose site contains praise from the CEOs of Ford, Glaxo, McKesson, Allergan, and Goldman Sachs, has assembled a generous collection of materials including a Blog, downloadable articles, Podcasts, Videos, and even links to 39 other Thought Leaders in management coaching including Natahniel Branden, David Allen, and Brian Tracy.

Goldsmith has coached some extremely successful people, and that poses a unique set of challenges: high-level CEO’s and similar figures are already at the top, have done a lot of things really well, and are financially independent. How do you convince them that their arrogance, blindness, self-centeredness, or encouragement of fawning sycophants is about to derail them permanently? Somehow, Goldsmith does it.

Most of us will never be able to afford the 6-figure services of a Fortune 500 executive coach. Marshall Goldsmith generously affords us all the ability to get a lot of his elite counsel for free, on his many linked websites.

Techtags: Marshall Goldsmith Nathaniel Branden Brian Tracy David Allen Glaxo Goldman Sachs Ford Executive Coach

Success Videos - Why Smart Executives Fail

How could Wang Labs ignore the personal computer? Why did Enron think it could deceive the investment world by attempting to fire a financial journalist? How could Motorola lead in analog phones and ignore digital phones? These “worst practices” are the issues addressed in Dartmouth Professor Sidney Finkelstein’s book Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes. The video below gives a remarkable glimpse into Finkelstein’s findings, the main one of which is this: top executives are not failures, not stupid, not unmotivated. They are the best and the brightest. They and their organizations fall into many of the traps we all fall into personally: wrong assumptions, communication issues, delusions arising out of current successes, and various ego pathologies. Fascinating to watch:






Techtags: Enron Motorola Nokia Tycho Management Failure Best Practices

Success Videos - Milton Friedman

The Idea Channel is streaming (for free) the late Dr. Milton Friedman’s classic free-market documentary “Free To Choose” in both the 1980 version and the 1990 version. Dr. Friedman died recently and the streaming video of his world-famous documentary is in tribute to his memory.

We often forget that one of the greatest “Success Secrets” is a free market in a free country. Milton Friedman’s classic program is a timeless reminder of that fact.

There are also printable transcripts of the show here.

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Techtags: Milton Friedman Free To Choose Free Market Econonomics