The Road to Reinvention

How to Drive Disruption and

AccelerateTransformation
Josh Linkner
Jossey-Bass 2014
223 pages
[@] getab.li/22668
Book:

Rating

8 Applicability
7 Innovation
8 Style

Focus
Leadership & Management
Strategy
Sales & Marketing
Finance
Human Resources
IT, Production & Logistics
Career & Self-Development
Small Business
Economics & Politics
Industries

Take-Aways
Embrace constant change and rapid reinvention.
Reinvent even when youve reached the heights of success. In fact, especially then.
The most difficult aspect of reinvention is starting. Dont let the pace of change make
you freeze like a deer in the headlights.

Reinvent gradually and constantly. Dont aim for one-off grand slams or windfalls.
Make reinvention your culture; integrate it into your everyday processes.
Reinvention includes processes and operations, not just technology and products.
Tell a great and memorable story about your organization. Differentiate and compete
based on the feeling and experience you give your customers.

To disrupt an industry, you must exceed your competitions product or service by a

factor of 1,000%; otherwise, consumers wont switch to you.

Succeed in alignment with your values. Dont compromise your beliefs for quick wins.
Building a personal or organizational culture of reinvention and innovation requires
vision, fortitude, persistence and ruthless determination.

Global Business
Concepts & Trends

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Relevance

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What You Will Learn
In this summary, you will learn:r1) How disruption, change and reinvention can carve many different paths to
success; 2) How people and organizations can face their fears and make radical changes; and 3) Why your company
should change even if its at the top.
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Review
Josh Linkner, also the author of the bestseller Disciplined Dreaming, offers dozens of inspirational stories about
pioneering mavericks to motivate you to start disrupting. Every story will make you question your ambition, drive
and commitment. The book is exhausting in all the right ways a wake-up call for the complacent, for anyone stuck
in a comfortable rut, and for organizations at the top of their game that, unknowingly, may already be on the road
to their demise. Are you ready to take action to change your life or radically alter your companys direction? Youll
appreciate an unusual central character, the city of Detroit, which pops up throughout to demonstrate hard times and
the grit you need to reinvent constantly. getAbstract believes that no matter what work you do or at what level,
Linkners tales will inspire you.
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Summary

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The most important
attribute Ive seen for
entrepreneurial success
is grit.
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Companies,
communities and
individuals fall for
many reasons, but one
of the most common
and easily avoidable
is the failure to
reinvent.
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If You Wait, Itll Be Too Late

Dont wait: Change now and change often. When you sense the smallest reason to reinvent,
listen to your instincts and start the process. Reinvent even when youve just achieved your
greatest success indeed, especially when you reach the top. If you wait, itll be too late.
Lee Kun-Hee, head of Samsung, disrupted his company, top to bottom changing
everything, despite its unprecedented growth and its best-ever financials. Lee knew that
despite its success, Samsung would decline and fail if it didnt undertake a thorough
overhaul, and quickly. His mantra to the companys top executives was change everything
but your wife and children. Lees leadership probably saved the organization from a
painful demise, like the deaths of Circuit City or Blockbuster, whose reliance on their core
businesses swept them aside.
Dont confuse reinvention with a turnaround. Turnarounds occur when organizations
face the final stages of a death spiral; they usually fail. By always changing and never
resting, you avoid the desperation of a turnaround. Look for, embrace and celebrate ideas
that eat into and even destroy your core business. If you dont, others will. Learn from
Polaroid, the once-venerable company that folded in 2001. Polaroid rejected employees
ideas that could have given it a lead in digital photography. Why? Because its executives
wanted to protect their cash cow, film.
Always consider the perspective of your customers. What do they want now? What will
they want in years to come? Immerse yourself among your customers like Veronika Scott,
who wanted to understand the perspective of Detroits homeless. By spending hours among
them, Scott realized how they valued independence and autonomy. She developed a
transformative jacket that doubles as a sleeping bag and allows homeless people to avoid
what they see as the indignity of shelters. Today, thousands of homeless people nationwide
use her product, along with a new, lucrative market of hikers and campers.

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In the same way
that Nickelodeon
would never show
horror films or Ferrari
wouldnt start selling
discount station
wagons, make sure your
brands experiences
are cohesive and
consistent.
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Many of the worlds
biggest success stories
are of those who leaped
from one line of work
to a radically different
field in order to seize
enormous prosperity.
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Instead of beating
yourself up for all the
things you stink at,
acknowledge these
shortcomings and
then get on with the
far more important
work of nurturing your
strengths.
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Study any supremely
successful organization
or individual, from Nike
to 3M or from Madonna
to Tom Hanks, and
youll encounter a
consistent theme: an
ethos of reinvention
whose principles
embody the disruptive
mind-set.
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H.O.S.E. your competition by developing a new offering not a tweak or incremental

improvement that offers high value and originality. Make it significant to engage
your customers emotionally. Your invention or reinvention should exceed your competitors
offerings by a factor of at least 1,000% if you want consumers to switch to your company.
Reinvent Your Processes
Examine every aspect of how you do business, from service to technology. Quicken Loans,
based in Detroit, dominates the mortgage industry because it continuously reinvents its
business. In 2011, it had its best year ever, with $30 billion in loans. CEO Dan Gilbert
questioned everything about the business and led an overhaul. By 2013, Quicken passed
$100 billion in loans.
A young US Navy commander, Michael Abrashoff had no authority to reinvent anything
except how his ship operated. Assigned to run one of the worst ships in the fleet, Abrashoff
changed how the crew treated and listened to its junior sailors. He accepted their suggestions
and empowered them to work the way they thought best. In just 18 months, his ship earned
recognition as the best in the fleet. The Navy instituted some of its reinvented processes
throughout the service.
Consider another Michael, who disrupted the shaving industry, where well-known brands
dominated. His company, Michael Dubins Dollar Shave Club, distributes high-quality
razor blades by mail, worldwide, using monthly subscriptions that save customers money
and time. With only $4,000 for promotion, he launched an engaging, memorable video. His
company soared to $60 million in business almost overnight. Dubin manufacturers nothing
he buys his blades from a factory. His reinvention of the shaving industry is all about
process and operations.
Make Them Remember
Think outside and inside the box. When health imaging technology designer Doug Dietz
couldnt fashion an MRI machine that didnt scare young patients at a childrens hospital, he
changed the environment instead. He made the rooms more open and decorated the MRIs
in super hero themes and other kiddie motifs. The kids calmed down, and relaxed kids
meant better images.
When you institute change, make your public face consistent with your values. Dont
build a furniture brand based on modernity, only to compromise by selling something
traditional because its a good deal. Instead, compete on experience, not prices. When
you create an emotional experience, you can charge more for the same item because youve
made it memorable. A company with a great overall story can outpunch competitors
consistently on many aspects of their business: sales, recruiting, procurement and even
operational excellence.
Tell your story creatively. The Resnick family grows small, sweet clementine tangerines.
In 2001, Stewart and Lynda Resnick gave their fruit a name, cuties, and created a brand
story that kids love cuties because cuties are for kids. By selling the tangerines sweetness
to kids, they moved into the kid-friendly candy zone, yet parents know tangerines are a
healthy fruit. This creates an advantage in a market where all clementines are pretty much
alike. In 2012, the Resnicks shipped 75 million boxes quadruple their 2005 volume.
They are now one of the richest families in the world. Of course, they also repositioned
pomegranate juice as POM wonderful and created the Fiji water brand. Their formula:
master storytelling to drive incredible success.

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Creativity is the
new, most effectively
sustainable competitive
advantage; its the one
thing that no company
can outsource.
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All our lives weve
been taught to avoid
risk...Yet ironically,
most of us live in an
irresponsibly hazardous
fashion and...it turns
out that playing it safe
has become recklessly
dangerous.
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If you want to avoid
lifes biggest risks
mediocrity and regret
you must bring your
guard down and raise
your creativity.
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When you communicate, eliminate jargon and complexity. Write or speak clearly and
directly, with your buyers perspective in mind. Dont crowd everything into one ad.
Instead, decide what you want the world to associate with your brand. Volvos offer many
good features, but it differentiates on one factor safety. Give your communications punch
and impact, so people remember what you say. Communicate logically, pointing toward the
action you want consumers to take. Dont keep secrets, even if disclosure might harm you
at first. Practice transparency. Share good and bad information widely so your stakeholders
trust you and help you succeed.
Reinvent Your Culture
Create a culture of reinvention and innovation. Explain the reasons for change. Recruit
influential people in your organization as change champions. Clearly articulate what you
want changed and how you intend to compete. Give your initiatives catchy titles. Zappos
inspires its workforce to Deliver WOW through service and rewards that behavior by
sharing WOW stories. Infuse your culture with passion. Never tolerate poisonous, defeatist
attitudes. Some leaders will block change. Show them how theyre holding the company
back. If people wont or cant change, even if they work hard and get good results, let them
go. Build rituals that amplify your values. Ritz-Carlton Hotels ritualizes its daily lineup,
in which staffers always called ladies and gentlemen share stories of seeing other
employees deliver incredible customer service.
Know Thy Customer and Thyself
Harley-Davidson might not exist if not for a few employees who understood its customers.
In the 1970s, Harleys sales plummeted when Japanese rivals stormed the market with
faster, cheaper bikes. Saving Harley from bankruptcy, a handful of staff members bought
the firm. Instead of copying the competition, they bet on their small but loyal customer base.
Today, Harley sells bikes, clothing and experiences to a larger, more professional market
that appreciates the mystique, the image and the roar of a Harley-Davidson.
Figure out your niche market and do something unique for it. For example, almost 50%
of US travelers are women. Hotels that cater to them specifically enjoy greater growth
than the industry average. Consider niche markets centered on age, lifestyle, interests and
even sexual orientation. Owning a niche can propel your business much faster than fighting
dozens of mass-market rivals.
Complacency kills. Your organization erodes constantly but unnoticeably. Make
reinvention part of your culture. Resist reacting to the fast pace of change by freezing,
like a deer in the headlights. Address decay as it occurs by constantly reinventing; never
allow rot to take hold.

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Think of the adventure
flavor of reinvention as
a siren song calling you
to the wild. Rather than
tapping into your inner
child, you must harness
your inner Louis and
Clark.
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Learn from the Nest, a garage-based start-up run by ex-Apple executives who reinvented the
thermostat industry. Their attractive, smart thermostats learn homeowners preferences
and adjust temperatures dynamically. The Nest sells for 10 times the price of its average
competitor and was sold out within a week of its launch. As massive backlogs attest,
it changed an industry in which the giants were sleeping. The Nest follows in the
tradition of countless start-ups which can embrace radical innovation more easily than giant
corporations can. But the best companies and people change frequently to stay on top, no
matter what their size. Nike disrupts its own business and reinvents constantly. It markets
new health monitoring devices and radical new shoe designs, reaping annual growth rates
that rival much smaller firms.

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The Eight Principles of Reinvention

You face greater risk on a traditional career path than you do when you disrupt and innovate.
Break free from lessons of childhood lessons to toe the line, avoid making waves, listen to
authority and do what youre told. Retrain yourself using the eight principles of reinvention:

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Empathy has become
the new killer app.
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It takes boldness and
courage to let go of the
status quo to pursue the
wonder and magic of
whats possible.
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Its time to create
something fresh and
compelling before your
competition beats you
to it.
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1. Let go of the past Dont let what happened before, good or bad, hold you back
from what you can and must do now. Let go of your comfortable but stagnant job. Sell
or reinvent your successful but stale firm. Forgive past injustices, forget failures and
wins; both restrain you.
2. Encourage courage Give people the confidence to share ideas. Appreciate good
and bad ones, and never criticize or embarrass people who offer ideas you dont like
you wont hear from them again. Someones ninth or 20th idea could be the one that
changes the game. Keep ideas flowing.
3. Embrace failure Adopt the outlook that with failure comes learning and new
opportunity. Reinvention requires trial and error, experimentation and many alterations
before you hit the right thing. Dont give up and dont penalize failure.
4. Do the opposite No breakthrough products or processes come from following others
or conforming to convention. Dove stopped using supermodels in its face cream ads
and turned to real women and men. Sales skyrocketed by 600% within eight weeks.
Consider the others choices and do the opposite to stand out.
5. Imagine the possibilities Forget seeing is believing; instead, think youll see
it when you believe it. Visualize the possible; if you can imagine it, you can make
transformational change and design new products, services and operations.
6. Put yourself out of business Make your business redundant. Just as a new iPhone
cannibalizes the market for previous models, renew constantly. The most enduring
organizations 3M, IBM, Berkshire Hathaway, Western Union dont do anything like
what they did when they started. Kill your bread and butter; if you dont, others will.
7. Reject limits Dont believe in or accept boundaries. When others say it cant
be done, press harder. Refuse to accept the reflexive no. Consider the story of
mountaineers trapped in a cave with only hours of oxygen left. At intervals, the one
man who had a watch shouted out the time remaining before they would suffocate. To
encourage the others, he padded the estimates by a half-hour each time. Rescuers finally
found the team; they all survived, except the timekeeper who, knowing when he should
suffocate, had died. He had become so convinced that his time had expired that his
body stopped fighting. The others who believed they were capable of living longer, did.
8. Aim beyond Place your goal where you think your market is going rather than where
it is now. Develop your product for the market of the future. If it will take 18 months to
move your invention from blueprint to shelf, design what will sell in 18 months time.
Dont compromise the way you reinvent or succeed. Choose goals that align with your
personal values and mission, and stick to them. Help other people, give back and
build relationships; youll need that positivity, goodwill and support on your own road
to reinvention.

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About the Author

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Josh Linkner is CEO and managing partner of Detroit Venture Partners, which focuses on revitalizing Detroit,
MI. A speaker, venture capitalist, inventor, entrepreneur and jazz musician, he also wrote Leaning Forward and the
bestseller Disciplined Dreaming.
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