A Strategy, Soul, & Self Toolbox

Hello friends

Today’s letter is coming to you from Schuilhoek Cottage. Thank you to Defijn founder, Eckardt Kasselman, for introducing me to this place of quiet beauty.

I am staying mostly offline, so will share some pictures with you next week.

Before we left the city, we also got to be the lucky occupants of an allotment at the Oranjezicht City Farm. Quite aside from the joy of growing our own produce, connecting with neighbours, and learning from the generous custodians of the space, the farm is blessed with this view (I anticipate that much of my ‘farming’ will be interspersed with gins infused with the farm’s buchus and herbs, pineapple sage being my current favourite).

Tomorrow, we head back to Cape Town to vote.

Given the moment, I had intended to take you ‘inside South Africa’s mind’ via UCT Professor of Psychology, Wahbie Long’s Nation on the Couch, in which he explores South Africa’s contemporary challenges through the lens of psychoanalysis. It is a fascinating read; however, I am still grappling with the nuances of his insights and so, it has to ferment a little more before I am confident in what I want to share with you.

The preparation of our allotment has involved tool-buying, compost spreading, planning the structure of the planting we want to do, in short getting the foundations in place. This activity triggered a thought that there was merit in sharing with you some of the foundational ‘tools’ that I return to time and again.  So, that’s where we’re going to today, I’m going to give you a peak at some of my favourite ‘tools’ and ‘composts’. I hope that you find it useful.

Strategy

It’s impossible to write about strategy and not speak of Jim Collins. Collins has, for the past thirty years, rigorously researched and written about what makes companies great. In Good to Great, he did it by examining the results of 1,435 listed companies to find those extraordinary companies that generated cumulative stock returns that exceeded the general stock market by at least three times over 15 years. He found 11 ‘great’ companies. His writing and subsequent books examine what it took to build these great companies. His most recent book Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, brings together all his work. It is a great read for any leader, regardless of the size of your organisation or business. Indeed, Collins points out repeatedly that all the companies he studied, were – at one stage – small businesses, and this book is enriched by examples from many small and medium sized businesses.

Collins’ work is an invaluable guide to the major forces that shape the trajectory of a business but it’s not always that useful in putting together a ‘what’s next’ strategy. For this, I turn to Alan Lafley and Roger Martin’s Playing to Win. Written in clear, no-nonsense fashion it’s a great help in identifying and working with the building blocks required to create an operational strategy.

Of course, life, and definitely strategy, does not always go to plan. So, it is always instructive to see how these principles come alive in the day-to-day life companies. My favourite company histories move away from abstractions to give a view of how key principles and values are acted out, and how they don’t always work out.  Two of my favourites tell the story of Lego and Netflix respectively.

Brick by Brick: How Lego Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry is a fascinating account of how Lego moved itself from a slowly dying traditional toy manufacturer into an integral part of the modern child’s experience. Much of Collins’ work stresses the importance of values and mission in providing the fuel for greatness. The Lego story exemplifies this. Robertson and Breen do a fantastic job in explaining how Lego was continually able to innovate by returning to their mission to “Inspire and Develop the Builders of Tomorrow” and their belief that “Children are our role models.”

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer explains how Netflix is an ecosystem of mutually reinforcing values, practices, and behaviours. Hastings goes to great pains to draw the links between values and their lived expression in the business’s life. The book draws the links between ‘nine dots’ that constitute the scaffolding of Netflix’s pioneering culture. It gets behind the hype of individual practices, instead showing how each practice contributes to the intentional building of a very particular culture focused on innovation and speed.

If you’re not a reader, then LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale podcast does a good job of exploring strategic themes in a punchy fashion, while Guy Raz’s How I Built This does deep dives into entrepreneurs’ journeys in building their companies. Both give great insights, and both have recently published books (which I have not yet bought or read).

Self

It is a peculiar feature of many education systems that they teach us knowledge about subjects outside of ourselves but do little to help us understand how to live joyfully and effectively, to envisage and build the kind of life that best optimizes who we are. We’re left on our own, often figuring it out through an unconsciously assembled patchwork of instincts about ourselves, familial expectation, a sense of ‘the responsible thing to do is’ and the collected bruises of life.  We’re not taught the power of being intentional about shaping our lives, or how to do that.

I find that it’s sometimes useful to give myself a bit of a fright, a reminder that inertia is easy. When I am struggling to get going, I return to ‘Why You Don’t Give a Damn About Your Future Self’ that explains the work of psychologist, Hal Hershfield. It’s useful to be aware of the sneaky ways that we sabotage ourselves (and what to do about it).

A more proactive orientation rests on Jim Collins’ Ten Lessons I Learnt From Peter Drucker. I return to this piece a few times a month to remind myself of precepts like ‘manage thyself’, ‘do what you’re made for’, and ‘be useful’.

Then, as with companies, I find it enriching to get lessons from life. In this case, other people’s lives as reflected in biography and memoir.

In the last 12 months, I have loved Skin’s It Takes Blood and Guts and Nadia Owusu’s Aftershocks.

Skin’s story is one of transformation, from a quiet, skinny Brixton girl to the crowd-surfing, shaven-headed vocalist of a globally successful rock band. It is both a story of personal transformation and determination, as well as of the pain of confronting systemic racism and sexism. If you ever believe that you can’t do it (whatever that is) read It Takes Blood and Guts. Es’kia Mphahlele’s Down Second Avenue and Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed, are also great antidotes for feeling helpless, and – like Skin – are lessons in the power of consistent, intentional action.

Owusu’s Aftershocks is interesting in a different way. She does not yet occupy any position of fame although Aftershocks is changing that rapidly. At forty, her life is in process. In her words, “I was cobbling together a living for a really long time in order to sustain a creative life. I was a bottle-service girl in a club; I worked as a fact-checker; I was a Coors Lite girl, giving out key-chains in bodegas.” And so, her story is a little closer to everyday life, a little less obscured by the bright light reflecting off platinum records and Nobel Prizes. It is a story of navigating old hurts, of finding home when it’s not clear where home is. It’s a story of finding direction in the turmoil and disruption of life. It’s worth reading.

Soul

Thomas Moore is a psychotherapist and writer who brings together “spirituality, mythology, depth psychology and the arts, emphasizing the importance of images and imagination.” He describes his life’s work as trying “to bring more humane values to our world.” His books – Care of the Soul and Dark Nights of the Soul –remind me that life is complex, that whilst our world compels us to look for cures, for fixes, the most powerful approach is to gently care for where we, and others, are. His writing weaves together hundreds of years of philosophy and insight into being human. It takes time to read, but it gives rich rewards. At 81, he recently released a new book. It’s powerful evidence of the dividends that purpose delivers.

To be human is to experience the loss of those we love. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief take us to the heart of that experience. It is a powerful exemplar of the fact that sometimes life is too big, too painful, to manage or understand, and that sometimes all we can do is to be still in it.

Krista Tippet’s On Being explores the “intersection of spiritual inquiry, science, social healing, and the arts.” With podcasts like “The Future of Hope”, “How We’re Wired for Goodness”, and “The Worlds Beneath Our Feet”, her work is a constant source of inspiration and escape into places of possibility. And recently released 10x Bolder, hosted by Halla Tomasdottir, is a series of conversations with business leaders looking to create a more just and humane world.

All of these together will give you a great journey through strategy, soul, and self. It’s almost guaranteed that if you make your way through these resources, you’ll be far better placed to lead a more joyful and effective life.

November starts tomorrow. If you’d like to start a strategy, soul, & self, coaching journey before the end of the year, email me and we can set up a time to speak.

Karl

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(This letter was first published on 31 October 2021)