Book Review: How to Castrate a Bull
Yes, the title sucked me in. You’ve got to admit it, though; How to Castrate a Bull is an eye-catching title for a business book. And yes, it does have a section about bull castration. The bland subtitle gives the intention of the book: Unexpected lessons on risk, growth, and success in business. Written by NetApp co-founder Dave Hitz, the book summarizes the nearly 20 year lifespan of the company and how they went from just 3 guys with an idea to over 4000 employees and more than $4 billion in annual revenues.
The title comes from Hitz’s time spent at Deep Springs College in California. Deep Springs is a combination ranch and liberal arts college. Students work 20 hours per week on the ranch while they do their studies. When Hitz worked as a ranch hand he learned humility by shoveling cow patties, the risk management involved when taking a knife to a 500 lb. bull, all while learning precious critical thinking and writing skills. Although Hitz majored in computer science at Princeton, he gives more credits to the writing and thinking skills learned as a liberal arts student than to his computer science education; in fact, he writes that learning how to write clearly was probably the best thing could have happened for his success. There’s a powerful lesson for the rest of us.
Some of the other lessons Hitz offers are to find a new or young market that you can quickly dominate. That’s obvious, but even Hitz admits that before NetApp even got a good grip on their market, a different market had found them and they ended up completely changing their strategy. That is another lesson offered: be flexible. One should also be flexible enough to know when to make big changes. Hitz tells of coming to the realization that one of the other founders had to be fired. Hitz writes that he hated having to make that choice, but it had to be done if the business was going to grow. Unfortunately, it took 14 months; so another lesson is that replacing your CEO should be done quickly!
When I first started reading this book, I didn’t think that I would make it past the first chapter. I didn’t want to read a “Hey! I’m awesome!” story. Once I got past the introduction, Hitz did provide an interesting story about building a huge company. He gave interesting anecdotes and funny stories about how to and not do many of the things that must be done to grow. Even if you aren’t planning on taking your business to $4 billion annually, Hitz’s story is still a good one about business life.
Book Review: The Anatomy of Persuasion
Filed Under: Books of Interest
Tags: Book, Book review, Communication, Sales
Within the last few weeks, several friends and close acquaintances have had the misfortune of losing their jobs. All these guys happen to be in sales: software and automobiles. They are all really great guys and are all very good at making you comfortable with them; regular ‘Joe Six-pack’ kinda guys. As salesmen though, they came into my thoughts when I saw Norbert Aubuchon’s The Anatomy of Persuasion on the library bookshelf. I know that sales is what these guys do, not who they are, but I wondered if their previous successes in all matters might somehow be related to their sales personalities. The Anatomy of Persuasion convinces me that they are, and here’s why: These guys are all great communicators!
The Anatomy of Persuasion is a book based on, and used in conjunction with, Aubuchon’s ‘Anatomy of Persuasion’ seminars. It’s not gimmicky, though, and it isn’t a pitch to get you into the seminars. It easily stands alone and is very useful on its own. Each chapter is concise and offers clear directions on how to be a persuasive person. From the very beginning, Aubuchon stresses that the problem with most great ideas is that they aren’t clearly expressed and therefore never get implemented. Of course, the opposite is also true: some clearly lousy ideas do get implemented because someone had the power of persuasion to get it done. This dichotomy demonstrates that it is not necessarily whether something is a good idea or not, but how well it was presented: The persuasion, not the idea, is what matters.
The Anatomy of Persuasion‘s steps and methods include learning how to critically analyze your proposal or product to better explain it to your audience, be it a customer, your supervisor, or management team. Aubuchon’s message is that proper communication is the basis for persuasion and strong knowledge and understanding of your product or proposal is at the root of that communication. It all seems simple when you think about it, but in daily operations we sometimes make things more complicated rather than more clearly defined and thus make our proposals less attractive. Simple, clear communication is the way forward.
My friends are practitioners of the clear and simple approach to communication, and they were successful in their fields, and I have no doubt that they will be employed again very soon. One has been selling Pontiacs since he bought a GTO Judge back in 1986, another started with Adobe in the late ’80s. Both have picked up MBAs along the way. They know their stuff and know how to talk about it. That’s how they get things done. The Anatomy of Persuasion is a great tool for anyone looking to improve their communication skills and motivate others to follow their desired course of action.
