How - Dov Seidman [3]
As I said, this is a HOW book, not a how-to book. How-to books offer step-by-step prescriptions for personal and business improvement: Five Rules of This, Ten Practices for That, How to Get More of Whatever It Is You Want. Follow all the rules exactly, these books promise, and the end goal—be it career success, losing weight, or becoming a millionaire—will be yours. Despite the well-meaning promise of the titles and the actionable advice—much of it useful—they offer, I believe that there is no single set of steps, habits, or actions that will provide either a shortcut or a clear and certain path to your goals. Life just isn’t that neat, tidy, or simple. A truly useful book must deliver something more—more lasting, more essential, more applicable to the full range of life. Instead of rules, steps, or an instruction manual, this book offers an approach—a framework and a way of seeing—to help you navigate the new global, hyperconnected world in which we suddenly find ourselves working. It offers something that will carry you beyond short-term rewards toward lasting success.
A new vision of HOW requires a new way of embracing why we get up every morning and go to work. I believe the inspiration to do so lives in the thought that there is a difference between doing something so as to succeed and doing something and achieving success. I am in the business of helping companies and their people do the right things in the right way. The mission of my company is to help others and we make a living so doing. We do not help others so as to make a living. The latter speaks to a journey of immediate gain and the former to a journey of significance, something of long-term value that makes not just money, but a difference. Significance lies in the ability to see one’s endeavors in terms of service to others, to be guided by a desire and ability to connect. In the vastly different conditions of our hypertransparent and hyperconnected world, I believe success can no longer be pursued directly, that it can best be achieved—and only achieved—through the pursuit of something larger and deeper. I believe that if you pursue significance—a goal larger than the bottom line—you should achieve success. How we manage this distinction between and and so as lies at the center of our ability to not only survive, but thrive in the new conditions of the world today. This book also seeks to help you discover this idea in everything you do.
Throughout this book, we explore a new lens through which to view the world, business, and human endeavor, a way of seeing that I have learned from my conversations with everyone from business thought leaders, scholars, CEOs, and corporate managers to professional cheerleaders, sports stars, and New York City street vendors. I have filtered these conversations through the challenges I face leading a growing company that must compete every day against those who also want to get ahead, deal with the pressures to make the numbers, take care of every customer, and strive to get better, and as I challenge myself to do the right thing even when it is the inconvenient or seemingly less profitable thing to do. Through anecdotes, case studies, cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, personal experience, and interviews with a diverse group of businesspeople, experts, and everyday folk—some familiar, others completely unexpected—we will explore in this book HOW we think, HOW we behave, and HOW we govern ourselves to uncover the new HOWs that unlock and create value in the twenty-first century and beyond.
The people and companies that will rise to the top today and stay on top tomorrow, who will be rewarded, promoted, and celebrated, are those that get their HOWs right. The world has changed to make this idea more relevant than ever, and I believe it now represents the most powerful way to chart a course of enduring personal and organizational business achievement.
DOV SEIDMAN
Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, LRN, Inc.
April 2007
PROLOGUE
Making Waves
On October