As Kawasaki notes, there are some things that are just essential to running a company and without them one is doomed to fail. Yes, first, find meaning. After, then you find your Mantra as i've said above, but never confuse this with your Tagline. The difference, one is internal, the other external - the internal to motivate and inform employees and even employer as required as to the company's original mission purpose. The Tagline, to inform the public. Note too, that Kawasaki provides excellent examples of the greatest taglines, like IBM's "Think" and Nike "Authentic athletic performance." IT should evoke "power and emotion," writes Kawasaki, and indeed, he does. His advice, postpone writing your mission statement until you know what your mantra is. In short, until you're sold on your idea and have a mantra that can motivate others, then your mission statement is useless. Other ideas abound in this book that are unconventional and one should read the whole book to get the sense, but others include having satellite branches of the company where new products are developed to help forge a sense of almost rebellious drive that has certainly proven to work for companies like Apple, and Kawasaki should know. These details while they may seem small are infact, vital to the success of the start -up for what you are really doing is not only asking all the tough questions first, but answering them in a more profound way than you ever will in a business plan, though that's important, but this is different. Here, Kawasaki sounds more like a philosopher who wants to get to the deeper meaning and asks, like Aristotle did, ask of anything what it's real purpose is - what is it at it's core, what does it do, what is it's nature. There will come a time for business plans and PowerPoint Presentations, but those often come too soon before the big questions are asked and answers and this may well be why so many companies indeed fail.
There are too many great quotes in this book to pull them all out, but one that sits well with anyone who has felt overlooked in a company small or large (but i would imagine, especially a large corporation) is the following, taken from Kawasaki's advice "Give Hope to the Hopeful." He writes"Good people in big companies may be trampled, but they are not dead. When you show them that you're driving a stake in the heart of the status quo you will attract support and resources. Then your goal is to advance these people from wanting to see innovation happen to helping you make it happen."
Article comments
1 - TDavid
I'm currently working my way through this book. I'm impressed so far.