📚 Roger's Highlights

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A batch of the best highlights from what roger's read, .

Mike wanted to be president. He was willing to spend the money and put his reputation on the line. But not at the risk of electing Trump. In our final meeting before he announced he wouldn’t run, the discussion went something like this: Mike: “So, Doug, how many states can we win outright?” Doug: “With all the caveats of the unknown stipulated, around four or five.” Mike: “And that means what from an electoral college standpoint?” Doug: “If that happened, it’d mean likely no one would get to 270 and the race would go to the House.” Mike, turning to the rest of us: “And in the House, how many states do we win?” Me: “We should be solid for all of the Democratic states since the choice at that point would really be you versus Trump and not Hillary versus Trump, since there’s no way Hillary could win any Republican-controlled delegations.” Mike: “So that’s seventeen states, right?” Me: “Right.” Turned out it was a rhetorical question. (Mike’s pretty good at math.) Mike: “And the other nine?” I then made my points about divided delegations, Paul Ryan, support from unusual GOP corners, running campaigns in GOP House districts to influence those members, etc. . . . Mike: “So you’re guaranteeing we get nine Republican states?” Me: “Of course I can’t guarantee that. I’m just giving you the plan for how we get there.” Mike: “And if it’s eight?” Me: “Trump wins.” Mike: “And if we don’t run?” Me: “Hillary wins.” Everyone else around the table nodded in agreement. Mike: “If I run, the chances of Trump winning go up. If I don’t run, they don’t. Issue settled.”

The Fixer

Bradley Tusk

These case studies helped me resolve a paradox that has appeared repeatedly in my attempts to help established companies that are confronted by disruptive entrants—as was the case with Blockbuster and U.S. Steel. Once their executives understood the peril that the disruptive attackers posed, I would say, “Okay. Now the problem is that your sales force is not going to be able to sell these disruptive products. They need to be sold to different customers, for different purposes. You need to create a different sales force.” Inevitably they would respond, “Clay, you’re just naive. You have no idea how much it costs to create a new sales force. We need to leverage our existing sales team.” Or I would say, “You know that brand of yours? It isn’t going to work on this new disruptive product. You need to build a different brand.” Their response was just the same. “Clay, you have no idea how expensive it is to create a new brand from scratch. We need to leverage one of our existing brands.” The language of the disruptive attackers was completely different: “It’s time to create the sales force” and “It’s time to build a brand.”

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon

The productivity equation is a non-linear one, in other words. This accounts for why I am a bad correspondent and why I very rarely accept speaking engagements. If I organize my life in such a way that I get lots of long, consecutive, uninterrupted time-chunks, I can write novels. But as those chunks get separated and fragmented, my productivity as a novelist drops spectacularly.

Deep Work

Cal Newport

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