Make Your Mark summary

While your purpose is fundamental to your success in business, it’s not the only piece of the puzzle. You’ll also have to develop your business in a way that actually moves you closer to achieving that purpose.

The best way to do this is by developing a flexible operating system. Indeed, many visionary companies, including Facebook, Airbnb and Dropbox, have adopted a Responsive Operating System (OS).

When we think of creative genius and entrepreneurship, we often imagine prolific inventors who are able to come up with huge numbers of novel innovations. However, when it comes to business success, you don’t need lots of good ideas and products. You really only need one.

In fact, trying to develop too many things simultaneously will simply leave you with lots of half-finished projects, i.e., nearly there products.

When you see a product in a store, how do you think that it was conceived? Did it come as a stroke of genius to someone in R&D, complete and in its finished form?

Unlikely. In fact, all great products are the result of tweaking and development, not someone’s muse whispering in their ear.

When a company releases a statement or an offer online, they often “hope” that it will go viral and win them lots of attention.

However, the most successful companies do this not in hope, but in expectation. For example, when entrepreneur and author Chris Guillebeau posted a single blog entry asking for donations to his Clean Water for Ethiopia campaign, he was able to raise $22,000 in a single day, all without “going viral.” But how?

Do you know anyone who owns a coat made by the mountaineering clothing brand Patagonia? And have they ever been mountaineering in that coat? Probably not. How can this brand be so popular despite the fact that so few people use its products for their intended purpose? The answer lies in the stories they tell.

Indeed, the most successful brands tell stories about themselves which relate to the views and beliefs of society.

Imagine that every email you sent from your work account was automatically sent to everyone on your team. Surely this kind of invasion of privacy couldn’t lead to effective work. Right?

Wrong. In fact, the social network managing service Buffer does exactly that, and they enjoy both a loyal team and remarkable successes.

Ask creatives if they’d like to be in a leadership position and most will say: “No way! I’d never want to give up my creative work just so I could boss people around. It’s just not me.”

While this sentiment is common, it is due, in a large part, to a fundamental misunderstanding of what leadership actually involves.