The Grid Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus The Grid

Einleitung anhören

00:00

Zusammenfassung von The Grid

Name: The Grid
Rating: 4.2 (132 reviews)
Author: Matt Watkinson

Matt Watkinson

The Decision-Making Tool for Every Business (Including Yours)

4.2 (132 Bewertungen)

24 Min.

Inhaltsübersicht

The Grid
in 8 Kernaussagen verstehen

Audio & Text in der Blinkist App

Kernaussage 1 von 8

What’s in it for me? A holistic approach to business.

How likely is it that my start-up idea will succeed? What can I do to make my business more profitable? How will changes in my department affect the rest of the company?

These are just some of the questions that entrepreneurs, managers, and department heads ask themselves every day. The answers to these questions tend to be highly specific to individual companies. What works in one context doesn’t necessarily work in another.

But what if there were a methodology anyone could apply to their business at any time?

Well, there is! Let’s dive in and find out what it is and what it can do for you and your business.

Along the way, you’ll learn:

what businesses and the human body have in common;
why raising your prices boosts profits more effectively than increasing production; and
how outsourcing can undermine your bargaining power.

Businesses are like human bodies – they thrive when you treat them holistically.

If you’re open-minded and pay attention to what’s happening around you, you can discover important truths in the most unlikely situations. Take it from the author. One of the most impactful lessons about business he’s had in his life came from something deeply personal: his chronic knee pain.

He visited specialist after specialist, but none of them seemed able to cure his pain. There was a good reason for that – they were focused on treating his symptoms, not the underlying cause. Finally, after months of pain, the author agreed to surgery on both knees. But even this drastic measure brought no relief. His knees continued to make his life hell.

Six months after this surgery, he decided to try a different approach. He talked to physiotherapists and osteopaths and spent hours on foam rollers, but that didn’t help either. Then, just as he was about to call it quits and resign himself to a life of chronic pain, he met a sports rehabilitation expert called Nicole Parsons.

Unlike other specialists, Parsons didn’t just look at the author’s knees – she examined his whole body. It was this holistic approach that revealed the true cause of the problem: a muscle imbalance between his shoulders and his toes that knocked his hips out of alignment and placed extra pressure on his knees.

Having found the true cause of the author’s issues, Parsons was able to prescribe an effective remedy. After the author put in a couple of months’ work strengthening the rest of his body, his knees were no longer causing him pain, and he was able to start jogging again.

Now, these blinks aren’t about holistic medicine, but this example is deeply relevant when it comes to business. For a long time, there just weren’t any coaches specializing in the business equivalent of Parson’s holistic approach to sports injuries. Sure, there were plenty of experts who could tell you how to fix individual parts of a struggling business, but hardly anyone looked at the whole picture.

That’s a shame, because, just like human bodies, businesses thrive when you solve problems by looking at how different parts fit together and interact. That means it’s time to take a different approach to struggling businesses. In the following blinks, we’ll give you a tool to help you do just that.

Ready? Great, let’s find out about what the author calls the Grid – a holistic business analysis that sets out three goals, three factors, and nine elements applicable to all companies.

Desirability, profitability, and longevity make for a successful business.

Right, let’s begin sketching the Grid. The best place to start is by setting our ultimate goals. These can be described in all sorts of ways, but when you really get down to it, all businesses share three identical goals.

First off, each and every business must be desirable. Put differently, if you want your company to prosper, you need people to be interested in your product.

Business is unreliable, and customers, markets, and your organization are always changing.

Imagine a ship at sea. The currents pull it one way; the winds blow it another. To maintain its course, it must take these factors into account and adjust its sails accordingly. This, then, is the mark of a well-run ship: the captain and crew know the currents and listen to the wind.

Businesses are a bit like ships in that they are also buffeted by forces beyond their control, which they must learn to navigate. The three most important factors they must consider are their customers, their organization, and the market. These are all highly unpredictable.

The desirability of a product is determined by three important elements.

In this blink, we’ll be shifting gears and looking more closely at what makes a company desirable. This will add three more elements to our grid – wants and needs, rivalry, and offerings.

Let’s start with wants and needs. In general, these are determined by customers’ values and beliefs. These aren’t written in stone, however. In fact, the beliefs and values guiding customers are constantly changing.

Profitability is achieved by increasing revenue, preserving bargaining power, and cutting costs.

It’s time to look at profitability. Like desirability, this can be broken into three factors, each of which we’ll be adding to the Grid.

Let’s start with price. Simply put, raising the price of a given product is one of the most effective ways of boosting your revenue. Take it from McKinsey. In a 2010 study, the management consultancy firm found that a 1 percent price hike increased profits by 11 percent if demand remained constant.

If you’re in it for the long haul, protect your customer base, keep your originality, and stay adaptable.

Now that we’ve covered desirability and profitability, we’ll need to look at the factors that determine a company’s longevity. This will allow us to add another three elements to our grid – customer base, imitability, and adaptability.

Let’s start with the customer base. It’s an ironclad rule of business that a company cannot survive if consumers don’t know it exists. Longevity, in other words, depends on awareness.

Business success materializes through all nine elements of the Grid.

We’ve now defined the three goals, three factors, and nine elements that apply to all companies. But remember what we said at the start – these can’t be treated in isolation. Every element is relevant and can affect changes in every other element.

Let’s say a company has a brilliant idea for a new product, but it fails to take account of the expertise of rival companies. The danger here is that the first company develops a product that a competitor then easily copies and even improves. This happens when companies focus on the desirability of products from the perspective of consumers but forget about rivals.

You may need a second pair of eyes to start improving your business with the Grid.

The author was recently engaged by a company in the service sector that had run into financial difficulties. When he looked at the firm’s data, he found some puzzling patterns. Customer satisfaction was high, for example, but repeat purchases were low. The firm also had a lot of potential customers, but very few of them committed to a purchase. So what was going on here?

Well, here are a couple of things the author learned from this example. Let’s start with one of the most obvious lessons: sometimes, you simply need a fresh pair of eyes to identify improvements.

Du möchtest die gesamte Zusammenfassung von The Grid sehen?

Kernaussagen in The Grid

Mehr Wissen in weniger Zeit

Sachbücher auf den Punkt gebracht

Kernaussagen aus Sachbüchern in ca. 15 Minuten pro Titel lesen & anhören mit den „Blinks”

Zeitsparende Empfehlungen

Titel, die dein Leben bereichern, passend zu deinen Interessen und Zielen

Podcasts in Kurzform ^Neu

Kernaussagen wichtiger Podcasts im Kurzformat mit den neuen „Shortcasts”

Worum geht es in The Grid?

The Grid (2017) identifies a set of factors that can make or break businesses. Rooted in a holistic approach, these blinks will help you evaluate business ideas, anticipate the impact of your decisions, and take advantage of changes in the market. Apply these principles in your own company, and you’ll be able to identify the true causes of problems rather than simply treating the symptoms.

Bestes Zitat aus The Grid

People do not build their beliefs on a foundation of reason. They begin with certain beliefs, then find reasons to justify them. – Hungarian physicist Eugene P. Wigner.

—Matt Watkinson

Wer The Grid lesen sollte

Entrepreneurs going through a sticky patch
Managers looking for a new approach to problem-solving
Business and economics students

Über den Autor

Matt Watkinson is an internationally renowned business consultant. His first book, The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences, won the 2014 Chartered Management Institute’s Management Book of the Year Award.

Kategorien mit The Grid

Börse & Geld Unternehmertum Management & Leadership

Ähnlich wie The Grid

Fix This Next

Mike Michalowicz

Make the Vital Change That Will Level Up Your Business

Master the Art of Business

Transform Your Business From a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine

How to Learn Anything… Fast

12 min

4.2

The Economist: Numbers Guide

Richard Stutely & The Economist

The Essentials of Business Numeracy

A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field

Design Your Business to Run Itself

23 min

4.7

How to Begin

Michael Bungay Stanier

A Proven Plan to Start Something That Matters

An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking

How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No

Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock

Cultivate the Enduring Customer Loyalty That Keeps Your Business Thriving

21 min

4.4

Self-Made Boss

Jackie Reses and Lauren Weinberg

Advice, Hacks, and Lessons from Small Business Owners

19 min

4.4

The Millionaire Fastlane

MJ DeMarco

Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime!

16 min

3.8

101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Brianna Wiest

Philosophical Meditations That Will Change Your Life

12 min

4.4

The Like Switch

Jack Schafer and Marvin Karlins

An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting and Winning People Over

Seven Coaching Skills That Transform Individuals, Teams & Organizations

14 min

4.2

The Advice Trap

Michael Bungay Stanier

Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever

17 min

4.6

Welcome to Management

Ryan Hawk

How to Grow from Top Performer to Excellent Leader

17 min

4.5

You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake!

Olivier Sibony

How Biases Distort Decision-Making – and What You Can Do To Fight Them

27 min

4.3

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith

The most influential economic book of all time

11 min

4.3

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

Laura Vanderkam

And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and Home

26 min

4.3

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Intuition or deliberation? Where you can (and can't) trust your brain

28 min

4.5

The Wisdom of Finance

Mihir A. Desai

How the Humanities Can Illuminate and Improve Finance

24 min

4.0

I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Ramit Sethi

The easy approach to smart banking, saving, spending and investing

17 min

4.0

How to Think More Effectively

The School of Life

A guide to greater productivity, insight and creativity

Fortune Favors the Brave

18 min

4.3

The WEIRDest People in the World

Joseph Henrich

How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

19 min

4.1

Discipline Is Destiny

Ryan Holiday

The Power of Self-Control

18 min

4.7

Super Thinking

Gabriel Weinberg with Lauren McCann

The Big Book of Mental Models

How to Conquer Negativity and Thrive in a Chaotic World

Advice from the Chairman of the Board

How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

29 min

4.4

The Long View

Brian Fetherstonhaugh

Career Strategies to Start Strong, Reach High, and Go Far

16 min

4.4

Think Like a Rocket Scientist

Ozan Varol

Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success

The Secret to Achieving More with Less

18 min

4.4

Magnificent Sex

Peggy J. Kleinplatz and A. Dana Ménard

Lessons from Extraordinary Lovers

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks

Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication

15 min

4.5

Nail It then Scale It

Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation

How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs

Effective Discipline for Children 2-12

How to Create Intrigue and Connect with Anyone

18 min

4.1

Sales Management. Simplified.

Mike Weinberg

The Straight Truth About Getting Exceptional Results From Your Sales Team

19 min

4.2

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Robin Sharma

A guide to using ancient practices to improve your quality of life and achieve your goals

What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves

Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

19 min

4.3

The Art of Communicating

Thich Nhat Hanh

The fascination of mindfulness in our daily lives

15 min

4.5

❤️ für Blinkist️️️

Ines S.

Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.

Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.

Ekaterina S.

Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll

Nils S.

Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.

Julia P.

Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.