Who is the author of The Reciprocity Advantage?

The author of The Reciprocity Advantage is Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn.

Management & Leadership

The Reciprocity Advantage Book Summary - The Reciprocity Advantage Book explained in key points

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The Reciprocity Advantage summary

Name: The Reciprocity Advantage
Rating: 3.8 (16 reviews)
Author: Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn

Bob Johansen Karl Ronn

A New Way to Partner for Innovation and Growth

3.8 (16 ratings)

17 mins

Brief summary

The Reciprocity Advantage by Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn is a guide to help businesses succeed by focusing on creating value for customers, partners and stakeholders. It outlines how giving can lead to success in a competitive environment.

Topics

Innovation Entrepreneurship Leadership

Table of Contents

The Reciprocity Advantage
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Discover why you have to give in order to grow.

The Beatles once sang that the love you take is equal to the love you make, and guess what: That’s true in business too.

That’s the major insight of the reciprocity advantage, which shows that the companies who are willing to give something up, share something, or collaborate are the companies that have an advantage over their competitors.

Whether it’s old stuff you find in your company’s symbolic “basement,” or know-how you’ve built up over the years and aren’t using to its full value, this pack will show you how to find that underutilized asset you already own and can share with others!

In fact, anecdotes from major companies and organizations like the US military, TED, Google, IBM, Lego, and many more prove that in an ever-changing world, the reciprocity advantage is the best way to push your organization forward.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

what Lego pays people for ideas;
why Google set up faster wi-fi for the whole of Kansas City; and
how TEDx saved TED.

Locating unutilized assets and partnering in new ways are key to creating a reciprocity advantage.

Have you got a basement full of junk that you scarcely touch? Many companies have a figurative basement full of assets that go unused. But just because something isn’t used, doesn’t mean it’s useless! The stuff in the figurative basement, or unutilized assets, may hold great possibilities for creating new, mutually beneficial partnerships.

IBM is an outstanding example of this. As personal computers shrank in size in the mid1980s, IBM struggled to keep its bigger computers relevant in the market. To address this challenge, the company looked at what else it could offer, and realized that over the years it had built up a lot of in-house competence in managing and analyzing data: an underutilized asset. So instead of falling behind the times, IBM used this know-how as a base for new products and services, helping companies manage and analyze large data sets.

Today, IBM partners with governments, agencies and companies to create solutions that their clients wouldn’t be able to come up with otherwise, such as redistributing traffic flow for improved travel within the city of Istanbul.

And their service-oriented approach is highly profitable. In 2000, IBM’s profits from software were $2.6 billion, with $3.3 billion in hardware. But by 2012, their software profits had soared to $10.8 billion, while hardware showed very little growth. What if IBM had never thought of turning to services?

Learn from IBM: sometimes admitting defeat in one area can lead to a new, more productive path in your business. In this way, even enemies can become good partners. Take Microsoft’s Kinect, a gaming platform that used sensors to track body movement. Shortly after its launch in 2010, the platform was hacked. Microsoft fought back at first but after realizing it was futile, the company decided to partner with the hackers and open up the platform for anyone to modify.

The technology, initially meant only for gaming, has now spawned a wide range of applications, and the software development kit for Kinect has been downloaded millions of times all over the world. Microsoft could not have gained such a wide reach without its hacker partners.

A willingness to experiment is key to creating a reciprocity advantage.

Right now, all over the world communal areas where people come together to share resources and knowledge are popping up like mushrooms. These maker spaces have proved to be powerful engines for both collaboration and innovation. Companies certainly have a lot to learn from them.

Maker spaces show that sometimes, the point isn’t necessarily to create profitable products. Rather, we gain far more by attempting to build and learn together.

Reciprocity advantage is the key to scaling fast.

Today, the internet allows us to scale a company in ways that would have seemed pure fantasy just 20 years ago. If you’re willing to share and co-create with others, there is no limit to how much you can grow.

Sharing speeds up your growth without hurting your core business. A case in point is TED and TEDx. When architect Richard Wurman created TED in 1984, it was intended to be the world’s most elite conference.

The generation growing up today will challenge how companies make money, interact with their customers, and form partnerships.

You may have heard the term digital natives being thrown around in reference to people who were 18 years old or younger in 2014. This isn’t just some new buzzword – digital natives have radically different attitudes toward companies, and the way they interact with them is bound to create change. They are the key to creating partnerships for the future.

Digital natives are bound to disrupt traditional methods for companies to make money. How? A good example can be found in intellectual property. The generation currently growing up will be diametrically opposed to intellectual property rights, and the companies trying to make money by selling them. So what should a company do if it wants to survive? Instead of seeking to protect their intellectual property, it’s time to explore what can be gained by sharing it.

A connected world will radically change the concept of collaboration.

Instead of having an innovation department of ten people brainstorming in a stuffy conference room, why not have 10,000 people brainstorming for you? Having access to a global community of connected users won’t just affect how and when we work. It will change the very way companies innovate.

Companies today feature employees that perform certain jobs. This is all starting to change. In the future, jobs will be broken down and distributed online. Take Task Rabbit, for example.

Gaming will change how companies engage with their customers and how we learn in the future.

If you think games are just entertainment, think again! They can be much more – like simulations of the future or a means to bond with others. An ever-growing number of companies around the globe are discovering how to use gaming to their advantage.

Games are a proven way to engage more genuinely with customers. Economist Edward Castronova has studied players of large online games to try and grasp exactly why it is that people play. If you’d have guessed escapism, competition or entertainment, you’d better guess again.

Cloud computing will radically change the way companies scale their business.

Just as the railroads opened up a whole new world of commerce in the 1800s, the cloud will open up major new possibilities for reaching more customers and scaling your business. In fact, the cloud is the infrastructure of the future. And we’ve only seen the beginning.

From what we’ve seen so far, it’s clear that cloud computing will speed up innovation to an astonishing rate. Cloud computing will function as a medium for those shared assets, or commons, that we can all benefit from. Not only will cloud computing make it easier to increase the commons, but also for us to access and make use of them.

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What is The Reciprocity Advantage about?

Big changes are coming to the way we live and do business. The Reciprocity Advantage describes the global trends that will disrupt current business partnership models, and explains how you can build advantageous collaborations that’ll stand the test of time. These blinks will equip you with the knowledge you need to succeed in the business world of the future.

The Reciprocity Advantage Review

The Reciprocity Advantage (2014) is a thought-provoking book that explores the power of reciprocal relationships in business and how they can create a competitive advantage. Here's why this book is worth reading:

With its insightful analysis and compelling examples, it offers a fresh perspective on how reciprocity can enhance business performance.
It provides readers with practical frameworks and strategies for building and leveraging reciprocal relationships to drive success.
The book challenges traditional business thinking and promotes a collaborative, win-win mindset, making it a valuable resource for anyone looking to thrive in today's interconnected world.

Best quote from The Reciprocity Advantage

It is one thing to be hungry and hopeless, but it is quite another to be hungry, hopeless and connected.

—Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn

Who should read The Reciprocity Advantage?

Entrepreneurs looking for new ways to grow their business
Anyone interested in how global trends will change the way companies operate

About the Author

Bob Johansen is a fellow of the Institute for the Future, helping top leaders from all over the world not just prepare for, but also shape the future.

Karl Ronn has a background as vice president of research and development at P&G. Today he is managing director of Portfolio Partners, Palo Alto, and helps Fortune 500 companies create new business.

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Management & Leadership

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