What got you here, won’t get you there
I thought it was about business strategy. It’s not.
Okay, the book isn’t about coming up with a plan to grow your business, although there are still lessons for that.
Marshall’s key point is that the kind of person who rises to management positions usually has a negative trait that will hold them or their company back at a certain point.
The good news is that a few simple habits and practices are enough to overcome these shortcomings.
Managing a team of programmers requires more than programming skills
People aren’t the same as code.
While a great programmer may be able to diagnose the issues with a junior’s code (no bad thing), they may not be able to give that feedback in a way the junior accepts.
And then there are the challenges of attending meetings, coming up with strategies, balancing budgets and more that can all fall onto your shoulders as you rise through a company.
But this lesson applies to businesses as well as individuals.
A good tactic will only take you so far
Let’s say you have a business providing web design services.
You have a steady pipeline of clients thanks to your content marketing efforts. Plus you can charge enough that you comfortably pay your bills. But you have no extra capacity to service more clients. Nor are you turning clients away.
If you want to grow this business further, you need to get a team and use other marketing channels too.
Let’s look at a larger example: a much larger one.
Apple’s focus on graphic design made it a leading player in the personal computer market. Yes, it had gone through hard times, but Steve Jobs’s return had seen a return to growth. But that could only take them so far.
Enter the iPod.
The iPod changed Apple completely. They even removed “Computers” from the company name. Instead of just gaining revenue from their PCs, they now sold not only MP3 players but songs on the iTunes marketplace too.
They did something different to gain far more.
Then they did it again with the iPhone.
Doing more only takes you so far
99% of the time, looking for how you can do more is the right first step.
But everyone and every market has their limit.
At some point, if you want to go further, you need to do something different, not just more of the same.
