Business Gems: The Softer Values of Success

By Bob Danzig

Hall of Fame Speaker Bob Danzig has spoken to over a million people and is frequently asked the same questions: “How do the values you speak about hold up in the hard-nosed world of business? Are you taken seriously when you're perceived as being spirit driven? Bob’s answers often surprise the audience. Because of his reputation, people expect him to have a hard-edged approach to business. In this concise eBook, Bob shares his core truths on the “softer values” of success and explains how nurturing these values leads to true business mastery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985803926

Bob Danzig

bob danzig grew up in foster homes. moved from teenage office boy at the albany, N.Y. Times Union to publisher (1200 employee-colleagues) in 19 years. he then became nationwide CEO of all Hearst newspapers for 20 years. a multi billion revenue company with 6,000 employee/ colleagues. Author of 8 books/ inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame/ University professor/ and now Dean of The Hearst Management Institute---the corporations Leadership enhancement program.

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Part I

Quantum Leap Wisdom

Quantum Leap Wisdom: Unbounded possibilities fueled by enlivening humanity in the work place.

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Interviewer: The focus of this interview is Breakthrough Innovation, where executives take their companies outside the traditions of the company, outside the performance levels, and in new directions. Sometimes they change the very nature of the enterprise, their leadership actions, and behaviors that support it.

Bob: I call that "Quantum Leap" thinking.

Interviewer: Let’s focus the conversation in the area of your experience at Hearst Newspapers. Take a moment to reflect on a time when you were out to produce a quantum leap accomplishment at Hearst.

Bob: This breakthrough innovation or quantum leap re-direction begins with the way you objectively assess the reality of your business. When I was publisher of a Hearst newspaper in upstate New York, we had losing newspapers all over the country. Big city after big city, we had highly unionized newspapers, mostly in the afternoon field, which were fading. They drifted along existing on whatever talent they had, and by benign neglect, fed off the profits of Hearst magazines and television stations. When I was asked to take over of Hearst Newspapers, my view was that it would be uninteresting to administer a group of continuing losers.

We had to become destiny architects of quantum leap thinking. We did not discard what we had, but rediscovered what we had. The number one thing was to find the very best talent, those who could be destiny architects. They might already be in your own organization. Step one is to identify, assess and engage the very best talent.

Interviewer: What is the second step?

Bob: The second step is to become strategic rather than just operational. There is a certain comfort in operating. There is a corridor of cushioning that comes with knowing how to operate a given business. When you become strategic, it implies you are willing to embrace that which is discomforting, that which is uncomfortable.

In redirecting the destiny of these very large newspapers around the country, it was essential to have our individual new talent teams sit down and develop strategic objectives, as contrasted with operational comforts. Strategic does not mean a guaranteed success. It means a game plan for how you are going to conduct yourself. The game plan can include the termination of a business, if it isn’t going to satisfy the minimal requirements you put in place.

Interviewer: What did you do next?

Bob: The next thing we did was to sit back and talk about how we grow this enterprise; how we grow these core businesses that were corporate welfare victims to breathe new life into them. We had not acquired a new newspaper property in fifty years. No one thought of Hearst when thinking of selling a newspaper property because we were never in the game. We developed a list of the fifty most attractive targets in the country for acquisition. We built a shadow silhouette of every one of those operations without ever going near them. We assessed their probable market position, probable revenues, and probable cost of acquisition. We had a complete library that represented a brand new destiny for our company, a brand new breakthrough thinking. Indeed, when the first of those properties became available, we went after it