Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman is a book for our coronavirus moment. Chapter 12: Patterns, Systems, and Messes addresses the 1918 flu pandemic. Does Focus have your attention now? Goleman provides many insights we need to understand today. He delivers direct lessons for our new coronavirus world.
Maybe what readers should enjoy is a quick test on your reading memory. What? A memory test in a book? Ah…Yes. This approach brings into sharp ‘focus’ how we read.
Focus addresses how business needs to pay more attention to the market. The refrigerator business does not change. The mobile handset market dramatically changed.
Goleman addresses the sharp rise and sudden fall of Blackberry. A smartphone market lesson would not be complete without a story of Steve Jobs and the iPhone.
And to some extent what Goleman may have missed was the demise of Blackberry was their simple lack of ‘focus’ on 4G networks. Yes, Blackberry actually stayed with 3G, did not embrace 4G just as mobile began BYOD.
Blackberry’s leadership (engineering backgrounds) led them to success very early in the mobile device marketplace. They rested on their laurels. The iPhone killed their company. Smartphones do not equal, as Goleman suggests a refrigerator marketplace. He points to many lessons about corporate shooting stars.
