Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less Hardcover – February 4, 2014

Full disclosure. You should know that I’m a friend of Bob Sutton’s. You should also know that I’m a fan. I’m a fan because of the great work that he does, and Scaling Up Excellence is an example of his best work.That’s saying a lot. He’s done a couple of books with Jeffrey Pfeffer, including Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense and The Knowing-Doing Gap. He’s done books on his own, including the book that The New York Times won’t print the full title of and Good Boss, Bad Boss. All of those books are excellent. Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less, written with Huggy Rao, is the best one yet.Who Should Read This BookIf you’re a manager in a mid-sized to large company, this book should be required reading for you. It’s how to take the pockets of excellence that form in almost every organization and spread them across the landscape.If you’re a manager in a small organization or you’re interested in how organizations work, you’ll love this book, too. Scaling Up Excellence is so well-researched and has so many examples/stories that anyone who is interested in how human beings work in groups will find value here.In the preface to the book, Sutton and Rao lay out the subject.“We started calling it the Problem of More. Executives could always point to pockets in their organizations where people were doing a great job of uncovering and meeting customer needs. There was always some excellence— there just wasn’t enough of it. What drove them crazy, kept them up at night, and devoured their workdays was the difficulty of spreading that excellence to more people and more places.”What’s in The BookThe preface lays out the basic challenge of the book, after which there are eight chapters divided into three sections. The first section is “Setting the Stage.”Chapter one is about what the authors call the most important lesson they learned: “Scaling ought to be treated as a ground war, not just an air war.”The ground war analogy is good, because it implies that you must get down in the dirt and do it. You can’t do it from afar using technology. The ground war analogy is also good for a reason that the authors don’t mention. When you’re in a ground war, there are two things you don’t know: how or when it will end.The first chapter also includes the authors’ seven scaling mantras.1. Spread a mindset, not just a footprint.2. Engage all the senses.3. Link short-term realities to long-term dreams.4. Accelerate accountability.5. Fear the clusterfug. (Yes, you read that right)6. Scaling requires both addition and subtraction.7. Slow down to scale faster – and better – down the road.Chapter two looks at the scaling choices and tradeoffs. The primary distinction the authors make here is between “Catholic” and “Buddhist” strategies. The Catholic model seeks to create organizations that conform to some original model. The Buddhist approach encourages local experimentation and variation.Section two has the next five chapters, which involve key scaling principles. Here’s a list of the chapters.Chapter three: Hot Causes, Cool SolutionsChapter four: Cut Cognitive Load But Deal with Necessary ComplexityChapter five: The People Who Propel ScalingChapter six: Connect People and Cascade Excellence Using Social Bonds to Spread the Right MindsetChapter seven: Bad Is Stronger Than GoodThe third section, “Parting Points,” has only one chapter about how to put all this to work. This chapter brings together things discussed throughout the book like team makeup and size, and implementation strategies. It seemed to me that there are two important things to keep in mind. First, this is a long-term process. It won’t be quick and it won’t be easy. Second, there will be times when it seems like nothing is going to work, but just like in a ground war, you strap on your gear and you keep going.Bottom LineI think Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less is one of the best business books I’ve ever read. Period. I read it originally a couple of years ago, but I keep going back to it to dip into the research and the insights and mine the stories for more knowledge. My bottom line is simple: if you read business books, read this one.

I really enjoyed this book because our company is in the process of scaling. I would have given it 5 starts except it was missing one item on how to change the company culture during the scaling process. Our biggest problem is that, when the company was smaller, everybody knew to go to either the CEO, VP of Engineering or VP of Sales when they have a question. As a smaller company we were able to do that. Now that we are bigger and each senior person supervises departments with many people, the old timers still go to the CEO or VP to ask questions. WIth a larger number of people, this process is really bogging down the management's time. The new employees are learning to copy the old employees and the process isn't stopping. The book doesn't offer any direct information on how to change this process. I wished it did because one of the biggest issues holding us back from being able to grow bigger is this particular one.

Sutton and Rao offer a comprehensive guide to management in a package of enticing stories, subtly supported by references to high-end research. Their personal history in the Silicon Valley and their global access to interesting organizations provides the backdrop.MAIN THEME & WHO SHOULD READThe main theme is that, while many good practices exist in organizations, they either get lost or there are difficulties when attempts are made to spread them (scale them) across the organization. The breadth of this theme means that this book will provide value to anyone who would like to see organizations improve. The benefits are not limited by industry, functional area, or organizational size.KEY IDEAS: THE SEVEN MANTRASSutton and Rao are far more direct than most academics; it often takes a lot to get a professor away from an “it depends” answer. In this instance they have enough background to be confident with the following:We’ve identified reliable signs that scaling is going well or badly, and we’ve distilled these signals into seven mantras. If you are embarking on a scaling effort [I’ll add if you are doing anything to make your organization better], memorize them, teach them to others, and invent ways to keep them firmly in focus -- especially when the going gets rough.Spread a mindset, not just a footprint. This first one is their, and your, protection against being labeled a fad.Engage all the senses. From my perspective, this is where you consider how to weave together human, technical, and organizational practices such that they work together, not against your goals. It’s also where I realize that my presentation of these ideas is much less colorful, and perhaps less likely to scale.Link short-term realities to long-term dreams. Organizations that can do this have mastered ambidexterity -- the ability to both get work done now, and not let that get in the way of great things in the future. (In my mind, this is a precursor to solving the The Innovator's Dilemma.)Accelerate accountability. This one sings to me as a focus on transparency. I’ve asked in the past, “What evidence, tools, and techniques do people in mainstream organizations think they need to move in this direction?” The examples provided here may move us closer to my ideal.Fear the clusterfug. Yes, they are using a euphemism, but it gets across that we can't allow even mundane bad things to get worse. Speak up. For those wanting to use their business research background: Don’t escalate commitments to bad situations. Think about the Denver baggage-handling fiasco and fear a similar outcome on your watch.Scaling requires both addition and subtraction. This ties directly to the idea of managing for now and for the future. Sometimes activities that have worked to create excellence stop working as you scale. As Sutton and Rao note, having an all-hands meeting every week makes great sense for a small organization, but you are likely to have to shift the form of this activity as you grow. Information flow and commitment are still important, but you need to be willing to find new ways that fit your growth.Slow down to scale faster--and better-- down the road. I completely agree. I am wondering why, in my writing, I start with this one (in the form of “Stop-Look-Listen”), and yet they end with it. Perhaps thinking of this as a list is the problem. It’s not a list, it’s a cycle or a weaving, which also goes along with their borrowing Michael Dearing’s image of whether this is Buddhism versus Catholicism (see Chapter 2).APPLY THESE IDEASMy goal with this review is to get you to read the book. You will benefit. Your organization will benefit. The next time I teach a general graduate management class, Scaling Up Excellence will be a required reading.I’m still trying to decide how much experience in organizations you need to have to gain value from their ideas -- and I’d love your opinion. Is this a book to help undergraduates trying to understand the complexities of organizations? If you are a mentor, is this a book you would suggest to a person in their first full-time job? Without a doubt it’s a book I’d give to someone taking on a new leadership role at any level.Disclosure: My review copy was provided by the publisher. I’ve also purchased a copy to gift to a colleague.

Rao and Sutton are a great case of fooled by randomness, consultants that went knee deep into data just to emerge with spurious correlations, superficial insights, and rules that are in no way broadly applicable for startups, scaleups or enterprises.

The book is one of the best ones when it comes to covering the subject.Only one big complaint- why a pirated copy is delivered by Amazon? Why is there no control on piracy?

This fits in with my way of thinking. As we scale we must not create the complexity that will eventually destroy us and our focus. This is a well written book that brings fresh insight into a much needed topic of conversation.

It was well laid out.Bought book after interesting interview with authors done by Daniel Pink on Office Hours.8 chapters in Three Main Sections (Setting the Stage, Scaling Principles, Parting Points).Chapter titles include:1. "Its a ground war, not just an air war"2. Buddhism versus Catholicism: choosing a path.3. Hot Causes, cool solutions: Stoking the scaling engines.4. Cut Cognitive Load: But deal with Necessary complexity5. The People Who Propel Scaling: Build Organizations Where "I own the place, and the place owns me."6. connect People and Cascade Excellence: using Social Bonds to spread the right mindset.7. Bad is Stronger than Good: Clearing the Way for Excellence8. Did this, Not That: Imagine You've Already Succeeded (or Failed)The chapter titles are self-explanatory, but potential readers should know they are chock full of real life, great examples. Many of the examples and studies cited will be familiar to readers who are well read in organizational behaviour topics, but the authors integrate the more well known studies into their viewpoint to strong effect.I thoroughly enjoyed the Kindle version, and purchased a Hard copy for my company CEO. My belief is that the human (as opposed to purely business/strategic) approach will make organizations who follow any (or all) of the suggestions outlined in the book more successful at their scaling up attempts.5

Das Buch liest sich sehr unterhaltsam und deckt viele relevante Aspekte ab, wenn man eine eigene Firma/Abteilung/Verein vergrößern will. Dabei liegt der Fokus definitiv auf der menschlichen/psychologischen Komponente, nicht auf der finanziellen."Scaling Up Excellence" habe ich mir begleitend zum gleichnamigen Online-Kurs der beiden Autoren gekauft, welchen ich auch empfehlen kann.Das Buch bekommt von mir "nur" gute 4 Sterne, da es manche Aspekte noch tiefer und wissenschaftlicher behandeln könnte. Für meinen Geschmack hätten die Autoren dafür auf ein paar Anekdoten und Geschichten aus der Praxis verzichten können. Geschichten sind zwar wichtig zum Verständnis und zur Erinnerung, aber die nehmen über die Hälfte des Buches ein - hätte ich als Autor aber vermutlich genauso gemacht nach so viel Erfahrung aus mehr als 7 Jahren Forschung über viele kleine und große bekannte Firmen.