Hamilton Porter Quotes

The List: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt Why: Especially because it will show you how to identify bad strategy The Five Dysnfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni Why: Learn most recognised tendencies of dysfunctional teams (in a storified format) Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks Why: Why storytelling matters in everything we do and how to tell a solid story Never Split the Difference by Christopher Voss Why: Learn the fundamentals of having a competitive edge in any discussion Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta Why: The absolute fundamentals of organisational success - big or small Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore Why: If you are curious about what it takes to continue growing and scaling a technology company throughout its lifecycle 7 Powers by Hamilton Helmer Why: You can read it once every year. You can pick any failed venture/product and do a post-mortem of why it failed through the lens of this book (learning the value of building and sustaining moats) Build by Tony Fadell Why: This book can be a great friend as you navigate every fork/decision in your career Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann Why: You can pick your pet mental models from this book and apply in any situation in your life; the pet mental models can keep evolving as you evolve

This disconnect might tempt you to reject Statics as a means of understanding Dynamics, but that would be folly. In a prescient article of two decades ago, Professor Porter saw past this error to the underlying premise that inspired my approach: A body of theory which links firm characteristics to market outcomes must provide the foundation for any fully dynamic theory of strategy. Otherwise dynamic processes that result in superior performance cannot be discriminated from those that create market positions or company skills that are worthless.87 In other words, to assess which journeys are worth taking, you must first understand which destinations are desirable. Fortunately the 7 Powers does exactly that: it maps the only seven worthwhile destinations. Accordingly, we can look back to my