John R. Brandt - Nincompoopery: Why Your Customers Hate You--and How to Fix It

Contents

Praise for Nincompoopery

Nincompoopery caught me completely off guard. It was penned by the funniest business writer I know and carries a hilarious title, but the book quickly transitions that humor-rich packaging into cutting, serious insight into the systemic dysfunction rooted in modern business. In doing so, Nincompoopery has completely changed the way I look at leadership, strategy, and the frustrations I encounter working in and covering the business world. Once these insights take hold in executive orbits, I am confident there will be far fewer nincompoops and far less nincompoopery standing in the way of growth and change.

Travis Hessman, Editor-in-Chief and Senior Content Director, IndustryWeek

Ive known John Brandt for twenty-five years, so it doesnt surprise me that hes written a funny book with a serious purpose. John and I share core beliefs about leadershipthat it can be taught, that its about serving others and not yourself, and that inspiration is more important (and more effective) than motivation. Nincompoopery covers all that and more, in elegant prose supported by practical examples and case studies about how to elevate employee morale, inspiration, and performance at companies large and small. Nincompoopery will help you become a wiser, humbler, and more confident leader.

Dr. Lance Secretan, bestselling author of The Bellwether Effect: Stop Following. Start Inspiring! and Reclaiming Higher Ground: Creating Organizations That Inspire the Soul

There are two primary strategies for effecting growth in market share: (1) create a new-to-the-world product (and everyone knows how difficult that is!), or (2) respond to a customer when your competitor cant. As a longtime member of the John Brandt fan club, I was delighted to hear that he was writing this book with the catchy title. His approach to articulating and defining value is uniqueand exactly what leaders need to hear. Nincompoopery is a must read to understand where you are today and, more importantly, where you want to be tomorrow.

Phil McIntyre, Managing Director, Performance Solutions by Milliken

Nincompoopery should be required reading for everyone running a business, from the CEO of a major corporation to the sole proprietor on Main Street. John Brandts witty treatise on corporate ineptitudeand how to fix itoffers incisive analysis of antiquated, ill-conceived business practices that torture customers and kill the bottom line. Nincompoopery is destined to become the next bestseller on corporate leadership and strategy in the twenty-first century.

David Shall, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, Tornante TV

In 1969, Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull identified the Peter Principle, recognizing how capable people are often transformed into nincompoops via promotion beyond their current capabilities. Fifty years later, John Brandt details the system behind this wholesale creation of nincompoopsNincompoopery. In this groundbreaking book, John Brandt explores nincompooperys root causeinflexible, outdated corporate cultures based on human resources BSand explains how to fix a broken company by focusing on the pillars of cultural competence: innovation, talent, and process. Nothing could be more timely. A researcher at a prominent automotive company once said that culture was the bucket where we throw in everything that is too hard to fix. That company went bankrupt. Read this book so it doesnt happen to you.

Edward (Ned) Hill, Professor of Economic Development at The Ohio State Universitys John Glenn College of Public Affairs and the Ohio Manufacturing Institute

I previously believed that if a business book is humorous, its insights will be thin. Or, if truly insightful, its likely to be as comical as a balance sheet. But Ive never read a business book so funny and informative in equal measure as Nincompoopery. John Brandts first book is a rarity: youre not supposed to have this much fun while going this deep into business best practices.

Jeff Hedrich, President, The Prodigal Company, and innovator of the Brand MRI Process

Despite its lighthearted title, Nincompoopery tackles one of the most crippling problems facing business: organizational processes and individual activities that fail to deliver (or worse, subvert!) value to the organizations customers. With equal parts humor and authority, Brandt holds up a mirror to the obviously knuckleheaded things were all guilty of, and offers a prescription for analysis, planning, and continuous improvement that will realign people and processes with twenty-first-century customer expectations.

Keith Larson, Group Publisher and Vice President of Content, Smart Industry

2019 by John R. Brandt

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by HarperCollins Leadership, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Any internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by HarperCollins Leadership, nor does HarperCollins Leadership vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

ISBN 9781400213689 (HC)

ISBN 9781400214587 (Ebook)

Epub Edition May 2019 9781400213689

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967935

Printed in the United States of America

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For Emma and Aidan

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Please note that endnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

To manage in turbulent times, therefore, means to face up to the new realities. It means starting out with the question: What is the world really like? rather than with assertions and assumptions that made sense only a few years ago.

PETER F. DRUCKER, MANAGING IN TURBULENT TIMES

1. The people running that company are a bunch of nincompoops!

2. Quit acting like a nincompoop, because I know you are smarter than that.

EXAMPLES OF NINCOMPOOP IN A SENTENCE, FROM MERRIAM-WEBSTER ONLINE

This book can be read in two ways:

1. If you want to understand why Nincompoopery is so prevalent today, start with the afterword, which explains the macro trends behind our current leadership predicament. This section offers background for the concepts in if youd like to proceed this way.

2. If, however, your business is stuck right now in the throes of Nincompoopery, then skip the afterword (for now). Why? Because if your company or career is metaphorically burning down, you dont need to know how the fire started, or why certain materials are so flammable: you just need to put out the fire. Quickly turn to , and get to work!

At almost every company we encounter (including, sometimes, our own), it can seem that we are surrounded by nincompoops. Things that should be easy are instead hard because, we believe, some nincompoop has forgotten to do his or her job, or didnt realize that there might be a better way to do the job, or couldnt care enough to even bother