‘Think like Zuck’ - a book review

‘Think like Zuck’ by Ekaterina Walter, published by McGraw Hill

I came across this new book, hot off the press, while in the USA recently. It was selling so quickly that the book store had to take the last copy out of the window for me. The book follows the trend first started in the 1980s when Tom Peters and Bob Waterman had the bright idea that the best way to learn about management is to follow the actions of managers in successful companies. Their book ‘In Search of Excellence’ sold a million copies and many authors have followed the same pattern since, as typified by the several authors who have tried to capture in print the magic of Apple’s Steve Jobs.

This book is a similar attempt, but directed at Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, whose story was captured in the film Social Network and who has become an icon of the emerging world of social media. The timing of the release of the book is perhaps unfortunate as we find that ‘Zuck’ - as the author calls him throughout - has recently had to apologise to those who bought shares when first offered to the public a year ago. Their value has gone down by a third and there are well publicised concerns about decline in market share.

But on the positive side, the guy has created a company which is worth 60 billion dollars so it would be churlish to suggest that we cannot learn from what he has created. We don’t have to like him – and if you believe the film there is not much to like – but we can still take lessons from his experiences. This is certainly the contention of the author though the sycophantic tone of the introduction does make one wonder whether the analysis has been sufficiently objective. The description of the amazing growth of Facebook in the first chapter is quite selective, with nothing about the disputes with the Winklevoss twins and the forcing out of his fellow founder Eduardo Saverin, stories that made such good drama in the film.

It becomes obvious early on that the author has not had any direct cooperation from Zuckerberg and his company but has instead tried, from afar, to conceptualise the essential ingredients of such dramatic success. The implied assumption is that there are lessons to learn that can be applied elsewhere by readers who follow the same principles, just as we should have done when we read books about Apple and Google. The alternative view – which is perhaps too negative – is that maybe these guys just had uniquely brilliant ideas at the right time and/or were just luckier than you and me!

Whatever reservations we may have about this type of book, it is worth examining what the author has come up with as Zuck's secrets of success. These are classified into five key elements, each of which provides the basis of one chapter. However, I began to have even more concerns about the book’s conceptual rigour when I saw that these five elements all begin with a 'P', just like the five principles of marketing. These are different ‘P’s which are shown below:
- Passion
- Purpose
- People
- Product
- Partnerships


On the positive side, each chapter does make some good points about successful management of a growing business but I never felt that these points are unique to Facebook; successful executives in almost any business would emphasise the importance of being passionate about the business, of having a purpose that makes a difference to the world, the need to hire great people and to ease out those who are not integrating with the culture.

These are the sort of messages that are delivered and which it is difficult to argue with. In some cases the book veers too much into clichés and statements of the blindingly obvious; 'Passion + Action = Results' was one unfortunate example; 'successful leaders are purpose driven' another. There were a few references to other major companies – with Apple getting most mentions – but the only other company discussed in detail is one called Zappos, apparently an example of good people management and a winning culture. I did like the framework they use to describe their culture but then found out that the company – an on-line shoe retailer which I had not heard of before – was sold to Amazon in 2009. I would have preferred to hear more about Amazon and how it integrates such corporate cultures with its own.

The chapter on Partnerships does contain some interesting points and focusses particularly on Zuckerberg's partnership with Sheryl Sandberg, his Chief Operating Officer. The author’s model of the need for 'Visionaries to combine with Builders' is an interesting one and follows much the same arguments that were used by Google's founders when they brought in Eric Schmidt to run the business at a crucial point in their growth cycle. But as I read about Zuckerberg's capacity for partnerships, my mind went back to the film and the treatment of his school-friend Saverin, the break-up of his relationship with Sean Parker. I know it was only a film but other books on Facebook have told the same stories; the author loses credibility by being too selective and not showing both sides of Zuckerberg’s management style.

But despite all these reservations it is an interesting read, with some good learning for those with limited experience of management thinking. But don’t think that the content – in particular the five P's – were necessarily the key drivers of Facebook's extraordinary success. They are just good management principles that we should all try to apply. But we might also need a brilliant idea at the right time – and an awful lot of luck – to create a $60 Billion company!

Buy the book

Making your audience care

'Make me care’ by Martin Sykes, Training Journal, June 2013 

I chose this article to review for two reasons. Firstly the author is from Microsoft and you get so few articles written by people from top companies; secondly, the topic is around the skills of presentation, which often get overlooked with the modern emphasis on interaction and group activities. Certainly our experience of working with top companies is that many of their managers need to improve their presentation skills; in many cases their potentially excellent messages are lost in an excess of data, thrown together on Powerpoint without too much thought. Senior finance people are the worst culprits but they are not alone.

So what is the Microsoft message? The interesting title provides a clue; the author says that more important than preparing technically perfect content or jazzy slides, is thinking about the needs of your audience, caring about what and how they learn. These may be obvious points to the experienced trainer but they are well made here; even those of us who are experienced can fall into the trap of meeting our own needs.

One of the key messages of the article is the importance of relevance and the need to be able to say, right up front, why this learning is important and what it can do for those who are being asked to listen. Again this may seem obvious but it is easy to forget and the discipline of answering that question before each presentation is a good one. Our experience at MTP is that this question is even more effective at the development stage, to ask the programme sponsor what participants will gain from the experience; the WIIFM question – what’s in it for me? The author uses another phrase to make the same point – Cui Bono or ‘for whose benefit?’

The author then moves on to a related point about the need to tailor the material and the messages to each different audience, rather than assuming that you can get away with generic content each time. Again this is a message very close to our hearts at MTP because our whole business is founded upon the need to tailor learning to company culture and practices. In a broader context it is the reason why so many generic, public courses run by Business Schools and Consultancies have ceased to exist.

The author’s further argument is that a key part of tailoring material is knowing what to leave out. So often the presenter - particularly the technical person who loves his subject - wants to show everything, often assuming that others have the same aptitude and affection for the subject. Finance Managers presenting columns of figures are a good example of this problem. The key skill is being able to select material and to do this according to the relevance and learning capacity of the audience.

The article’s other key message is the importance of telling relevant stories as a way of engaging the audience. He encourages presenters to tell stories that are personal to them, as this will engage the emotions more than one about somebody else. However the principle of relevance should ensure that the personal story is not about self-aggrandisement and is restricted to the required learning, with no unnecessary detail. The suggestion is that each story should contain three elements, why, what and how, with the how being the confirmation of relevance and likely action. (This reference to stories reminds me of an occasion in the early days of MTP when I heard a relatively new tutor telling a ‘personal’ story of what had happened to me many years before. I asked him afterwards where he got the story from and he said it was from another MTP tutor who had obviously sat in on one of my sessions!)

Another framework for presentations is suggested by the author and that is CAST. CAST is again no more than good training practice but it allows the author to reinforce the main principles:
• Content that the participants needs to understand
• Audience; relate to their learning style and capacity
• Story with the right structure
• Techniques of learning that are appropriate

The last bullet point adds another valid message. Powerpoint is not always the best medium for learning; sometimes it can be a whiteboard, sometimes a hand out, sometimes nothing at all. I would also have added two other related points; firstly that sometimes the presentation is not the best way of getting the message over, group work or a Q&A session may often be more effective; and secondly, the best results may come from a mix of learning media.

This article may not add much for the experienced and successful presenter and would probably be wasted on those who have been involved in training for some time; one would hope and expect that they have found out these principles for themselves. But for the inexperienced presenter who is failing to meet the needs of audiences, the article could be very valuable. My only criticism would be a failure to emphasise the importance, and the skills, of achieving interaction and generating discussion, but perhaps that would require another article.

Read the article here