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This is a world built on information and speed. Having a breakthrough advantage only lasts until the next company copies you and innovates.
This is true for technology, data, personnel, process, logistics or any of the myriad advantages that organizations believe sets them apart. They can all be copied—duplicated almost as fast as they’re designed and realized.
Rich Karlgaard, in his book, The Soft Edge, teaches the five pillars of success that can’t be copied. They’re necessary for any organization to be successful:
1. Trust
Jim Goodnight, quoted in The Soft Edge, says “Trust is probably the most important factor in a great place to work; your employees must be able to trust you.”
Karlgaard refers to Trust as the force multiplier of all things good.
Trust is key in the development of a company’s commitment to culture. It’s a promise shared with both internal and external relationships.
Internal trust is built between leadership and employees, employees with each other, and the leadership team trusting their peers.
Then, with a consistent internal cultural that reinforces trust, you’ll build external trust with customers, partners and investors.
Tom Mendoza, vice chairman at NetApp, reinforces this when he says, “Leadership is what you are, not what you say you are.”
2. Smarts
Maynard Webb, chairman of Yahoo’s board of directors, says, “What I’m looking for is talent. And talent isn’t just intellect. Talent is also what you did.”
Smarts and talent are about attitude—not just brainpower. It’s much more than perfect SAT scores or GPAs.
Karlgaard identifies that smart companies help employees overcome challenges and push through to success. They listen—really listen—to what their employees have to say.
One example is the Mayo Clinic, which employs nearly 32,000 licensed healthcare professionals. These are smart people. But The Mayo Clinic doesn’t just want smart employees, they want friendly ones.
Turning to expertise outside their industry, they partnered with Ritz-Carlton and Disney. Employees were trained on the fundamentals of hospitality and customer service.
Smarts is an attitude of always improving. Tara Vanderveer said it well when interviewed by Karlgaard: “Successful people are more tenacious in seeking out those opportunities that accelerate their learning.”
3. Teams
When people emotionally invest themselves in an organization, it’s something that’s nearly impossible to replicate.
In today’s global economy, this old idea becomes a tangible advantage to organizations that succeed at building great teams. Eric Edgecumbe, COO for Specialized Bicycle, said, “To me, it’s that selfless committing to the goal of the team.”
When it comes to teams, size matters. Even in large companies, teams tend to perform best when they’re at their leanest. Units of fewer than twelve people work best as the natural size of high-performance teams.
Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, calls it the “Two Pizza Rule,” specifying that a development team should be small enough for two pizzas to feed.
Leading a team, pushing them and being demanding of them is key. Tony Fadell, Founder of Nest Labs said it well: “The true soft skill in raising team performances is being able to simultaneously drive and reassure your team members.”
4. Taste
Of Karlgaard’s five pillars, Taste is probably the most unusual and difficult to identify. In Taste, the human factor is elemental, again making it hard to copy.
Vivek Wadhwa, VP of innovation and research at Singularity University said it well: “I don’t see technology as taking over the human side of designing new products. There are just too many decisions data can’t inform, too many choices data can’t guide.”
Karlgaard explains that Taste is a universal sensibility—one that appeals to the deepest part of ourselves. It’s the human side of a product.
Taste was the word Steve Jobs used to explain what was right with Apple and wrong with its competitors. For many organizations, this is a difficult idea to grasp. So often, data, technology or features drive the decision-making in product design. As Karlgaard points out, it isn’t the data or hardware, but it’s how a product makes us feel.
Going back to Specialized Bicycle for an example, they wanted to create something that would resonate with their audience and be authentic to their brand. That meant creating something more exciting and specialized, instead of something standard.
They created the Turbo, which is more like a Ducati motorcycle than an e-bike. So much of the design went into how their customers would feel owning one, not just the technical aspects of how it worked.
And this is the secret of Taste: Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes, and having true empathy for what moves them emotionally. For many organizations, this is nearly impossible.
Margit Wennmachers, co-founder of The Outcast Agency, clearly identifies the uniqueness of Taste: “When you are looking for taste, you can’t find it by doing focus groups. I attend a lot of focus groups, and customers can’t tell you what they need unless it already exists.”
5. Story
Of the five pillars, Story is the most unique to an organization.
A story belongs to you, and it can’t be taken from you. In some sense it is you.
As a clinical definition, Story is the narration, or telling, of a sequence of events. But that’s not what Karlgaard is speaking of when he talks about the power of story.
Stories help us make sense of our past and understand possible futures. Stories give meaning to the events and characters that make up the narrative. At its very essence, a story expresses how and why life changes.
The author Nancy Duarte understands the binding nature of Story when she says, “Stories are the things that can knit culture together.”
As human beings, stories are a part of our personal and professional lives. And just like an individual, an organization uses stories to build up a narrative that has meaning.
And because that narrative is unique to the organization, it’s 100% owned by the organization to be used as a tool of persuasion and influence—or squandered by those who fail to realize the power of their story.
The Bottom Line
Technology and competition are constantly raising the bar of high performance in our companies.
But as the bar goes up, it’s the ancient values of trust and smarts, teamwork and taste, and storytelling that become even more important.
Rich Karlgaard makes a strong case for why we can’t afford to ignore our company’s soft edge. The soft edge is what makes a great company great.
Rich Karlgaard, publisher of FORBES and author of The Soft Edge, has examined a variety of enduring companies and found that they have one thing in common: All of them live their values, which alongside great strategy and execution, allow them to fuel growth and weather hard times. He identifies Trust, Smarts, Teamwork, Taste, and Story as the five variables that make up this “soft edge.”
Want to suggest a sixth pillar? Weigh in with a comment below, and follow Richard Bliss (Google+) @RichardBliss (Twitter).
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