Turning Ideas Into Impact: Insights from 16 Silicon Valley Consultants
About this book
Silicon Valley is recognized globally as a hotbed of innovation, leadership, and entrepreneurship. It's the birthplace of world-famous companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook and home to a few legends such as NASA at the Ames Research Center. Our 16 authors have created a book 16 high-impact chapters that can give you and your business the Silicon Valley advantage and success.Why is Silicon Valley such an entrepreneurial place? A major contributor to the phenomenon is our diversity—half of us don't speak English at home. But our diversity goes far beyond ethnicity. A wide variety of perspectives, leadership & thinking styles, management, and work approaches also contribute to the success & growth mindset of Silicon Valley, creating breakthroughs that have disrupted international business models (Airbnb and Uber) and even shifted our perception of the future of meat (the "Impossible Burger"). This book is a practical guide for those who want to invest in their personal growth & learn how to better manage their business.We're also one of the most educated regions in the United States—nearly half of us graduated from college, and about a fifth have earned graduate degrees. Businesses here are filled with smart, well-educated, successful men & women. But like all organizations made up of people, we are subject to the same pitfalls that threaten businesses everywhere in the world.Many businesses that were successful 100 years ago no longer exist. Trapped by their own success, they gradually learned to reduce risk and avoid failure at all costs and consequently squelched or killed their personal development, innovation, and creativity. This made them vulnerable to new situations, competition from new or more aggressive businesses with less to lose & difficult conversations. Are your greatest contributions and successes behind you or ahead of you? Even brilliant people can underperform at work—or fail—for entirely predictable (and avoidable!) reasons. This book showcases the crucial conversations that effective people and effective leadership have in order to achieve growth success.Similar hazards face successful executives, professionals, and leaders of every kind. One danger of success is the increased difficulty of recognizing and adjusting to shifts in the business work environment. No one knows this better than the former leaders of Nokia and Kodak, two once-great international businesses that ignored crucial conversations & the timeless wisdom that a peak always conceals a treacherous valley.It can be hard to see new possibilities that will allow future success, especially when it requires letting go of previously effective strategies that served you well & having difficult conversations. This is where the outside perspective of a consultant can be particularly useful. Our 16 authors offer you a competitive advantage in the business world and an alternative to that treacherous valley.