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What Does it Take to Get Ahead Now—And StayThere?

High performance has always required shrewd strategy and superbexecution. These factors remain critical, especially giventoday’s unprecedented business climate. But RichKarlgaard—Forbes publisher, entrepreneur, investor, and boarddirector—takes a surprising turn and argues that there is nowa third element that’s required for competitive advantage. Itfosters innovation, it accelerates strategy and execution, and itcannot be copied or bought. It is found in a perhaps surprisingplace—your company’s values.

Karlgaard examined a variety of enduring companies and foundthat they have one thing in common; all have leveraged theirdeepest values alongside strategy and execution, allowing them tofuel growth as well as weather hard times. Karlgaard shares thesestories and identifies the five key variables that make up everyorganization’s “soft edge”:

• Trust: Northwestern Mutual has built a $25 milliondollar revenue juggernaut on trust, the foundation of lastingsuccess. Learn how to create an environment that engenders trustand propels high performance.
• Smarts: In most technical fields your formal educationquickly becomes out of date. How do you keep up? Learn how the MayoClinic, Stanford University women’s basketball team, andothers stay on top by relentlessly pursuing an advantage throughsmarts.
• Teamwork: Since collaboration and innovation are a mustin the global economy, effective teamwork is vital. Learn howglobal giant FedEx stays focused and how nimble Nest Labs relies onlean teams with cognitive diversity.
• Taste: Clever product design and integration are proxiesfor intelligence because they make customers feel smart. But tastegoes further into deep emotional engagement. Specialized Bicyclescalls it “the elusive spot between data truth and humantruth.” How can you consistently make products or servicesthat trigger these emotional touch points?
• Story: Companies that achieve lasting success have anenduring and emotionally appealing story. What’s yourcompany’s story? How do you tell it your way? Gain theability to create a powerful narrative in a world where outsidersoften exercise the louder voice.

Amazon.com Review

Rich Karlgaard

Rich Karlgaard Q&A for The Soft Edge

The Soft Edge seems to tie into many of the trending themes in business these days (ie the power of culture, values, emotional intelligence. ) Is it a choice for business leaders, or a requirement?

It’s always a choice. I’ve seen companies succeed in the short term with a great strategy and flawless execution. If you want to build a company to flip, perhaps you can ignore the soft edge. But companies that last, that survive disruptions, and that fight off economic headwinds, go deeper than just strategy and execution. They find their endurance in soft edge values – trust, smarts, teams, taste, stories. Their employees are committed and their customers are loyal.

As a publisher of one of the most respected business magazines what is something you feel most people don’t understand about being successful?

The founder of Forbes, B. C. Forbes, wrote this in the very first issue in 1917. “Business was originated to produce happiness, not pile up riches. ” This was a warning! Not all success takes you where you want to go. The companies I profiled in The Soft Edge were happy places and super successful. The leadership was highly regarded by employees precisely because the leaders had built and nourished cultures that brought out the best in people. This is what creates lasting success.

Of all the companies or people you talked to – who stood out to you the most?

Two companies really surprised me. One was Northwestern Mutual, the $25 billion insurance giant. The last thing I could ever do is wake up each morning, get on the phone, and sell insurance. I just couldn’t do it. But Northwestern Mutual’s reps do it with a sense of joy and purpose. The other company is Specialized Bicycles. The chief designer told me his goal, in building some of the world’s best racing bikes, was to find “the sweet spot between data truth and human truth.” That’s a great line and a noble aspiration. It’s what every company should seek.

Can you hire to improve your Soft Edge? Alternatively, are their ways businesses are sabotaging themselves unknowingly?

When it comes to hiring, two major findings in The Soft Edge are the importance of grit and of cognitive diversity. On grit, you want to hire people that have surmounted big challenges in their lives. Northwestern Mutual likes to hire military veterans. Specialized likes designers who have built things with their hands. They like salespeople who’ve suffered a 100-mile ride in sleet. On cognitive diversity, Nest Labs puts geeks and artists in same room when products are being designed. SAS Institute likes data analysts with backgrounds in music and art.

Out of the five things that make up The Soft Edge – which is the most important?

Trust is the foundational soft edge. It has two components: External trust is whether your customers, suppliers, investors and shareholders trust you. Internal trust is whether your employees trust you. If you fail to engender trust in either area, your company will have problems that will not fix themselves. In a knowledge economy, trust is huge. No company can forcibly pull ideas out of employees heads, and employees will not give their best ideas to leaders or colleagues they don’t trust.

Tell me something that you didn’t put in the book and you wish you had.

I wish I had linked soft edge excellence to long-term investment strategy. I ran out of time to do the research. But anecdotally, it is there. Warren Buffett is famous for buying shares in great companies when their stock prices are low. We all understand a low price. But what, in Buffett’s mind, is a great company? It turns out that most of Buffett’s investments are in companies that display soft edge excellence in addition to clever strategy and flawless execution.

Review

“As we shift from the rigid ‘ladder world’ of scale efficiencies to the nimble ‘lattice world’ of scale agility, mastering the soft edge becomes a hard reality. Karlgaard sharpens our grasp of this elusive though vital topic and offers pragmatic, accessible solutions.”
—Cathy Benko, vice chairman and managing principal, Deloitte LLP, and bestselling author of Mass Career Customization

“As a teacher and student of leadership, I’ve long believed the relevance and power of ‘soft side’ economics. (Trust, for example, is a measurable economic driver that makes organizations more profitable and people more promotable.) With The Soft Edge, Karlgaard joins the conversation and makes the bold statement that the soft side is now the only remaining competitive edge in our new economy. Leaders, I recommend that you take full advantage of Karlgaard’s advice— so you can start to reap the dividends.”
—Stephen M. R. Covey, New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust and Smart Trust

“At a time when the stakes couldn’t be higher, many leaders are searching for new ways of competing—with resilience as a top priority. Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard, a longtime voice for ‘hard edge’ business practices, argues that ‘soft edge’ advantages have enduring power in our knowledge economy. Anyone with a stake in tomorrow’s bottom-line outcomes should take a close look at Karlgaard’s cutting-edge book.”
—Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

“The Soft Edge is an eye-opener: Rich Karlgaard makes the utterly convincing argument that the soft side of business makes all the difference to a company’s ability to thrive in the long run. Leaders, it’s time to stop polishing your strategy and fine-tuning your execution. Instead, read this critical book—then start investing in the very soul of your company.”
—John Gerzema, bestselling author, including The Brand Bubble and The Athena Doctrine

“Leaders have never had so many opportunities—and pressures. Get to the heart of it with Rich Karlgaard, who has distilled his significant experience into a single argument that works for every organization in today’s times: if you want innovation and lasting success, you must develop your ‘soft edge.’ Exactly. The soft edge is truly as vital now as strategy and execution. So whether you’re a tireless chief, a rising star, or a ‘hard-edged’ business veteran, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of Karlgaard’s compelling new book. Why? Because The Soft Edge will help you find the future—and the future is now.”
—Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers 50 Top Ten Global Business Thinker and top-ranked executive coach

“Management and leadership thinking has reached a crisis point. The great irony of our age is this: the faster technology progresses, the more crucial it is to organize around timeless human truths. Rich Karlgaard shows the way in his compelling new book, The Soft Edge.”
—Gary Hamel, director of the Management Lab and author of** What Matters Now**

“At a time when strategy and execution can be bought, your company’s core values are the very accelerators you need for differentiation and innovation. Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard knows which organizations are now winning the endurance race, and why. He shines a light on an often-overlooked driver: values. The Soft Edge is for forward-thinking leaders dedicated to rising above the competition.”
—Sally Hogshead, author of How the World Sees You: Discovering Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination and creator of HowToFascinate.com

“The best companies enchant us with purpose, affection, empathy, coolness, and grit. Rich Karlgaard’s book shows you how to achieve this lofty goal.”
—Guy Kawasaki, author of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur and former chief evangelist of Apple

“Rich Karlgaard puts the entire subject of culture and corporate character into a totally new context—a powerful framework proven with example after example. A great read for any business leader.”
—John Kennedy, senior vice president of marketing, IBM Global Business Services

“For decades I have witnessed the power of teams, trust, and smarts in the most disruptive startups in Silicon Valley. The Soft Edge makes a powerful argument for why great businesses and products repeatedly derive from the creative friction, small teams, and minimally invasive management which the best leaders employ to achieve breakout success. I want to thank Rich Karlgaard for a wonderfully readable and actionable exploration of these too often overlooked skills.”
—Randy Komisar, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield, and Byers lecturer, Stanford Business School

“The Soft Edge is crystal clear, deeply substantial, and alarmingly concrete. It illumines what an organization might be—what it must be if it is to impact the world and elevate the human spirit (and run a profit). To read it is an exercise in conviction.”
—John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and author of Who Is This Man?

“I love this book. From the first page to the last it’s a real pleasure to read, and without a doubt the most enjoyable business book in a very, very long time. It’s smart, intelligent, and fun. That’s because Rich Karlgaard understands the craft of writing and the art of business. He treats us to great stories and in-depth case studies that often read like edge-of-your-seat thrillers. And don’t let the title fool you. Sure, it’s about things like trust and teams and taste and stories, but it’s rich in tangible, hard evidence that proves the power of these qualities. The Soft Edge is on my short list of best business books of the year. I think it’ll end up on yours, too.”
—Jim Kouzes, coauthor of The Leadership Challenge and Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University

“The workplace is facing unprecedented global challenges. Tomorrow’s leaders must inspire their teams across a host of new boundaries—geographic, generational, economic, cultural, and technological—to name a few. The greatest will be those who can leverage their soft skills to motivate. In the world of big data, human skills will be the big differentiator! Learn more about twenty-firstcentury leadership in The Soft Edge—a wonderful, easy-to-read, and insightful corpus by longtime business innovator Rich Karlgaard. It’s hard to find a more experienced, intelligent guide to help you and your company make the necessary leaps.”
—Ross Smith, director of test, Skype Division, Microsoft

“I find the style to be completely refreshing and unique. It feels like Rich Karlgaard is actually having a conversation with his readers. The analogies are astute and crisp. The Soft Edge is a marvelous work! Definitely destined for ‘classic’ status—something to reread and savor.”
— Karen Tucker, CEO, Silicon Valley Churchill Club

“Entertaining, magnificent, enlightening, and so relevant to the future.”
—Vivek Wadhwa, vice president of research and innovation at Singularity University; fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Corporate Governance; research director at Duke University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization

“There has never been a more challenging (but potentially rewarding) time to lead. As is often the case, Rich Karlgaard once again successfully ‘zigs’ with his clever premise of The Soft Edge. Flush with innovative ideas collected from his unique vantage point, he offers countless refreshing tips for tomorrow’s leaders. Net—a terrific blueprint for a wide range of executives who are serious about leading teams to victory in the new frontier. A must-read!”
—Greg Welch, senior partner, Spencer Stuart, marketing and board recruiting practice