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Outsmart!

Outsmart!: How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t >> By Jim Champy

>> FT Press ©2008, 188 pages, $22.99

About the book>>

“Outsmart! How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t” takes a look at companies that have experienced super-high growth for at least three years and identifies the practical strategies that continue to work for them.

The author>> Jim Champy has worked for more than 30 years as a consultant and author. His two best-sellers, “Reengineering the Corporation” and “Reengineering Management,” have helped earn him the reputation of being a leading management and business thinker. From an early business venture with his fellow MIT friends to his current job as chairman of consulting for Perot Systems, Champy has studied business extensively, lived it and is consistently eager to share the ideas he uncovers so they can be put to good use.

Why you should read it>> Who would not like to outsmart their competition? This book looks at real business and identifies real strategies that have worked, and are working, for real companies. Champy pinpoints what companies that outsmart competitors do. For example, “Businesses that outsmart their competitors stay focused on what they do best, while incumbent companies are often searching for new ideas and end up losing their sense of purpose in the process.”

Why it’s different>> “Outsmart!” presents real examples, tells you what you should learn from them and pushes you further by listing at the end of each chapter “Questions to ask yourself,” which make you think about how what you’ve learned can be applied to your particular business.

Can’t miss>> “The Epilogue.” Champy suggests some general lessons that smart leaders in every line of business can apply, all in a light 10 pages. It wraps up the book nicely but also reiterates what leaders need to do.

To share or not to share>> This is an interesting and valuable read. It is balanced enough to keep your attention, and it’s easy to trust and accept Jim Champy’s observations. “Outsmart!” is definitely worth sharing with anyone with an eye on his or her competition. The icing on the cake is the examples themselves provide good fodder for some smart conversation.

Capsule review and interview provided by

Jim Champy has spent a bit of time thinking about successful businesses. For 30 years now,

Champy has been an author and consultant, taking peeks behind the curtain at every type of company. The author of two previous best-sellers, Champy’s new book, “Outsmart!,” focuses on lessons learned from companies that have mastered high growth. Smart Business got a few thoughts from Champy about how quickly a company can grow and why a leader should tune out the competition in order to beat it.

You interviewed thousands of high-growth companies, what growth rate should companies aspire to?

A small-to-medium company with a great strategy and good execution skills can double or even triple in size every two to three years. That kind of growth would be difficult, if not impossible, for a big business because of scale. There’s no denying that scale can be a real drag on percentage growth, but sometimes, it becomes an excuse for not growing.

That said, growth is about ambition. Large corporations like Procter & Gamble outgrow their rivals, and all companies — both large and small — that outsmart their competitors exude excitement and a sense of purpose that feeds their appetite for growth.

When a company is trying to achieve high growth, should they pay more attention to the customer or the competitor?

I have been struck by just how attuned to customer needs fast-growing businesses seem to be. Their new products and services grow out of a continuing, almost fanatical focus on solving a customer problem. They are looking straight ahead at the customer and do not allow themselves to be led astray by peripheral market noise.

Incumbents, on the other hand, often become distracted in their search for growth opportunities by what competitors are doing. What they don’t understand is that meaningful strategic differentiation depends not on competitors but on the needs of a company’s customers.

How can managers deal with mistakes and risk of failure when leading a fast-growing company?

Leaders of high-growth businesses might be facing life-and-death situations every day, but they don’t even think about it. Their passion overrides their fear.

In every one of my interviews with the executives featured in ‘Outsmart!,’ I asked what mistakes they had made in growing their companies. With rare exception, they appeared flummoxed by the question or said they had never focused on their mistakes. All told me that they were always learning and saw mistakes as a natural process in the development of their companies.

How important are shared values and a strong corporate culture in high-growth companies?

Shared values and beliefs drive and control behavior. Sometimes, these bedrock values are made explicit; sometimes, they are undeclared and simply appear in time of need.

In incumbent businesses, especially big ones, rules and controls often dominate. The prevailing assumption is that, when given the chance, people will do the wrong thing — exactly the opposite view of companies in ‘Outsmart!’

HOW TO REACH: Jim Champy, www.jimchampy.com

SPECIAL AUDIO CONFERENCE OFFER: Soundview Executive Book Summaries will host a 90-minute interactive audio conference with Jim Champy as part of the Beyond the Books series at 1:00 p.m. (EDT) on Thursday, Nov. 20. To sign your company up for a live connection to this conference so your managers can hear Champy’s advice firsthand, call (800) 775-7654; mention Smart Business to earn a special discount or go to www.sbnonline.com/champy