Small Giants

If you've ever seen "Spanglish" with Adam Sandler, you'd know what the subject of "Small Giants" by Bo Burlingham is. In "Spanglish" Sandler was a chef and restaraunteur. After he was reviewed by the NYT and got 4 stars and called the greatest chef in America, he was worried about what would become of his restaurant. All of a sudden he was booked for 3 months and he schemed to stay 'neighborhood'. The 'neighborhood' feeling is what "Small Giants" is all about.

"Small Giants" profiles 14 small private companies that have foregone growth opportunities to maintain a manageability and 'neighborhood' feeling that agrees with the owners and employees. The companies ranged from a brewery, Anchor Steam, all the way to a records storage company, Citi Storage. Not much bound these 14 companies together except for their strong cultures, values and happiness factors instilled by their owners and employees.

Burlingham's criteria for selecting these companies was that they made a conscious choice to forego growth and increased riches by going public. As part of foregoing growth and riches they made decisions about which customers they wanted and which suppliers they wanted to deal with. I tried (and failed) to make a point last week about these companies' values and the government's assault on companies having values. These free association values are a big part of what makes these companies special and what makes customers and employees, as well as the general public, love these companies. The main common thread with the small giants was their involvement with the community in areas they were concerned about or as we called it in school, strategic philanthropy. One of the giants even matched donations dollar for dollar, no matter what the donation was for. Some of these donations were for causes the owner didn't agree with, but he felt who was he to decide what a good cause was, if the employee thought it worthy, that was good enough.

I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I was going to. I was initially intrigued because I wanted to read about the Anchor Brewery, but I found Citi Storage to be just as intriguing. I learned quite a bit about the different management styles and how they work within a culture, this would have been a great book to read for my Leadership and Motivation class last year. As the weeks go by I anticipate posting a couple of more times about some of the issues in this book. I highly recommend "Small Giants" to anyone interested in management, entrepreneurship or corporate social responsibility.