StrategyMan vs. The Anti-Strategy Squad by Rich Horwath

Hello, Book Thinkers family! Today's video is going to be a little unique. I'm actually going to talk about a book tip from a graphic novel, of all things. This is titled Strategy Man vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad, and it's written by Rich Horwath. So I was a little skeptical when I picked this up. I mean, a comic novel, a graphic novel, but it's actually a business book, and there's a lot of very practical information in here. So One of my favorite characters, he was titled Purposeidon, kind of like Poseidon, and he carried a trident that was called the Purpose Trident. And the Purpose Trident talked all about mission and vision and values and how companies don't necessarily understand the purpose of those 3 terms when they're creating their mission statement and their vision statement and when they write a list of values for their employees. So the book goes through a great exercise to make you think a little bit more about it. Now, as you'll see, this book has great artwork. I think that the way in which it was done was kind of captivating, especially for somebody who reads a lot of nonfiction and it's not necessarily very picturesque or aesthetically pleasing all the time. Here's Purposeidon for you. So what was unique right here is Purposeidon says that the mission is your current purpose or reason for being, whereas The vision is your future purpose, what you aspire to be. And the values are your guiding purpose, the ideals and principles that influence your team's thoughts and actions. So drawing those out, I mean, for book thinkers, I definitely have never sat down and put a lot of thought into it, but there's actually a matrix in the book and the Purpose Trident helps Strategy Man implement these with the companies that he's trying to save. So to talk a little bit more about them, and this is an exercise that I'll probably go through and create another video for the mission. In developing your mission statement, consider the following 5 questions: What function is performed by your business? How is the function performed? For whom is the function performed? Why is the function performed? And what tone will convey the company's uniqueness? So a lot of people don't even consider those questions when they say, this is my mission, this is my current purpose. You need to sit down and run through those. And I'll do that, like I said, for Book Thinker soon and create a video on it. Then vision. Again, mission is current, vision is future. So in developing your vision statement, see if it meets the following 5 criteria. Does it paint a picture of the desired future? Will it create a burning ambition? Is it distinct from long-term goals? Does it allow for creativity and flexibility? And can people imagine the realistic pursuit of it? And then last but not least, values. In determining your values, consider the following criteria. Do they reflect what we truly believe? Are they different from others in our space? Are we committed to really living these each day? Is the group of values concise enough to be memorable? And then last but not least, will these be enduring traits that lead us to our vision? Going through that process is something that I, like I said, haven't done for Book Thinkers. And this book is full of exercises just like that that you can apply to your own business. Most employees don't even know what the vision is for the business that they're working for. So if you're a business owner, you should know that kind of stuff and implement these things and make sure that your employees buy in. They have the strong values, they have a current mission, and they know what the vision is. So Rich Horwath, you did a fantastic job with this book. Greenleaf Publishing, you did a great job publishing this book. I think it was done very well, and I'm on the lookout for more graphic novel business type books. This is the first of its kind, at least in Instagram, that I've seen. So I hope people found value in this video. If you have any questions for me about this book, let me know. Go out and pick up a copy, and I think I might write something like this in the future. All right, take care everybody. Bye.