Book Review: Formula X – How to reach extreme acceleration in your organization

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I am a huge F1 fan and I am missing the racing during this pandemic. F1 fascinates me, not just because the drivers are so talented (with their reaction times and watching them make incredible decisions in micro seconds), but there is so much of a technical side and innovation to what goes on that it can be mind boggling. You don’t have to be a Formula 1 fan or have knowledge of it to appreciate this new book called Formula X – How to reach extreme acceleration in your organizationThe principles in this book are great for leaders, especially those managing in these uncertain time.

The global pandemic has forced organizations to change the way they work overnight.  This change is bigger than mastering remote work and new tools — businesses have the chance to adopt a way of working that will make us resilient and faster.

The book uses the FASTER model to show how businesses can work smarter and more efficiently — it’s now more applicable than ever:
  • Focus & clarity: having a clear and inspiring goals so people know what is the right thing to do. As leaders, over-communicate what is and isn’t important now.
  • Accelerate decisions: leverage modern decision making methods to steer more quickly during this crisis.
  • Simplify: now is the time to get rid of uneccessary rules and bureaucracy. We need to manage our organizations with more trust.
  • Team engagement: tapping each other on the shoulder to ask something small is no longer possible, better ways and tools to do asynchronous communication and collaborate on documents are needed.
  • Elementary physics: this is the time to stop worrying about being productive and efficient from 9-5 each day, instead, let people figure out when they are most useful and let them steer on output/effectiveness
  • Rhythmic learning: a well-designed meeting rhythm that promotes learning and information sharing is more important than ever.

About the Book

Many organizations struggle to adapt to our fundamentally faster world. For companies and professionals, it often feels like they have to make an ultimate choice: quality or speed. But speed does not have to result in bad work—and Formula 1 motor racing proves this.

Within the two weeks between races, they perform the enormous job of analyzing all data, designing and producing new components, shipping, assembling and testing. How do they do that? And what can we learn from F1 in applying these lessons to our workplaces?

Formula X tells the story of Ronald Park, director of a large kitchen manufacturer. He will lose his job if he fails to significantly reduce the delivery time of his kitchens to under two weeks. As he takes up this challenge, he manages to get his organization closer to this goal, step by step. He receives unexpected help from the team captain of a well-known Formula 1 team.

Ronald successfully implements several F1 lessons in his company. But just when Ronald thinks he made it, things change to the worse. How will he manage? How will he keep his company alive?

In Formula X you will learn the secrets to reaching extreme acceleration in your organization!

Reading this book is an enjoyable way to learn a new business concept. The book presents the concepts in an easy way to learn them and implement them. The book gives insight to how employees first react to the change and describes their fears and concerns about change from their normal procedures. <- This is perfect during this pandemic with so many changes to the way employees and managers have to work.

The book shows how to involve and help staff to become more efficient and how to engage employees to achieve their highest potential.

Here is an example of what we can learn from pit stops:

About The Authors

Jurriaan Kamer is speaker, organization designer and transformation coach. Jurriaan is an expert in the field of organizing differently. He is obsessed with modern organizations and how you can transform an existing organization. In addition, he has been a fan and visitor of Formula 1 for years. He is a Partner at The Ready, an organization design and transformation agency focused on the future of work. Through The Ready, he helps leaders free their organization from the rules, habits and mindsets that cause delays, making work faster, more agile, more human and fun.
Rini van Solingen is speaker, author, professor and entrepreneur. His expertise lies in the speed and agility of people and organizations. Rini is a part-time full professor at Delft University of Technology and CTO at Prowareness We-On and author of a number of management books, including The Power of Scrum (2011 – with Jeff Sutherland and Eelco Rustenburg), Scrum for Managers (2015 – with Rob van Lanen) and the 2016 business novel: How to lead self-managing teams?
Need more convincing? Join the authors for a FREE webinar: (Jurriaan is wearing an F1 shirt below from my favorite team!)

WHEN

It will be a 2-hour session, starting at:

  • 10am PST (San Francisco)
  • 1pm EST (New York)
  • 6pm GMT (London)
  • 19:00 CET (Amsterdam)

LOCATION

Online, using Zoom videoconferencing

AGENDA

  • Speech by Jurriaan “How to become as fast and agile as a Formula 1 team”
  • Interactive session by Rini “Lessons from the FASTER model”
  • Q&A

Click here to register for this webinar.

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