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16 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 Airbrushed anecdotes from inside Cisco Nov 13, 2010
By digerati
"digerati"
If this book was a reality TV show, it would be a flattering portrait of a celebrity's life. Initially an intriguing glimpse into the inner world of someone of interest, then realization dawning that, in the end, you're only seeing what the celebrity wants you to see.
The opening chapters are a useful reminder that business folk often get trapped in false choices such as on-time or high-quality, for example. But that's about the extent of the concept, and the remainder of the book is a collection of anecdotes about Cisco senior executives. The writing is strangely mechanical and almost devoid of style and wit, which makes it hard to keep going. I found myself rapidly losing interest in the middle.
The Cisco examples are like a celebrity magazine cover: photoshopped for maximum effect. I worked at Cisco for five years, joining about the same time as Inder Sidhu in the 1990s. It was truly an exceptional place to work, and my experiences there left a lasting positive impression. I was part of some of the product stories he recounts, and this is where my recollection departs from Inder's. He's not trying to be deceptive, merely carefully selective to support his thesis. I did get a little suspicious of the frequent occurrence of the figure "40%". In so many of the vignettes, this is the stated bookings growth achieved as a result of "doing both".
Summaries of the thought processes for some of the major decisions are thought provoking -- made me think about how I could use the same ideas in my business. The most difficult part of corporate decision-making is bringing the rest of the organization along on the journey, though, and there's precious little on how that was achieved.
In short, an interesting glimpse into the inner life of Cisco, a good-but-not-great business book. Another reviewer describes it as a modern The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials) -- I can't agree with that. It's too anecdotal, without the rigor and depth of Christiansen's work.
14 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 Aiming and Achieving Higher Jun 24, 2010
By Jonathan Cohen
Years ago a very wise person taught me that by changing my frame of reference from "either/or" to "both/and" I could find creative solutions to the challenges I was facing in life. Work hard AND exercise. Make time for your old golf pals AND your wife. Think expansively, give your all, and discover that you're capable of accomplishing much more than you once thought possible.
Inder Sidhu, as wise a corporate executive as you will find in Silicon Valley, imparts a similar wisdom in this concise but rich history of Cisco Systems and its phenomenal success. Sidhu's surprising thesis is that great companies like Cisco simply refuse to settle. They don't compromise on innovation to become more efficient. Nor do they let quality or customer service lag in order to make their numbers. Instead, they foster a culture in which being good isn't good enough and leaders are encouraged, if not exepcted to pursue transformational as opposed to merely incremental improvements. Cisco is able to "Do Both" Sidhu demonstrates, by asking more of its always-connected employees, but it also gives those same employees more in the form of flexible hours and a win-win culture in which people trust one another to produce superior results. His case studies of Cisco successes in areas ranging from Engineering to Manufacturing to Marketing should be required reading at any company that is ready to think big.
8 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 Interesting and inspiring Jun 24, 2010
By K. Fleming
Inder begins with sharing how Cisco's TelePresence video conferencing technology has enabled him to see, hear and almost feel his mother's presence who is 8,000 miles away back home in India. The intro is touching and a friendly reminder of how technology has changed our lives in many ways and most importantly how we stay in touch and always connected.
Inder takes you through the various steps that Cisco has taken to grow to a $40 billion dollar company with over 60,000 employees. Its an interesting read as Inder walks through the history and the strategic decisions made to remain competitive through innovation and bold moves. Inspired by the stories of the background of the leaders chosen, the difficult questions and challenges faced and their paths take to success.
Doing Both is an interesting and inspiring read.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Organizational transformation is not -- repeat not - a zero-sum game Nov 30, 2010
By Robert Morris
One of the most self-defeating mindsets is suggested by the admonition, "You can't have your cake and eat it too." Obviously there are situations when there are two options that are mutually-exclusive. However, most of the time, when facing a choice, it is a mistake to select only one and dismiss all others. Inder Sidhu does not advocate "a balanced compromise between two objectives, but a mutually reinforcing multiplier in which each side makes the other better." He cites comments included in Built to Last (1994) co-authored by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras when discussing a highly visionary company "that doesn't want to blend yin and yang into a gray indistinguishable circle that is neither highly yin nor highly yang; it aims to be distinctly yin and distinctly yang - both at the same time, all the time. Irrational? Perhaps. Rare? Yes. Difficult? Absolutely."
Sidhu devotes the bulk of his lively narrative to explaining how exemplar companies such as Apple, BYD, Cisco, GE, Google, IBM, and Procter & Gamble achieve these strategic objectives:
o Improving the core business while conducting disruptive innovation
o Strengthening current account relationships while adding new ones
o Fine-tuning what is done well while transforming or eliminating what isn't
o Creating customer evangelists while creating steadfast partners
o Thriving on "Main Street" while exploring "the road less traveled"
o Doing it right and doing what is right (i.e. what matters)
Obviously, doing both (of whatever) is not always possible or, when possible, advisable. Also, any lessons learned from the exemplar companies such as those Sidhu examines (especially Cisco) must be modified to accommodate the specific needs and resources of much smaller organizations.
With all due respect to the value of these lessons, I think the single greatest benefit of this book is the mindset it can help its reader to develop. Although Sidhu does not cite them and their books, he has clearly been influenced (albeit indirectly) by business thinkers such as Henry Chesbrough (Open Innovation and Open Business Models) and Roger Martin (The Opposable Mind) as well as Venkat Ramaswamy and Francis Gouilllart (The Power of Co-Creation). Their major recommendations track almost seamlessly with Sudhu's own:
1. Be open-minded to possibilities, whenever/wherever they occur
2. Respect and examine those that are plausible, especially if unorthodox
3. Seek out collaborations that are mutually-beneficial
4. Welcome each "failure" as a precious learning opportunity
5. Juxtapose (for rigorous scrutiny) contradictory ideas and options
6. Embrace change as an ally, not as a threat
7. Achieve constant improvement with a discovery-driven process
8. Welcome and support principled dissent
9. Cultivate and nourish an insatiable appetite for learning
10. Challenge what James O'Toole characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom"
Congratulations to Inder Sidhu on a brilliant achievement.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Polyanna Nov 08, 2010
By G. M. Arnold
"Geoff, that is"
As a straightforward history of Cisco from the inside, this is just fine. If you were curious why the company made certain decisions - acquisitions, product strategy shifts, etc. - this book will probably answer your questions. That said, I don't think you'll learn anything that you can really apply in your own world. (Or if you do, you need to get out more!) For one thing, every problem is prelude to an advance or improvement. There is no dirty laundry, no hint of the human causes and consequences of things. This is, of course, to be expected from a book by someone who is still working in the company. An active VP is not going to be an investigative journalist, or even to ask hard questions. Furthermore this central "Do both" message only really applies to very large companies. For startups, "do both" is a recipe for failure.
The other problem with this book is the impersonal tone. Learning comes from personal experience and insight, and must be conveyed with passion and humanity, not from an air-brushed, omniscient, third-person perspective. For a good example of what I mean, read Lou Gerstner's brilliant Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?. Maybe we will have to wait until Chambers retires to learn the real lessons of Cisco.
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