I love to read Michael Gerber’s books. His attitude is challenging, his style is playful, and his content is insightful. His early gems—The E-Myth, E-Myth Mastery, The E-Myth Revisited, and Awakening the Entrepreneur Within—were pretty darn good, to say the least. But The E-Myth Enterprise might be his best book yet. Listen to what Michael has to say in his introduction:
Trust me when I say this: The E-Myth Enterprises you will come in touch with here are as uncommon a reality as winning the Olympics…. Companies like these don’t just happen; They are the outcome of passions intensely applied. Of perseverance impossible to fake. Of overcoming the relentless obstacles that are continually conspiring to make the impossible, impossible. To make the unfathomable, unfathomable. To make the difficult more than just difficult, but horrendously difficult. Of creating an original result in the world…. In short, a free market system provides one with significantly more opportunity to fail than it does to succeed.
How’s that for challenging? He points out later in the book:
Service is an incomplete word because it says, “The customer is king.” But as it works out in real life, the customer isn’t king except in the mind of the customer. To the employees, the customer isn’t king; he’s often a pain in the ass. To suppliers, the customer isn’t queen; she’s often a problem waiting to happen. To the lenders, the customer isn’t king; he’s often a drunk hanging on to a wagon, caroming into a wall. No, the customer isn’t king to them—they are!
How’s that for playful? Throughout the book, Michael gets to the heart of what makes businesses tick:
There are three things that can be organized: time, space, and work. Despite what many believe—and what most try to do—people cannot be organized. Only the work people do can be organized. All attempts to organize people instead of their work do exactly the opposite of what organization is intended to do. Rather than order, it creates chaos. Rather than ease, it creates dis-ease. Rather than efficiency, it creates boredom. Rather than flexibility, it creates bureaucracy. Rather than room, it creates confinement…When employed with skill, organization always produces a sense of great ease. When employed unwisely, organization always produces resistance. I have never seen a great business that does things in a businesslike way.
How’s that for insightful?
Is The E-Myth Enterprise just for people thinking about starting a business? No, but it sure would help. I read this book on a plane from Dallas to San Diego. After finishing a page, I would hand it to my wife, Margie, who cofounded our company with me and who has, by the way, a PhD in communication. She kept saying as she read, “How do we get everyone in our company to read this book?” We’re celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of our company this year and Margie is worried that we have what is called “educational incapacity.” Our success—and we have been successful—makes us blind to new learnings and ways of thinking. And boy, is The E-Myth Enterprise all about that.
So read this book. Share it with your colleagues. And, as Michael Gerber challenges us, “Stop sleeping! Wake up!” Heed the final thoughts in this wonderful book by this brilliant, passionate man, Michael Gerber, who I am proud to call a new friend.