Do Less Better ― The Power of Strategic Sacrifice in a Complex World

Early in his career, John Bell and a young leadership team faced the daunting task of resurrecting a company with a broad product range and buckets of red ink. That team took a step few leaders do, setting aside their own egos and trimming the company down to a shadow of its former self. The business that remained grew rapidly because they concentrated on running it, and nothing else. The lesson-learned served Bell well throughout his career as a CEO and then consultant: smart sacrifice is the surprising secret to success.

In Do Less Better, Bell illustrates why sacrifice in the right places cuts through complexity and clears the way to competitive advantage. Dumping your pet projects, reducing your customer list, or turning down new revenue streams can be incredibly difficult to do. It can feel impossible to say, 'Think smaller,' when everyone around you is firmly entrenched in the 'do more' strategic paradigm. Do Less Better demonstrates how maintaining nimbleness and clarity is crucial to outmaneuvering mega competitors. Doing less better in no way implies doing less work. Those who embrace focus, work harder because they are passionate and emotionally-connected to the vision. Bell emphasizes, through case studies and personal anecdotes, the importance of specialization in driving company and brand value. Drawing from his years as a CEO and consultant for some of the world's most respected blue-chip consumer goods' organizations, Bell provides a tool-kit of road-tested strategies for keeping companies lean, creating cultures of innovation, and knowing when to expand and yet, remain streamlined.

Do Less Better is for business leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs who need help embracing the practices that foster agility, foresight, adaptability, and resilience.

John Richard Bell is a retired CEO, and a strategy consultant to some of the globe's most respected blue-chip consumer goods organizations. His writings have appeared in Fortune, Forbes, and Marketing Magazine. He has served as a director of several not-for-profits and commercial enterprises and is a two-time winner of BCAMA's Marketer-of-the-Year award.