Issue No. 643 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting offers two book options: a fascinating read about business strategy, innovation, and reinvention—or a book about a 35-year-old billionaire. Surprise! Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection. And check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Note! Enjoy a YouTube Video for Part 2 of 2 of today's issue.
Will you pick Book #1 or Book #2 to read (or listen to)? Surprise!
Which book will you read (or listen to) next: Book #1 or Book #2?
BOOK #1. Published just this week by Harvard Business Review Press, this book is a master class in strategy, product and program development, marketing, customer research, incremental innovation, differentiation, “Blue Ocean strategy,” the reputation-reality gap, and how to recover from a “PR dumpster fire.” (And it has more than 25 references to articles from Harvard Business Review—so you can go even deeper.)
BOOK #2. Also hot-off-the press, this page-turner explores the impact and influence of one person—“a strategic genius”—who leverages her songwriting brilliance and artistry to create a new music market niche against all odds and naysayers. You’ve probably heard of this 35-year-old sensation—the first musician to make the Forbes World's Billionaires List, with a “ranking primarily based on her songs and performances.” Who? Taylor Swift.
GOOD NEWS! You don’t need to pick between Book #1 and Book #2. It’s the same book! Kevin Evers, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, says he wrote this book “with the same respect and framing I’d put to any great innovator, or creative force, or marketing genius, or strategy guru. I saw no reason to treat Taylor Swift’s success any differently than that of any business icon—Jobs or Branson or Bezos or Musk.” And get this: the author credits his wife for the book idea!
He admits: “To be sure, Taylor Swift probably isn’t tucking into Harvard Business Review for marketing strategy prior to dropping an album or reading the latest innovation literature coming out of B-schools.” He quotes Swift’s humor and transparency at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Awards when she was honored with the Innovator Award. Swift laughed:
‘You know what I’m going to do today?
I’m going to innovate some stuff.’”
The author’s big idea: to take us on a “chronological romp” through Swift’s career—her missteps, her achievements, her humanity—explaining how she “has managed to find success, sustain it, and scale it multiple times to the absurd heights it’s reached today. To give more shape to that feeling so many fans and admirers have about her—that there really is nothing like it.”
[Disclaimer! I’m an old guy—so I’ve never followed Taylor Swift’s music. But after reading the first chapter, I couldn’t put this book down. I’ll explain why.]
#1. BLIND SPOTS. In 2006, Taylor Swift, at 16, was writing country music songs for other teenagers. Yet the major labels believed “it made sense to avoid teenage female artists. It was Nashville conventional wisdom. It was accepted as gospel. They’d tried that, failed, and possessed anecdotal evidence to back up their claims.” Why risk it?
Evers reminds us about the book and the Harvard Business Review article by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, “Blue Ocean Strategy.” In a blue ocean, “a previously unknown market space . . . demand is created rather than fought over.” When organizations stick to conventional wisdom, “it can also lead to blind spots,” adds Evers, and “Swift was banking on the idea that Nashville had a blind spot—young women who write their own songs for young women.”
Extra Credit: read more from Kim and Mauborgne here.
#2. DIFFERENTIATION. Evers writes that Taylor Swift was “the queen of her own niche. And she was protecting it.” He adds, “There weren’t other artists her age who were writing their own songs that were tailored [no pun intended, apparently] for the teen to the young adult country-pop market.”
Intuitively, Swift affirmed the business savvy from Chris Zook and James Allen who wrote, “Differentiation is the essence of strategy, the prime source of competitive advantages.” Read their “pioneering” HBR article, “The Great Repeatable Business Model.” They add, “The sharper your differentiation, the greater your advantage.”
Extra Credit: Read more on competitive advantage and read Zook’s and Allen’s book, The Founder’s Mentality (watch for my review). Plus, read Bob Hisrich’s wisdom, “Don’t Be the 8th Lemonade Stand in a Row of 9,” from our book, Marketing Your Ministry: Ten Critical Principles.
#3. PREMATURE CORE ABANDONMENT. After Swift’s first album, Taylor Swift, in 2006, the obvious question comes—what to do next? But warning! “The path from first to second album is full of dangers. This phenomenon, researched for decades and feared even longer, goes by difference names. Second-album syndrome. The sophomore slump. Or simply: The Slump.”
The author notes that Swift followed a business rule-of-thumb strategy called “incremental innovation” for her second album, Fearless (a blend of country and pop). Insightfully, Swift and her innovative record company, Big Machine, avoided a common trap called “premature core abandonment.”
And yes—the author points us to another fascinating HBR article on this topic, “When Growth Stalls.” Yikes! Read this: “The record shows that if management cannot turn a company around within a few years, the odds are that it will never again see healthy top-line growth.”
Extra Credit: Ask AI to explain the stunning success (even after missteps) of Taylor Swift’s career. Did you know she won her first Album of the Year at the Grammys for Fearless?
#4. ADJACENT MARKETS. Should you follow Taylor Swift’s lead and venture into what business leaders call “adjacent markets”—or not? (Was it wise to leave country—and move to pop?) Caution! Kevin Evers points us to Target’s venture into Canada (an adjacent market)—and why they ultimately closed all 133 Canadian stores. (I feature this case study in one of my favorite PowerPoint presentations for nonprofit boards.) Read HBR’s “Why Target's Canadian Expansion Failed,” by Denise Dahlhoff.
Extra Credit: Listen to the short podcast, “Why Target’s Big Canadian Expansion Went South” from the “Knowledge at Wharton Podcast” (via the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania). And read this breaking news from April 8, 2025, in Forbes on the creative re-release of Swift albums.
#5. TAYLOR SWIFT—THE START-UP! “If Taylor Swift were a startup—and in many ways that’s what a music career is—by 2011 she had become a unicorn” (per the term used by venture capitalists). And this is LOL-funny:
According to the author, an investor pitching “SwiftCo” would spotlight the following:
• Three multiplatinum albums in a row.
• “Brand equity was high.”
• They would gush about her “product-market fit—she grew revenue while gaining new customers at a very low cost, through a canny go-to-market strategy that leveraged social media promotion and direct engagement with customer to surprise and delight them.” Evers adds, “This is really how they talk.” (LOL!)
Extra Credit: Read more about unicorns here and here.
MUSIC TO YOUR EARS (and bottom line). I won’t spoil the lifelong-learning journey for you—but I’m betting there are several key people on your team that will absolutely love this book and annoy you with quotes and innovative ideas for the next six months. This well-researched book—with a very human touch—is amazingly relevant to your organization or company. And…it’s so well-written with wonderfully creative word choices popping up to “surprise and delight” us! (How could it not be? It’s about a creative juggernaut!)
More Insights:
• Taylor Swift’s disruptive innovation per Harvard prof Clayton Christensen’s job-to-be-done theory. (Read this and the second article in my blog here.)
• Why “productive paranoia” served Swift well and why it will serve you well. (Read this and this from Morten Hansen and Jim Collins.)
• What Evers translates as “management speak for staying relevant by changing,” he discusses how “positive shocks—sudden breaks from successful collaborations” may jump-start your creativity for your next big project. According to the Academy of Management Journal, “The idea is that a stable network of collaborators is a good thing until it’s not.” (Read “New People Can Spark Creativity by Shaking Things Up.”)
• Why Elvis Costello (supposedly) said, “You have twenty years to write your first album and you have six months to write your second one.”
• How Seth Godin’s marketing savvy and “poke the box” approach aligns with Taylor Swift’s prioritization of her customers/fans.
• Why most reinventions fail. See John Kotter’s HBR article on the eight phases—with each “phase beset with potential pitfalls.” (And this.)
PART 2 OF 2! View the "Part 2 of 2 Zoom Review” of this book with color commentary by Paul Palmer and John Pearson, with special guest Malia Yim.
TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift, by Kevin Evers. Listen on Libro (8 hours, 35 minutes). And thanks to Harvard Business Review Press for sending me a review copy. (NOTE: The book quotes various music industry execs, and Swift, who are known to use a few words rarely heard in church.)

BONUS! Listen to the podcast interview with author Kevin Evers:

Just 30 minutes, listen to “Taylor Swift's Strategic Genius: A Masterclass in Success with Kevin Evers & Charles Good” (Episode #215). See also Episode #216.
1) Here’s a Starbucks Gift Card for the first team member to volunteer! Make a list of the 20 Management Buckets and, as you read this book about Taylor Swift, find examples that align with the core competency in at least 10 of the buckets.
2) Here’s a Chick-fil-A Gift Card for the first volunteer who will create a complete list of the Harvard Business Review articles in the Notes section of the Taylor Swift book (there are more than 25 HBR endnotes)—and then inspire at least 10 lifelong learners on our staff and/or board to read one article each. (Hint: go here!)
BONUS: Read these two new HBR articles also!
• "Taylor Swift and the Strategic Genius of the Eras Tour," by Kevin Evers (Dec. 6, 2024)
• "The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift," by Kevin Evers (March–April 2025 issue of HBR)

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!
Book #13 of 99: Judgment
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring "Book" #13 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.
How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls
by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis
• Read my review (Issue No. 78, March 3, 2008).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #13 of 20: The Crisis Bucket.
Chapter 10 in Judgment spotlights David Novak, “a veteran at crisis management. He is a seasoned leader who knows that crisis judgment starts with good people judgment.” Oh, my. You’ll learn about three crises at Yum! Brands and Novak’s systematic approach to each crisis—what the authors call his “clear Teachable Point of View.”
And if you missed Novak’s 2024 book from HBR Press, read my review of How Leaders Learn: Master the Habits of the World's Most Successful People.
Reminder: your next crisis is coming!
• Option #1: Anticipate it. (Visit the Crisis Bucket.)
• Option #2: Wing it. (Not recommended.)

Podcast via AI
Next Level Nonprofit
Click here to listen to the AI-generated podcasters (13 minutes, 57 seconds) who “review” John’s review of Next Level Nonprofit: Build A Dream Team + Increase Lasting Impact, by Chris Lambert. (Read John’s review.) For more podcasts, click here.

CONFLICT?
Set Up 5 Chairs!
I predict that the next time you’re coaching someone through a conflict, you will use the brilliant model from these former Harvard profs: Mirror Work, Chair Work, and Table Work. Read my review to learn why the physicality of using actual chairs (“set up five chairs”) may produce stunning results. Read Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In. And visit Pails in Comparison Blog for more reviews.