How to Be a Star at Work: 9 Breakthrough Strategies You Need to Succeed

How to Be a Star at Work: 9 Breakthrough Strategies You Need to Succeed
Average customer rating:

SO - SO

Re-Strategize for Glowing Success Potential At Work

It boils down to this- take initiative, network and broaden your perspective

Good Reference for 'Brainpowered' Workers

Emotional intelligence in the work place.

How to Be a Star at Work: 9 Breakthrough Strategies You Need to Succeed
Robert E. Kelley
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business Life | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Workplace | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Guides | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Motivational | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Platinum Rule: Discover the Four Basic Business Personalities andHow They Can Lead You to Success

TRUE PROFESSIONALISM : The Courage to Care About Your People, Your Clients, and Your Career

What Your Boss Doesn't Tell You Until It's Too Late: How to Correct Behavior That Is Holding You Back

The 12 Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back: Overcoming the Behavior Patterns That Keep You From Getting Ahead

Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty : The Only Networking Book You'll Ever Need

ASIN: 0812931696
Release Date: 1999-06-01

Amazon.com

For over a dozen years, Carnegie Mellon University instructor and corporate consultant Robert Kelley has studied the difference between superior workplace performers and their average peers. After determining that such stars are made, not born, he identified the game plan many use to secure better jobs, higher pay, and top career opportunities. How to Be a Star at Work: Nine Breakthrough Strategies You Need to Succeed describes these tactics--which he dubs initiative, networking, self-management, perspective, followership, leadership, teamwork, organizational savvy, and show-and-tell--and explains how to incorporate them into real-life work situations. --Howard Rothman

Book Description

"Do you know what it takes to be a star at work?  Robert Kelley has the answer." --Fast Company

STARS ARE MADE, NOT BORN

  Find out what separates stars from average performers

  Learn how to be the top pick for the choice jobs

  Use nine star-performer strategies to become a member of the select "ten-for-one" club, with ten times the productivity of the average worker

  Find out how using the nine strategies enables you to out-perform people with supposedly better credentials

  New in this edition:  special insights for women and members of minority groups

Customer Reviews:

SO - SO .......2007-07-07

A few good suggestions and some interesting perspectives on what it takes to succeed in the workplace.

Re-Strategize for Glowing Success Potential At Work.......2006-06-21

OK, with all of the efforts of Human Resources these days to hire the right people, still about one out of every ten recruits run circles around the others. These recruits are solid gold. Were they born that way? Can they be made? Can they be recognized? The author attempts to answer this question from insights derived from a study conducted at Bell Labs. Everyone was interviewed and surveyed. The top producers were found by survey of both management and staff. The discoveries are very interesting. The statement is made that to become a star performer you don't need super IQ, great self-confidence, or silky smooth social skills. You just need to change your strategies. We have all seen people succeed without these characteristics - here's why.

All participants in the study were asked to rank nine work strategies in their order of importance. Now, here is the crux of the book... everyone thought that these items were important, but not only did they have them in reverse orders, they gave different meaning to the terms. So how do winners think and what order do they rank for importance in business strategy?

1. Initiative - going beyond the job - adding bold ideas - efforts to better it for everyone - tenacity - some personal risk - goes far beyond taking on projects for personal publicity

2. Networking - developing pathways to knowledge - sharing knowledge - establishing networks before they need them - goes far beyond just knowing people to get ahead for yourself

3. Self-Management - increase your value by increasing your skill - experiment with better habits - goes far beyond just mananging time

4. Perspective - seeing from a variety of views and opinions of the five Cs - the customer - the colleagues - the competitors - the company's - and creative views possibly involving other industires - this is far from just personally making your perspective thought well of

5. Followership - cooperating with a leader for goal achievement - can disagree with a leader by adding facts and seeking advice - this goes far beyond just doing as you are told

6. Leadership - using your influence to convince a group to accomplish - qualities of knowledge, caring, push-through - not just giving commands

7. Teamwork - taking joint ownership - everyone agreeing on a mission - it's not just doing your own job

8. Organizational Savvy - knowing how to navigate the organization to get things done - not just who to kiss up to

9. Show and Tell - persuading the right audience with the right message to deliver valuable information effectively - it is much more than showing off for personal gain

The author speaks of staying aligned with the critical path. That is the most direct value-added route that can be plotted from the work of an employee to a delighted customer to an improved bottome line.

Your heart must be large to understand this book and the meaning of the survey.

Five Stars Shining Brightly

It boils down to this- take initiative, network and broaden your perspective.......2006-02-16

Robert E. Kelley has outlined several strategies for turning yourself into a recognized asset for your company, improving your productivity and building a stellar career.

· Exercise your initiative. Go beyond your job description. Look for solutions to problems at work. Help out your co-workers.
· Develop effective work habits. Prioritize your job-related activities by how crucial they are to the overall goals of your organization. Review your productivity on a regular basis.
· Put together an expert network. It's not enough to become an expert at something, unless you are able to work with other experts to innovate and add value.
· Learn to see issues as others see them. Seek out learning experiences that will help you to see the big picture from the perspective of a customer, colleague, competitor, manager and from a creative point of view.
· Use teams to your best advantage. Check to see if the company supports teamwork. Is teamwork more often cooperative or competitive? Once you commit to a team, be proactive.
· Be the kind of follower leaders want. Don't follow as a sheep or a yes-man. Be dependable, competent, conscientious, and cooperative.
· Earn your status as a leader through expertise, people skills or an ability to create momentum.
· Learn the unwritten rules of the game. Know where to go, who to talk to, and what to do in order to get things done.
· Communicate effectively. Tailor your message to your audience.

Good Reference for 'Brainpowered' Workers.......2003-07-20

This is a good guide to success in the workplace for engineers and other 'brainpowered' workers. Dr. Kelly, professor at Carnegie-Mellon's business school, writes of nine 'breakthrough' strategies to move ahead of the pack, into the 'A player' ranks. While the somewhat cheesy title implies that this is a guide for lazy people (the 'C players') to sneak their way up the ladder, this is in reality a well-written and well-researched book that is strictly for highly-motivated workers that just need a little added 'edge'.

The tips Dr. Kelly provide seem to be common sense, but we all see hard-working 'B players' every day that neglect these at their own peril. (If it were as easy to spot one's own faults as it is to spot faults in others, this book wouldn't be necessary.)

It doesn't cover everything, of course, and the strategies aren't necessarily easy to implement, but it's a good starting point for someone truly motivated to improve their promotability. To that end, I'd personally recommend reading Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and this book.

Emotional intelligence in the work place........2003-05-30

This is an excellent book. The nine strategies make perfect sense. They are innovative, and will work for you. This is how to apply all your intelligences within the workplace and not just your IQ. You will recognize the ones who apply these strategies. They are the ones who may not have MBAs from Harvard, but yet are well liked and respected and go up the corporate ladder seemingly effortlessly.

The author strategies are also quite original. He stresses how strong "followership" is just as important if not more as "leadership." This is a really important point that is rarely mentioned in management seminars.

If you are a Harvard MBA, good for you. Nevertheless, this book will be invaluable to your success as it will give you the strategies and people skills you may need to truly leverage the superior business education you got.

Reinventing Strategy: Using Strategic Learning to Create and Sustain Breakthrough Performance
Average customer rating:

Great book

Willie Pietersen gives us great strategy AND great practice

Every Manager Should Read This Book

A survival guide for business

Business strategy as it should be written

Reinventing Strategy: Using Strategic Learning to Create and Sustain Breakthrough Performance
Willie Pietersen
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Decision-Making & Problem Solving | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Leadership | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Systems & Planning | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Total Quality Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Entrepreneurship | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Organizational Learning | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
Business & Investing | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Aligning the Stars

Learning to Think Strategically (New Frontiers in Learning)

The Pirate Inside: Building a Challenger Brand Culture Within Yourself and Your Organization

MarketBusters: 40 Strategic Moves That Drive Exceptional Business Growth

Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change

ASIN: 0471061905

Book Description

At last-a proven system for developing the strategic innovations every company needs to compete and win
As everyone knows, today's unprecedented rate of business change demands new levels of strategic insight and adaptability. Reinventing Strategy is the first practical, systematic guide to creating an adaptive enterprise, showing how companies around the world are using the Strategic Learning approach to consistently out think, out maneuver, and out perform their competition. As Willie Pietersen explains, companies that aspire to long-term success must develop and implement strategy as part of a continuous four-step cycle-Learn, Focus, Align, Execute-and he offers dozens of provocative anecdotes and case studies, illustrating how to implement it at every level of an organization. Written with unusual clarity, frankness, and wit, Reinventing Strategy will change the way managers everywhere approach their greatest and most important challenge: the need to make strategy into a tool for ongoing corporate renewal.

Customer Reviews:

Great book.......2005-02-13

I am an executive coach and a former management consultant, so that business strategy is one of my interests. I have found this book by chance browsing on Amazon.
This is a book I have loved. It is an outstanding synthesis of what is business strategy nowdays. The author wonderfully combines a solid theoretical framework (he is a professor at Columbia University now) with a very practical approach (he has been running a company as CEO beforehand and it definitely shows!). It is very well structured, down to earth, straightforward and still accurate and full of in-depth reflections. It is a rare demonstration (especially in business literature) that a book can be essential and to the point, without boring repetitions (typical in business books). It shows there is a real understanding and mastery of the subject matter.
A serious business book written with both the head and the heart. Thank you Mr Pietersen!

Willie Pietersen gives us great strategy AND great practice.......2002-05-05

Willie Pietersen's Reinventing Strategy contains the basics of strategy, i.e., how to win, how to align the organization behind the chosen strategies, how to be sure that superior insights drive the strategic process. If that alone were his contribution, this book would be a significant contribution to the strategy literature.

But Pietersen goes much further than that. He shows us how, exactly, to develop these strategies, how he himself developed such strategies and what he learned about leadership in the process.

This book is about strategy, implementation and one man's journey as a leader and life-long learner. The result is an immensely human business book. The singular voice of the author comes through with clarity and humility. I know of no other business book that combines theory and practice with such a strongly personal view. Pietersen talks about the value of developing a leadership credo in his book. This book is, in essence, his own credo from a lifetime of leading and learning.

Every Manager Should Read This Book.......2002-04-20

I am VP at a large consumer products company in Ohio and I found this book very insightful in the areas of creating strategy and leadership. I read a lot of business books and most are very slight in what they have to offer -- a few thoughts, old stories or worn out sayings. However, "Reinventing Strategy" is a real how-to-book and goes through running a successful business step-by-step. This book will definitely help my division be more profitable! In fact, I would love to go and take one of Prof. Pietersen's courses at Columbia University.

A survival guide for business.......2002-04-18

Willie Pietersen has managed to pull together what's really important to achieve breakthrough performance. He's done this by telling clearly and convincingly the lessons learned from his years as a chief executive, but explained them from his new role as a Professor of the Practice of Management at the Columbia Business School. I've had the personal pleasure of watching Pietersen in action with business leaders from around the world who have participated in Columbia's Executive Education programs. The overriding comment from these executives is "this guy makes sense and has shown we how to face up to the challenges to my business' survival." Reinventing Strategy: Using Strategic Learning to Create and Sustain Breakthrough Performance is the next best thing to the live program.

If you want to move from Strategy theory to action and have your business survive in the process, read this book.
William M. Klepper, Ph.D.
Academic Director, Executive Education
Columbia Business School

Business strategy as it should be written.......2002-04-17

Here is book that takes a practical look at business strategy and helps the business person to streamline his/her thinking.
Written in Willie Pietersens highly readable style,it has heft as well as humor, theory as well as practical examples. Oh that our Business School text books had been written thus!
I would recommend this book to anyone who sells anything.
Read the introductory chapters,grasp Pietersen's premise then go to any of the rich chapters. Concepts are clearly tagged, each making for a delicious informational meal that forces reflection.

Pay People Right!: Breakthrough Reward Strategies to Create Great Companies (Jossey Bass Business and Management Series)

Average customer rating:

A must read for changing or enhancing total rewards
Comprehensive. Thorough.
Great treatment of a difficult subject
A "must" reading guide !

Pay People Right!: Breakthrough Reward Strategies to Create Great Companies (Jossey Bass Business and Management Series)
Patricia K. Zingheim , and Jay R. Schuster
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Human Resources & Personnel Management | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Entrepreneurship | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

How to Design & Implement a Results-Oriented Variable Pay System
The Compensation Handbook
People, Performance, & Pay: Dynamic Compensation for Changing Organizations
Harvard Business Review on Compensation
Paying for Performance: A Guide to Compensation Management, 2nd Edition

ASIN: 078794016X

Book Description

Widely recognized as the nation's foremost experts on pay strategies, Zingheim and Schuster offer up a nuts-and-bolts guide on how a company can use pay to create a win-win partnership with its workforce. Their advice is direct and specific and will help you tackle many of today's most critical business issues from attracting and retaining talent to motivating sales staffs to improving mergers and acquisitions. Charged with readily usable tools for successfully implementing pay change, Pay People Right! also contains numerous examples of how many top organizations are creating total rewards packages that engage people and enhance performance.

Customer Reviews:

A must read for changing or enhancing total rewards.......2000-08-26

This book provides an excellent framework for thinking through the process of changing and enahancing total rewards. It takes a broader perspective on rewards and compensation and hits the key components of a successful reward strategy right on the head! I would recommend this book to HR professionals and senior leaders interested in driving real and effective change in the way your organization rewards its associates. Well done!

Comprehensive. Thorough........2000-07-18

In today's increasingly competitive employment market, compensation is a powerful part of the package used to attract and hold top talent. Although recent research has confirmed that money is not as dominant a factor as it has been in the past, there is no denying that the Almighty Dollar still plays a central role.

If compensation is not designed properly, an organization could be dangerously vulnerable to attack from the raiding recruiters who do know how to do it right. Thus, pay plans become a vital defense as well as a powerful attracting offensive tool. The problem is that many employers, including human resource professionals, don't have a sufficient understanding of how-and why-to pay people appropriately.

Pay People Right serves as a fine textbook for those who want to gain a deeper understanding of the right ways to reward employees financially for their contributions. As the authors observe in their preface, "Much of the popular literature on management and organizational change avoids issues of pay, perhaps because it's harder to address than many gentler and less powerful change tools the literature proposes. Changing pay requires patience and constant attention." They contend that compensation design-pay and other rewards-can influence worker performance to the extent that it can change a company's achievement and destiny. Zingheim and Schuster suggest that compensation is even more of a strategic tool than it has been in the past, particularly in these times of mergers and acquisitions, consolidations, and globalization

Organization

The book is well-organized for a read-through as well as for reference at a later date. The first chapter addresses Total Rewards and the Six Reward Principles. The principles begin with Create a Positive and Natural Reward Experience. The key is communication and education. The next principle is to align rewards with business goals to create a win-win partnership. People who work for the company add value, which should be rewarded.

We should ensure that everyone is a knowledgeable stakeholder in the overall success of the company. That's the third principle: Extend people's line of sight. The fourth principle is Integrate Rewards: move beyond total pay to include total rewards. Fifth, reward individual ongoing value with base pay. Evaluate competency, performance, and the employee's value in the marketplace. I like the sixth principle: reward results with variable pay-flexiblity, agility, responsiveness.

The authors emphasize the four components of total rewards: individual growth, compelling future, total pay, and positive workplace. It's not just the money. This comprehensive approach leads to a broader strategy.

The second chapter makes the business case for changing rewards, leading to chapter on integrating total pay. The chapter on measuring and managing performance completes the first section of the book, focusing on compensation being a vital part of performance management.

The second part of the book addresses a wide range of pay tools including base pay, short-term and long-term variable pay, and recognition and celebration. The discussion on infrastructure helps the reader understand the foundation of how compensation is designed.

Part III of Pay People Right addresses how rewards are used in several different situations. Readers learn how to reward teams, scarce talent, sales professionals, and executives. In this section the authors address how rewards are used in merger and acquisition situations and in the complicated world of globalization. Chapter 15 on Global Rewards is particularly valuable for employers concerned with compensating people from different countries doing different kinds of work under different conditions. The exploration of global talent as a specific focus was enlightening . . . and, importantly, current.

The book is practical in its approach. Theory is translated effectively into practice so the textbook becomes a useful handbook, as well. The index works-I checked a number of issues and questions of interest-to help the reader find specifics to answer questions and get the job done.

Great treatment of a difficult subject.......2000-03-13

Everyone has an opinion on pay, but no one brings the depth of experience and level of insight to this subject the way these two authors do. Surveying the entire complex issue of how to pay people in a way that is fair and effective for the both the firm and the individual, Schuster and Zingheim have provided a practical road map that is easy for anyone to follow who really wants to "pay people right". If every manager in every company would read, digest, and act upon their advice much of the disfunction that plagues the workplace would be eliminated. A great book, and a great service to everyone.

A "must" reading guide !.......2000-02-27

"Pay People Right! defines", Zingheim and Schuster write, "the leading and communicating role of pay in business performance. Pay enjoys a critical role in helping companies and people enhance their performance. A number of important tools are available to improve pay design. We describe how people can add value and how your company get from where it is now to where it would like to be."

In this context Zingheim and Schuster :

* define the six reward principles that provide consistency of purpose and direction for the diverse pay topics.

* describe how an enterprise's business situation, business strategy, human resources strategy, and total reward strategy drive the business case for changing rewards.

* discuss the importance of the total reward picture in determining a firm's competitiveness in the labor market.

* discuss how business strategy and goals can best drive rewards to be successful.

* define the concept of paying individual's ongoing value along three dimensions : (1) skills and competencies that the individual uses to get results, (2) the individual's consistent performance over time, and (3) the individual's value relative to the labor market.

* review alternative structures for base pay, including grades and ranges, market rates, broad grades, and career bands.

* discuss both cash-based and stock-based long-term variable pay as a reward tool not only for executives but also for key people, wherever they are in the firm.

* discuss team reward design and the issues surrounding the move to team pay.

* discuss reward strategies for scarce talents, salesforce and executives.

* discuss the role of total pay during the turmoil of mergers and acquisitions.

* discuss results of globalization, as unique total reward opportunities.

I highly recommend this invaluable study to executives, managers, human resources and compensation professionals.

Profit-Growth Banking: How to Master 7 Breakthrough Strategies of Top-Performing Banks
Average customer rating:

Nicely outlined

Profit-Growth Banking: How to Master 7 Breakthrough Strategies of Top-Performing Banks
Roxanne Emmerich
Manufacturer: The Emmerich Group, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Similar Items:

Profit-Rich Sales for Lenders, Brokers, and Private Bankers

The Art of Better Retail Banking: Supportable Predictions on the Future of Retail Banking

The Bank Director's Handbook: The Board Member's Guide to Banking & Bank Management (Bankline Publication)

Leading for Growth: How Umpqua Bank Got Cool and Created a Culture of Greatness

Modern Banking

ASIN: 1890965049

Book Description

Learn the simple secrets that turn ordinary banks into top-performing banks. The secrets lie within the answers of one profound question asked by author, Roxanne Emmerich: "What are you doing consistently to make your bank a top performer?"

This book gives you:

§ Answers in simple-to-follow steps

§ A proven sales system for sales and marketing that produces outstanding results every time

§ A blueprint for creating breakthroughs that turn ordinary banks into top performers

§ A way to double cross-sales results

§ No-fail, practical tactics that can significantly increase both your top and bottom lines

§ A method to triple the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and your salespeople

§ Means to craft customer retention into all you do

Customer Reviews:

Nicely outlined.......2004-06-01

While Roxanne does not introduce anything new to how to help a bank grow, she does bring many good ideas together, and express them in a straight forward and simple manner. It was interesting to read throught he book and identify things that we could be doing quite easily, but for reason we are not. Well written, simple, not revolutionary, but worth the time reading and using in planning sessions.

Business Process Improvement: The Breakthrough Strategy for Total Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness

Average customer rating:

Still Relevant and Valuable
The quality: the best competitive tool!
Excellent Starting Point
More Info.
This is the essential Quality book.

Business Process Improvement: The Breakthrough Strategy for Total Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness
H. James Harrington
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Quality Control | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Total Quality Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Entrepreneurship | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Business Process Improvement Workbook: Documentation, Analysis, Design, and Management of Business Process Improvement
Flowcharts: Plain & Simple: Learning & Application Guide
The Basics of Process Mapping
Business Process Change: A Manager's Guide to Improving, Redesigning, and Automating Processes (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)
Process Mapping, Process Improvement and Process Management

ASIN: 0070267685

Book Description

It's one of the hot topics for the 1990s--how to apply quality improvement techniques originally developed for the manufacturing sector to service industries. How to Take the Lead in Business Process Management details how to do it, providing a step-by-step formula that helps companies improve quality and productivity in the support areas. Here in one comprehensive volume is all the information an organization needs to start the improvement process right away: how to determine customer needs and expectations and deliver the best service; how to establish which processes drive your business; how to create process improvement teams and train team leaders; how to eliminate bureaucracy, simplify the process, and reduce processing time; how to measure progress and provide feedback to participants; how to document the levels of improvement and certify operations and activities; and how to ensure ongoing improvement. Two special features further enahance the value of this highly practical guide: (1) a chapter of case histories, showing the results of business process improvement, and (2) an exhaustive section that guides readers in the application of problem-solving methods, value analysis and process analysis techniques, perfection analysis, work simplification programs, and more.

Customer Reviews:

Still Relevant and Valuable.......2007-02-09

I recently re-read this book, first published in 1991, and found that - despite all the changes which have occurred in the business world since then - most of its material remains solid and relevant. In the Preface, H. James Harrington observes that organizations "are thinking differently about their processes. Processes are no longer viewed as just production processes. Today (i.e. in 1991), management realizes that that there are many processes that use material, equipment, and people to provide many types of outputs and services. They are called business processes, and today they are even more important to competitiveness than production processes." In this context, I am reminded of what Peter Drucker asserted (in 1963) in an article which appeared in the Harvard Business Review: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." Presumably this is what Harrington has in mind when suggesting that "automating a bad process not only ensures that we can do a bad job every times but that we can do it faster and with less effort than before."

Harrington carefully organizes his material within ten chapters, followed by an appendix that provides "Interview Guidelines." His pragmatic approach throughout the narrative focuses on what to do to initiate and then sustain business process improvement (BPI):

Focus on business processes
Set the stage for BPI
Organize for process improvement
Use flowcharting to draw a process "picture"
Understand the process characteristics
Streamline the process
Use measurements, feedback, and action to "load, aim, and fire"
Qualify (i.e. establish credibility for) process
Benchmark process

For me, some of the most interesting and valuable material is provided in Chapter 5, "Understanding the Process Characteristics." Harrington identifies five (Flow, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Cycle Time, and Cost) and explains what must be done to get them in proper alignment (hence the importance of a flow chart) in terms of people involved, objectives to be achieved, strategies and tactics to be executed, measurements, evaluation, and modification.

As they embark together on a journey to achieve the desired objectives, they should realize that they will be involved in a marathon, not a sprint. They must be persistent but patient.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out sources which were published later, such as Dan Madison's Process Mapping, James R. Press's Process Improvement and Process Management, Process Improvement Essentials: CMMI, Six SIGMA, and ISO 9001, John Jeston and Johan Nelis' Business Process Management: Practical Guidelines to Successful Implementation, and Paul Harmon's Business Process Change: A Manager's Guide to Improving, Redesigning, and Automating Processes.

The quality: the best competitive tool!.......2005-07-21

In the actual times of constant, requiring and increasing professional improvement, you just have just only an alternative: to isolate yourself from the world: It's not an optional choice, but a question of surviving.
The leadership process must involve all the team under his service; otherwise your destiny is uncertain in the values market: your market share will vanish silently and if you don't act and react faster than the business dynamic, you will be out of game: I think the comparison may be established without any risk: the quality in the Darwinian environment will become in an additional gene to survive.
You do not have to think but living according this life system. This adaptation process has a hard barrier, the resistance to change: most of people live with this mental premise: the minimum effort and the maximum boring.
Arnold Toynbee wrote about the minority creators, that attitude does not sound challenging for any artistic activity, because the quality, conceived as one the main ingredients of the creative work is inherent in the inner process.
I wrote an article in the local press in 1996 named "Art and quality" (available for any one who is interested) in which I remarked this ineffable premise.
James Hillman stated once that the first enemy of the art is the mediocrity, and the quality process in last instance follows that change of behavior.
In this sense Harrington's text is a fundamental guide that explains step by step a wholesome creation process of a qualitative thinking, you will obtain the practice tools and the extreme useful basic elements available for any person.

Excellent Starting Point.......2004-09-04

This book was highly recommended to me and it did not dissappoint. Simple yet powerful practices and principles are clearly laid out in an easily understood manner. I now have a foundation to build upon with future readings on the subject of BPI.

More Info........1999-09-08

I rate it a 2 because it didn't give that much information. Some people just don't have enough money to go out and buy books. Especially young adults on a fixed income. When I come to the internet I expect to learn and read, not spend my money. Thank You

This is the essential Quality book........1999-07-20

This book is a great investement. This book explains much more than Business Process Improvement, it also breaks down the sub categories of Quality management into easy to digest pieces. Harrington makes the complex/theoretical Quality "mechanics" easy to understand. He explains today's business trends which can help any business become more productive.

Manufacturing Industries have been using these Quality techniques for years and Harrington helps any business adopt these "tried & true" measures. I recommend this book to anyone who is in the Quality field, or for anyone who is embarking in TQM.

Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies from the World's Greatest Mentors
Average customer rating:

Mentoring Lessons From Some Of The Best And Brightest

Well Organized & Great Ideas For Business & Life

This book helped my business grow alot

Powerful, Simple, & Useful

Helped increase sales by 77% in my 2 retail stores

Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies from the World's Greatest Mentors
Mark Victor Hansen , Robert G. Allen , and Bob Proctor
Manufacturer: Mission Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Leadership | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

You were born rich: Now you can discover and develop those riches

TurboCoach: A Powerful System for Achieving Breakthrough Career Success

Spiritual Marketing: A Proven 5-Step Formula for Easily Creating Wealth from the Inside Out

Life's Missing Instruction Manual : The Guidebook You Should Have Been Given at Birth

Simpleology: The Simple Science of Getting What You Want

ASIN: 0974961809

Book Description

If you want to create a business breakthrough, then this is the book for you. It gives you the tools and confidence to overcome challenges associated with today's superheated world so you can take quantum leaps forward in your business and financial development. In each chapter you:

Get the time-tested resources you want: Discover powerful strategies, systems, and insights in five areas you must master to thrive in today's new economy.

Learn from the best: Meet 61 of the world's most savvy and trusted business and financial mentors -- all in one compact volume.

Benefit quickly and easily: Gain maximum insights in minimum time from brief, specially formatted chapters.

Special Bonus: Get access to each mentor for those situations when you need more help.

Internationally-renowned business gurus from Ken Blanchard (of "The One Minute Manager" fame) to Dr. Stephen Covey (author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People") praise this book.

Millions of executives, business owners, and professionals have had breakthroughs thanks to the mentors in this book. Buy it now and let them start helping you, too.

Customer Reviews:

Mentoring Lessons From Some Of The Best And Brightest.......2007-04-12

More often than not, breakthroughs only occur after a long period of effort and preparation. This book highlights that fact through succinct and helpful profiles of successful individuals. Each section can be read alone, independent of the others, although the thread of focus, attention to detail and persistence is always there in the background as a lesson to be learned and continually reinforced. In my view, one of the better self-help and self-motivating books around.

Well Organized & Great Ideas For Business & Life.......2005-07-27

I truly enjoyed reading this book and I turn to it often for advice in many areas of my life. This book is written very much like the Chicken Soup For the Soul series. Several authors giving advice and ideas from their experiences. Something for everyone. The best part is that it is without all of the fluff most books fill themselves up with for the first couple chapters. Each author has a few pages to himself or herself and they get right to the point with their concepts and methods for life, business, and happiness. I received this book as a gift and I'd recommend it to anyone else.

This book helped my business grow alot.......2005-07-27

I've been in the wholesaling business since 92 and have had many ups and downs. 9/11 almost wiped me out and it forced me to run my business much better. Several authors of this book gave me ideas to use that have significantly helped my business stop losing money and start turning a nice profit with which I can support my family including 6 kids.

Just about every chapter was well written, but not all applied directly to my business. I'm sure some would benefit you more than me.

I found these to be the best authors in the book for me.

Brian Tracy because he helped me set clear goals and his approach got me motivated to try it. Unlike the usual goal setting I have done where I wouldn't implement much of it.

Maria Carlton because she helped me gain ideas how to run my family business more smoothly and without the nonsense and personal conflicts that comes with doing business with family (and especially in-laws!)

Jacquelyn Gernaey for her review of SWOT which I remembered from college but hadn't done lately.

Mark Victor Hansen also for his goal setting ideas which I use.

Jacquie Damgaard for her 15 communication mistakes that will destroy your business. I admit I was guilty of #2 assuming that saying something once is enough.

Michael Cannon for his focus on what my buyers want and not what I want to sell them. Retailers are fussy these days and I have to be more tolerant of their needs. I now picture their stores on a busy saturday and try to envision how my products will sit on their shelves.

Chris Philippi for his chapter on how retailers can see increases in sales just by rearranging their stores, improving their signage, offering discounts to customers when buying in volume, and for his focus on how customer service reps should behave and act towards customers. I actually think I benefitted more from his chapter because it allowed me to share these ideas with my retail clients and they appreciated it. I also updated my own POS signage and have watched retail sales of my products jump by over 14%.

A great book overall. I think they had the right idea making it appeal to so many people.

Marcellus Wallace
M. Wallace & Co.

Powerful, Simple, & Useful.......2004-10-10

This amazing book contains both the essence & the practical methodologies of the best business mentors/coaches. As opposed to other books, where you can normally find only one long theory that doesn't necessarily fits your business, here you can have a good idea over a wide range of proven methodologies. The main strength of this book is that you can easily implement the methodologies that you find to be best suitable for your own business, since the strategies are very down-to-earth and normally includes several examples. Whether you work with a coach or you are a coach, or just looking for creative and practical methods to bring amazing results to your own business - this is the book for you.

Helped increase sales by 77% in my 2 retail stores.......2004-10-05

Chris Philippi, one of the authors of Create The Business Breakthrough You Want, gave me an autographed copy of this book at a speaking engagement he gave for an audience of retailers. His chapter, "Increase Retail Sales Quickly & Easily (And Without Spending a Dime on Advertising)" supports the teachings of his seminar ... which is that the greatest amount of hidden profit is in your store everyday, walking around ... YOUR CUSTOMERS!

Chris discussed the strategy of "conversion ratio" which is how many shoppers make a purchase out of every 100 that walk through the door. Foolishly I believed we must have sold everybody. Using his test I discovered we only sell slighly more than 30%. We've taken measurs to improve this ASAP.

And now we sell to more than 40%. (This is resulted in more than a 30% jump in sales!)

The next big strategy Chris Philippi helped us with was how to increase our average sale. It has consistenly been around $40 for our new store and around $28 at our old store.

Using Chris Philippi 's strategies of bundling complimentary items together, volume discounting, improved signage, and more effective POS displays, we've watched our average sale jump by more than 25% in each store.

This increase in my business has served an extra bonus as well. I've cut back on much of the advertising I felt was being wasteed. I no longer do those coupon packs that failed to bring much result and only advertise in one newspaper and not the others anymore.

Total in the 6 months since using the program designed by Philippi Marketing & Associates, my retail stores have achieved an increase in sales of close to one million dollars.

Needless to say I highly recommend this book. Retail store owners should skip right to page 186.

Sincerely,

Pam Sivol
Partner
Bilbo Stores, Inc.
"Where childen come to play and parents come for great prices."

Make Peace With Anyone: Breakthrough Strategies to Quickly End Any Conflict, Feud, or Estrangement

Average customer rating:

Excellent and amazingly easy to put into practice.
Blah blah blah
Psychological tips that works!!!
Make Peace with Anyone :Breakthrough Strategies to Quickly End Any Conflict, Feud, or Estrangement
Priceless Information

Make Peace With Anyone: Breakthrough Strategies to Quickly End Any Conflict, Feud, or Estrangement
David J. Lieberman
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Interpersonal Relations | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Parenting | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Health Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Parenting Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Parenting & Families | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

How to Change Anybody: Proven Techniques to Reshape Anyone's Attitude, Behavior, Feelings, or Beliefs
Never Be Lied to Again: How to Get the Truth In 5 Minutes Or Less In Any Conversation Or Situation
Get Anyone to Do Anything: Never Feel Powerless Again--With Psychological Secrets to Control and Influence Every Situation
Instant Analysis
You Can Read Anyone

ASIN: 0312281544

Amazon.com

Behaviorist David Lieberman thinks all conflicts have something in common. Whether you're dealing with the complaining customer, the coworker with charisma bypass surgery, or the fallout from forgetting a friend's birthday, the resolution lies in understanding what he calls the "conflict recipe." The ingredients of all conflicts are fear and perceived loss of respect, says Lieberman. When people and events don't respond as we planned, we fear a loss of control. We compensate and translate this fear--and the lowered sense of esteem it brings--into anger. Ergo, conflict resolution is accomplished by offering the injured party the ingredients for restoring self-regard and a sense of control.

Based on this recipe, Lieberman creates dozens of step-by-step scenarios for resolving conflicts of every shape, including family money feuds, contretemps with friends, personality clashes, passive-aggressive coworkers, and differences in values. Other particularly strong chapters direct readers to seek forgiveness for their own behavior and provide emergency techniques for standoffs and longtime estrangement. Lieberman explains his basic theory with clarity, and illustrates its practice with smart strategies and chapter summaries. This practicality and consistency allow Make Peace with Anyone to deliver on the title's promise. --Barbara Mackoff

Book Description

Make Peace with Anyone is the first book that shows readers how to quickly resolve any situation, no matter how long it's been going on, or how many people are involved.The techniques and psychological strategies presented here are simple, easy to understand, and work....fast.In this book readers will learn how to: *End any family feud *Get an apology from anyone *Jumpstart any relationship or friendship *Handle any passive-aggressive person *Get the respect you deserve from anyone *Dramatically improve any relationship *Get anyone to forgive you for anything *Align anyone to your way of thinking Dr. David Lieberman provides the path to permanent peace and will show you the way to Make Peace with Anyone.AUTHORBIO: David J. Lieberman, Ph.D., whose books have been translated into fifteen languages, is an internationally renowned leader in the field of human behavior.He has appeared on more than two hundred programs and is a frequent guest expert on national television and radio shows such as The Today Show, National Public Radio, The View, PBS, The Montel Williams Show, and AE.Dr. Lieberman holds a Ph.D, in psychology and is the creator of Neural-Dynamics Analysis, a revolutionary short-term therapy.He is a sought-after speaker, lecturer, and consultant across a spectrum of topics.Techniques based on his work have led to groundbreaking advancements in numerous fields and are used by governments, corporations, and professionals in more than twenty-five countries.He lives in South Florida.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent and amazingly easy to put into practice........2007-08-07

Wonder why people get hurt or angry? This book will reveal how our minds work and why pople react if treated differently in such an easy way that it is almost too good to believe.

Blah blah blah.......2006-11-05

It's the same story over and over and over and over. The whole book was a repetition of the first concept in every chapter. No eye - opening advice, and lame strategies.

Psychological tips that works!!!.......2006-04-07

This is an easy to read book plenty of psychological tips and advices that will help you got a better life. There are no tricks here, just proved techniques which being totally honest with yourself they will help you solve almost any personal, familiar or business problem. You will learn a very important think after reading this book: self esteem and respect is the solid base you must have and promote in any relationship you could have. Treat others like you want to be treated to; this is the big lesson Lieberman wants teach to us.

Make Peace with Anyone :Breakthrough Strategies to Quickly End Any Conflict, Feud, or Estrangement.......2005-07-07

This is an excellent book. It really is helpful as far as solving disagreements between people. It doesn't matter whether it is a spouse, friend or just an acquaintance whom you are having difficulty getting along with. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to mend any type of conflict between themselves and others.

Priceless Information.......2004-11-03

Even if you are not looking to make peace with anyone, this book contains priceless information on understanding your own behavior and others.

Juran Institute's Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond: Quality Performance Breakthrough Methods

Average customer rating:

Breakthrough among Six Sigma books!

Juran Institute's Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond: Quality Performance Breakthrough Methods
Juran Institute
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Quality Control | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Total Quality Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Business Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Engineering | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Professional & Technical | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Juran on Quality by Design: The New Steps for Planning Quality into Goods and Services
Juran's Quality Handbook
The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook: A Quick Reference Guide to 100 Tools for Improving Quality and Speed
Statistics for Six Sigma Made Easy
Juran on Leadership for Quality

ASIN: 0071422277

Book Description

Based on the Juran Institute’s breakthrough method, Juran’s Six Sigma: Breakthrough and Beyond goes beyond certification or implementation processes discussed in most six sigma texts to prepare an organization's managers -- at all levels -- to deal with the practical day-to-day human, structural, and technological issues which arise when initiating and maintaining a Six Sigma effort.

Juran's Six Sigma: Breakthrough and Beyond allows you to modify your program to suit your individual requirements. With this book, you get everything you need to improve and maintain Six-Sigma breakthrough performance long after the consultants have packed up and gone home.

Customer Reviews:

Breakthrough among Six Sigma books!.......2003-09-29

Six Sigma is all about breakthrough improvement. Without a breakthrough, achieving Six Sigma performance is impossible. Juran and Juran Institute are the most experienced in achieving and managing performance improvement. The Six Sigma: Breakthrough and Beyond book is unique as it is the only book that covers all aspects of achieving dramatic improvement.

Praveen Gupta
Author of Six Sigma Business Scorecard
and Co-author of Six Sigma Deployment

Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporations
Average customer rating:

Don't Waste Your Time

Six Sigma and the Industrial Engineer

A Six Sigma Overview

Old wine in a new bottle

Unfortunately too much of a commercial

Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporations
Mikel Phd Harry , and Richard Schroeder
Manufacturer: Currency
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Systems & Planning | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Quality Control | Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Business Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Look Inside Science Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola, and Other Top Companies are Honing Their Performance

The Six Sigma Handbook: The Complete Guide for Greenbelts, Blackbelts, and Managers at All Levels, Revised and Expanded Edition

The Ultimate Advantage

Working With Culture: How the Job Gets Done in Public Programs (Public Affairs and Policy Administration Series)

The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook: A Quick Reference Guide to 100 Tools for Improving Quality and Speed

ASIN: 0385494386
Release Date: 2006-03-21

Amazon.com

Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder think they've figured out a management program that really works. While at Motorola in the 1980s, they helped pioneer Six Sigma, a process that "guides companies into making fewer mistakes in everything they do--from filling out a purchase order to manufacturing airplane engines." Since then, the two have left Motorola and have turned Six Sigma into a lucrative business that saw over $100 million in consulting contracts in 1998. And now the book.

In Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporations, Harry and Schroeder explain Six Sigma and show how it's working at companies such as General Electric, Polaroid, and Allied Signal. The authors contend that most companies today are working at a "sigma" level of between 3.5 and 4, and that with just a one-sigma shift, companies will experience "a 20 percent margin improvement, a 12 to 18 percent increase in capacity, a 12 percent reduction in the number of employees," as well as "a 10 to 30 percent capital reduction." Sigma is a quality metric that counts the number of defects per million opportunities (DPMO). For example, a sigma level of 3.5 means that a process has 22,700 DPMO; a sigma level of 4.5, 1,350 DPMO; and a perfect six sigma, 3 DPMO.

At the heart of Six Sigma is the notion that quality saves money--lots of money. Harry and Schroeder argue that for most companies "the cost of quality is roughly 25 to 40 percent of sales revenue ... at six sigma the cost of quality declines to less than one percent of sales revenue." The idea is not to create quality-assurance programs but to eliminate the need for them altogether. When a company is operating at six sigma, costs that would otherwise go to inspection, rework, warranties, and customer service drop to the bottom line. Six Sigma is a compelling concept that many companies have tied their futures to. Well written, this book is a great introduction for investors, managers, and anyone who sees Six Sigma on the horizon. --Harry C. Edwards

Book Description

The extraordinary breakthrough management program--heralded by GE, Motorola, and AlliedSignal--that is sweeping corporate America with its unprecedented ability to achieve superior financial results.

Six Sigma is the most powerful breakthrough management tool ever devised, promising increased market share, cost reductions, and dramatic improvements in bottom-line profitability for companies of any size. The darling of Wall Street, it has become the mantra of Fortune 500 boardrooms around the world because it works.

What is Six Sigma? It is first and foremost a business process that enables companies to increase profits dramatically by streamlining operations, improving quality, and eliminating defects or mistakes in everything a company does, from filling out purchase orders to manufacturing airplane engines. While traditional quality programs have focused on detecting and correcting defects, Six Sigma encompasses something broader: It provides specific methods to re-create the process itself so that defects are never produced in the first place.

Most companies operate at a three- to four-sigma level, where the cost of defects is roughly 20 to 30 percent of revenues. By approaching Six Sigma--fewer than one defect per 3.4 million opportunities--the cost of quality drops to less than 1 percent of sales.

This is because the highest quality also results in the lowest costs. When GE reduced its costs from 20 percent to less than 10 percent, it saved a billion dollars in just two years--money that goes directly to the bottom line. This is the reason Wall Street and corporations as diverse as Sony, Ford, Nokia, Texas Instruments, Canon, Hitachi, Lockheed Martin, American Express, Toshiba, DuPont, and Polaroid have embarked on corporate-wide Six Sigma programs.

Six Sigma should be of paramount importance to every forward-thinking executive and manager determined to make their company world-class in their industry.

From the Hardcover edition.

Download Description

What is Six Sigma? It is first and foremost a business process that enables companies to increase profits dramatically by streamlining operations, improving quality, and eliminating defects or mistakes in everything a company does, from filling out purchase orders to manufacturing airplane engines. While traditional quality programs have focused on detecting and correcting defects, Six Sigma encompasses something broader: It provides specific methods to re-create the process itself so that defects are never produced in the first place.

Customer Reviews:

Don't Waste Your Time.......2004-02-05

This is a poorly written 300 page piece of marketing fluff for the Six Sigma Academy consulting group. Either save your time by skipping the book and contacting the consultants directly or find a different book if you really want to learn about six sigma

Six Sigma and the Industrial Engineer.......2002-11-23

The book gives a good general overview of the Six Sigma system. It offers little real ability to do projects UNLESS you are an industrial engineer (IE), in which case it gives you a concrete case to sell your solutions to management. Six Sigma appears to be a buzz word for PART of an indutrial engineers repitoire of skills. ...

A Six Sigma Overview.......2002-10-17

Six Sigma superficially is an excellent concept and this book serves the reader well in providing a detailed description of the concept. Early chapters take the reader on a journey through various companies providing an education on the importance of benchmarking, measuring defect rates, implementation strategies, and measuring six sigma performance. When the book begins to focus on implementation and deployment in later chapters the paint strokes begin to get very broad. The ideas provided to the reader are oversimplified and basic. For example, "Companies that improve their ability to consistently meet their customer's needs will produce positive bottom-line results." Really? I believe that the 1% of managers that are unware of this concept are not reading this book. The inability of this book to lay out a detailed plan for implementation results from the fact that each business is significantly different. If after reading this book the six sigma concept is appealing one could consider employing a consultant or creating a team for implementation. In my opinion the book also applies more to businesses with easily measurable performance such as manufacturing products as opposed to service providing businesses. Although customer satisfaction can be measured it is much easier to note an increase in monthly unit production. In summary six sigma is a difficult concept to initiate without the full commitment of your management team but the individual businessman will gain some valuable managerial skills through the book's good advice.

Old wine in a new bottle.......2002-02-08

As a person with exposure to Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model, I can say with conviction that the authors of this book have tried to sell the concept of Six-sigma the way corporate chieftains want to hear. i.e increase in bottom-line.

The book gives a good, superficial account of what is Six-Sigma with reference to implementations in Motorola, General Electric and Allied Signal.

While CMM is specific to software development process improvements (off-late its branching into HR aspects as well) six-sigma addressess other industries as well.

This book is a marketing tool kit for the authors' consulting practice.

I know of people who have gone through six-sigma certification process and have heard of people in GE commenting about its ineffectiveness.

Let me provide an analogy here and you will understand better.
Unless you the have the will-power to quit smoking, no amount of patch intakes will help you do that, right? Same case here...unless there's a management commitment and will-power to drive for process improvements (any model) success is hard to come by.

GE (If I recollect rightly) infact, made it mandatory to go through Six-sigma training for its employees to be promoted to a certain level higher-up.

Only such management commitment would help in process improvements (through any quality model)

I am sure many of you would be familiar with concepts and ideas of Six-Sigma. There's no doubt about it. Its plain common-sense.

In today's world, there are many industries that are head and shoulders above Six Sigma.

At the worst case, Six-sigma may be suitable for software companies whose quality practices are not something to write home about. But even then software companies have CMM. Why choose six-sigma which is more complex and expensive?

There are simpler and cost-effective techniques for smaller and medium sized companies in any industry. Such techniques evolve over a period of time with experience.

Nevertheless, this book is a good reading material that will throw lots of corporate jargons.

But please don't be misled by those jargons.

Unfortunately too much of a commercial.......2001-07-21

I purchased this book to learn more about the reemergence of six sigma as an approach to business change. Unfortunately this book is more of a commercial for the authors services than a discussion of the approach, where it can be applied and how to be successful with it.

The book first part of the book is filled with hyperbole and leans heavily on the idea that if it worked for GE and Motorola then it will work for you. It is important to recognize that the average six sigma project generates less than $100,000 in value. So the value of the technique is in spreading it out wide and far in your organization and letting the people doing the work improve what they do.

This is not an approach for people looking to do transformational change or to address signficiant structural issues.

To the authors credit they do describe the six sigma processes and steps at a level that you can understand it and have a conversation about six sigma at a dinner party. They achieve this result.

However, the book does not go much beyond this. It is very light on the applicaiton of this to services -- a real issue given that most people are employed in service related activities. It directs people to invest heavily in training black belts in the techniques whcih is the service provided by the authors.

For people who have an understanding of TQM techniques much of this is a reconfiguraiton of the techniques not the breakthrough revolution that the book describes.

Although this has more detail than Hammer's Rengineering the Corporation, this book is too heavy on the advertising messages to help people understand the technique and its applicability to their business.

How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate
Average customer rating:

Innovative Idea: Innovators are merely competent

Is innovation key to your business? This is the book for you!!

Rip, Mix and Burn

Disappointing and Boring

The Paradox of Innovation

How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate
Andrew Hargadon
Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Operations Research | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Systems & Planning | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Harvard Business School Press | By Publisher | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Organizational Change | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Entrepreneurship | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Business Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Harvard Business Review on Innovation

The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth

Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It

Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change

Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating And Profiting from Technology

ASIN: 1578519047

Book Description

Lessons from Famous "Invention Factories" Past and Present

Did you know that the incandescent lightbulb first emerged some thirty years before Thomas Edison famously "turned night into day"? Or that Henry Ford's revolutionary assembly line came from an unlikely blend of observations from Singer sewing machines, meatpacking, and Campbell's Soup?

In this fascinating study of innovation, engineer and social scientist Andrew Hargadon argues that our romantic notions about innovation as invention are actually undermining our ability to pursue breakthrough innovations.

Based on ten years of study into the origins of historic inventions and modern innovations from the lightbulb to the transistor to the Reebok Pump athletic shoe, How Breakthroughs Happen takes us beyond the simple recognition that revolutionary innovations do not result from flashes of brilliance by lone inventors or organizations. In fact, innovation is really about creatively recombining ideas, people, and objects from past technologies in ways that spark new technological revolutions.

This process of "technology brokering" is so powerful, explains Hargadon, because it exploits the networked nature-the social side-of the innovation process. Moving between historical accounts of labs and factory floors where past technological revolutions originated and field studies of similar processes in today's organizations, Hargadon shows how technology brokers create an enduring capacity for breakthrough innovations.

Technology brokers simultaneously bridge the gaps in existing networks that separate distant industries, firms, and divisions to see how established ideas can be applied in new ways and places, and build new networks to guide these creative recombinations to mass acceptance. How Breakthroughs Happen identifies three distinct strategies for technology brokering that managers can implement in their organizations.

Hargadon suggests that Edison and his counterparts were no smarter than the rest of us-they were simply better at moving through the networked world of their time. Intriguing, practical, and counterintuitive, How Breakthroughs Happen can help managers transform their own firms into modern-day invention factories.

Customer Reviews:

Innovative Idea: Innovators are merely competent.......2006-02-11

As an experienced engineer/researcher, I agree with Hargadon's basic thesis that great innovators in history have not been leagues above everyone else. More commonly they have simply had the proper education and are in a position to use analogies from other fields to solve a problem in a unique way. Indeed, I would go further and say they are usually merely competent, which does not mean average.

In my experience, the average researcher is usually ineffective. This is due to funding management systems which reward mediocrity, staying within bounds, and not taking risks. True innovators have usually taken personal and financial risks, which Hargadon does not emphasize. However, he emphasizes that once one has a successful invention, they should realize they will not stay unique long and must broker the technology to not wind up like Philo Farnsworth.

This is a new research area pioneered by Hargadon, so the book is not a finished compedium like a macroeconomics text, which can draw upon decades of research. The book is very readable and interesting. It draws upon a number of historical and recent examples. My only complaint is that he might overplay a few firms like IDEO, but later editions might add more examples.

Is innovation key to your business? This is the book for you!!.......2006-02-04

History of innovation process from Thomas Edison on. Focuses on examples of "brokering" processes by which existing ideas from multiple communities (isolated networks) are recombined to improve a new product/process/industry. Example Henry Ford's production line used the processes and ideas that were refined in Brewing, Sewing Machine Factories and Granaries.

Rip, Mix and Burn.......2005-08-12

School have thought you wrong. Great innovations are not different from the rest of us. On the contrary - they are engaged in the same activities as we are. When we Rip.Mix and Burn we are in fact innovating. This book teaches us that using the past as building blocks in creating the future has always been the most successful way to create new innovative products. As such the book is not only very helpful for corporate managers it also captures a central part of the present culture we live in.

Hargadon draws from past as well as present exemples. We get to see the innovative process at Edisons Menlo Park lab, Ideo, Design Continuum, HP, Microsoft among others but the fact stays the same- creativity is essentially a process of picking parts from the past and mixing them with each other to create something new. After reading this book sucessful innovation will no longer be a mystery and Hargadon gives some clear and very helpful advice in unlocking the creative potential of any organization.

A must read for not only for those engaging in innovation but also for all people trying to figure out the pros and cons with copyrights and downloads. And even if you are not att all interested in those topics you will have a lot of material to surprise your friends and families with at the next party.

I myself had a great time reading this book.

Disappointing and Boring.......2004-08-23

I had high hopes for this book. There are too many parts that feel self-serving and pointless. I felt like I was reading the author's autobiography rather than reading a book on innovation. The material on IDEO could have so much better from a content perspective but it stopped short of providing practical information to the reader. I found the preface by one of the author's former professors to be the best part of the book. I would not recommend buying this book.

The Paradox of Innovation.......2004-06-03

For many who read this book, it may well be a "surprising truth" that innovation succeeds "not by breaking free from constraints of the past but instead by harnessing the past in powerful new ways." I am among those who agree with the prophet Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun; also with the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who asserted that everything changes...but nothing changes. I also agree with Hargadon's emphasis on the importance of an innovation strategy which seeks to take full advantage of what can be learned from the past inorder to create the future. His core concept is "technology brokering" which he introduces and then rigorously examines in Part I; next, in Part II, he describes the "networked perspective" of innovation, explaining how this strategy influences the innovative process within organizations, regardless of their size and nature; finally, in Part III, Hargadon provides specific and practical examples of how various organizations have designed and then implemented technology brokering strategies. Throughout the narrative, Hargadon explores in depth with rigor and eloquence his core premise: "that breakthrough innovation comes by recombining the people, ideas, and objects of past technologies."

In this context, I am reminded of what Carla O'Dell asserts in If We Only Knew What We Know when discussing what she calls "beds of knowledge" which are "hidden resources of intelligence that exist in almost every organization, relatively untapped and unmined." She suggests all manner of effective strategies to "tap into "this hidden asset, capturing it, organizing it, transferring it, and using it to create customer value, operational excellence, and product innovation -- all the while increasing profits and effectiveness." Almost all organizations claim that their "most valuable assets walk out the door at the end of each business day." That is correct. Almost all intellectual "capital" is stored between two ears and much (too much) of it is, for whatever reasons, inaccessible to others except in "small change....there is no conclusion to managing knowledge and transferring best practices. It is a race without a finishing line."

I think this is precisely what Hargadon has in mind when insisting that the future is already here, that the "raw materials for the next breakthrough technology may [also] be already here [but probably] without assembly instructions," that decision-makers must find their "discomfort zones" rather than remain hostage to what Jim O'Toole calls "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom," and that they should build a "bridge" to their own strengths but also to their weaknesses because, as they perform, so will their organization. I agree with Hargadon that innovation must unfold at the ground level, "in the minds and hearts of the engineers and entrepreneurs who are doing the work." Also, that -- meanwhile -- they and their associates must be guided and informed, not only by their own organization's "beds of knowledge" but also by external sources of information concerning prior successes and failures of the innovation process elsewhere. In the final analysis, there is good news and bad news. First the bad news: "New ideas are built from the pieces of old ones, and nobody works alone." Now the good news: "New ideas are built from the pieces of old ones, and nobody works alone."

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books