Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.
But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?
The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?
The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.
The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?
Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.
The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:
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Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
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The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
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A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
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The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.
“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”
Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?
Customer Reviews:
A very thought-provoking book for people trying to grow their business........2007-10-02
This was a very interesting book for me to read. I have to imagine that I am in a pretty narrow target market for this book, though the concepts may be broadly applied. I work for a small business and can see many opportunities to put this book's findings to work.
The book tells the various stories of companies that made a transition from a market participant to market leader and saw sustained success for at least 15 years. The author was able to identify a few common factors between these companies, and he and his research team present them as a model for us to follow.
I had but one small issue, which is probably not information that contributes to the rest of the research. They detail radical decisions made by upper management, sometimes completely changing the face of an established business. I figure there must be a largely disproportionate number of business that fail when they made the same or a similar move. I would have liked to see some detail behind how those successful companies came to make that decision. The decision itself was largely overlooked.
Like many "business" books, I feel that much of what was written here was largely common sense. They weren't necessarily ideas that I have had or would have come up with on my own, but as I read them they seemed mundane in analysis. It made the reading slow going, but there was a silver lining -- for instant gratification, each chapter ends with a few pages of main concepts extracted from the text.
There was some very insightful research in Good to Great. The common elements identified were relevant and practical. It would not be an easy model to follow, but if it were it would defeat its own purpose to isolate those corporate characteristics that set successful companies apart. If you have ever wondered what steps you should follow to take your company from Good to Great, this is a book you should read (even if it is just the chapter summaries).
"Good" is not "good enough"........2007-10-02
"Good" is not "good enough". When organizations and/or individuals settle for "good" as "good enough" they set themselves up to become obsolete. "Good to Great" looks at those organizations that decided never to settle for "good enough" and became "Great". How about you? Are you striving to become great at what you do, or have you settled for being good enough to get by? Does the organization that you work for have a plan to move from good to great? Are you a part of the change that will take your company to the next level or do you believe that your company is "good enough" right where it is?
I believe there is more value to be gained by pushing good organizations to become great than trying to turn mediocre organizations into good ones. The data presented in "Good to Great" shows just how much value can be gained by those willing to make the leap to Great. The book also shows you what principles of business those companies that made the leap had to adopt.
My favorite chapters are chapter two (Level 5 Leadership) and three (First Who...Then What). Level 5 Leadership address the benefits of having personal humility combined with a strong will to build something great. We have to many leaders at the top that have let their egos become more important than the organizations they run. "Good to Great" explains how the leaders of those companies that made the leap avoided the ego trap while having great ambitions for building something exceptional. Everyone who wishes to become a leader that makes a difference should read this chapter.
"First Who...Then What" does a good job of showing how great companies put "talent" at the top of the agenda. Any leader who wants to build a strong organization must put "talent" at the top of their agenda. Jim Collins address two critical issues companies need to address when it comes to recruiting and developing their talent. He shows us why it is important to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus. And then goes on to explain how great companies get the people in the right seat. How many people in your organization are in the wrong seat? How many should be taken off the bus entirely? Companies are not good at hiring the right people and then are terrible at assigning them to the right job. This chapter is a must for anyone involved in the hiring of talent.
I also recommend spending some time at jimcollins.com. I have visited and revisited this site to get more information on the concepts presented in "Good to Great". Buy the book, then go to the website and start your own journey from good to great.
Larry Kevin Adams
theactionator.com
Good To Great.......2007-09-28
Our company is taking the advice of the book to heart. We have formed our "hedgehog" group and all are excited. We want to work in an environment of greatness. The book shows us the way. We have 7 of our employees who have agreed to "donate their time" at lunch several times a month to help us identify our circles. I would recommend this book to any company or organization that truly wants to have their maximum impact in the arena in which they operate!
My Business Bible.......2007-09-24
If I have a bible for business, this is it. First who then what is the only way to go!
Still applicable in 2007.......2007-09-19
I enjoyed the thought provoking aspect of this book. The different levels of leadership, the hedgehog concept are the two takeaways from this book.
How many of us fall into the trap of being everything to everyone? Most I suspect from the findings presented in the book.
Read this book to find out how you can strive to be a Level 5 leader. I found the book very insightful. Jim Collins and his team hit a homerun!
Book Description
Praise for THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESS
"Evaluating the success of an individual or company is a lot like judging a trapper by his pelts. Charles Koch has a lot of pelts. He has built Koch Industries into the world's largest privately held company, and this book is an insider's guide to how he did it. Koch has studied how markets work for decades, and his commitment to pass that knowledge on will inspire entrepreneurs for generations to come."
—T. Boone Pickens
"A must-read for entrepreneurs and corporate executives that is also applicable to the wider world. MBM is an invaluable tool for engendering excellence for all groups, from families to nonprofit entities. Government leaders could avoid policy failures by heeding the science of human behavior."
—Richard L. Sharp, Chairman, CarMax
"My father, Sam Walton, stressed the importance of fundamental principles—such as humility, integrity, respect, and creating value—that are the foundation for success. No one makes a better case for these principles than Charles Koch."
—Rob Walton, Chairman, Wal-Mart
"What accounts for Koch Industries' spectacular success? Charles Koch calls it Market-Based Management: a vision that nurtures personal qualities of humility and integrity that build trust and the confidence to enhance future success through learning from failure, and a culture of thinking in terms of opportunity cost and comparative advantage for all employees."
—Vernon Smith, 2002 Nobel laureate in economics
"In a very thoughtful, creative, and understandable way, Charles Koch explains how he has used the science of human behavior to create a culture that has produced one of the world's largest and most successful private companies. A must-read for anyone interested in creating value."
—William B. Harrison Jr., Former Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
"The same exacting thought, rooted in the realities of human nature, that the framers of the U.S. Constitution put into building a nation of entrepreneurs, Charles Koch has framed to build an enduring company of entrepreneurs—a company larger than Microsoft, Dell, HP, and other giants. Every entrepreneur should study this book."
—Verne Harnish, founder, Young Entrepreneurs' Organization, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, CEO, Gazelles Inc.
Customer Reviews:
The Science of Success.......2007-09-30
I really enjoyed this book as you get to get into the mind of Charles Koch. I would have given it a 5 star, except I felt he could have added more substance to the book.
Amy Buick.......2007-09-16
The Science of Success packages a lifelong study of the conditions that support or conversely, stymie greater prosperity for all, adding a new dimension to the definition of corporate responsibility. I will continue to recommend this book to young, promising entrepreneurs who not only seek success but more importantly desire to add value to society.
Management Philosophies and Methods of a Successful Long-Term Leader.......2007-09-04
The privately held Koch companies have compounded their book value by about 20 percent a year since 1967, an enviable record that's made even more impressive by realizing the diversified nature of the enterprises the companies include. At the time of the writing, the combined firms account for $90 billion in annual revenues and employ 80,000 people in 60 countries. That's big-league success. What's more remarkable is that the author, Charles G. Koch, has headed these operations for 40 years while this success was accomplished. When Mr. Koch speaks, wise people should listen.
In The Science of Success, Mr. Koch describes the management philosophy and methods he has employed to direct his organizations. A well-read and thoughtful engineer, Mr. Koch's methods are not unique to him, nor are they originated by him. Rather the philosophies and methods are ones that he has combined in a novel way that few companies pursue.
Mr. Koch is a bigger thinker than that, seeing his methods (Market-Based Management) as a stepping stone between how individual performance can be improved and how liberty can free societies to accomplish more.
In focusing on Market-Based Management, Mr. Koch describes five key elements that need to be combined with one another for full effectiveness:
1. Vision (using experimentation to improve value delivered for customers based on a sense of what the best opportunities are and what the organization can most effectively accomplish)
2. Virtue and Talents (attract and retain people who want to follow the right principles with appropriate talents for the tasks)
3. Knowledge Processes (systematically add to, disseminate, and apply knowledge related to profitability)
4. Decision Rights (encourage people to become better decision makers after they have developed their skills and to be accountable for the decisions they make)
5. Incentives (reward employees as much as possible by the long-term value they have helped deliver for the organization)
Several things are noteworthy about the book that will interest you. Today, many organizations have "vision statements" which encourage everyone to do good while doing well. Mr. Koch finds that statements inadequate: He encourages instead that employees find out what improvements will expand sales and profits the most and focus on those . . . that's what he means by vision. Back when strategic planning was being formulated, that was the original meaning of vision . . . a meaning that's mostly been lost since then. I endorse Mr. Koch's view as an important one.
Another of Mr. Koch's valuable perspectives is to measure by opportunity cost: When you picked up a dime while a $5 bill rolled by, you didn't gain a dime . . . you lost $4.90. In today's quarter-by-quarter drive for profits among public companies, opportunity cost is all but ignored. That's a major mistake.
Mr. Koch is also a believer in being sure that the message is heard and understood. He points out how often when introducing new practices that no improvements followed because people didn't understand the purposes of the initiatives.
I found his concern about how success hobbles organizations matches my own research on the stalls (bad mental models and habits) that plague successful organizations . . . and turn them into unsuccessful organizations.
If you decide to read only one book about how to be an effective business leader this year, I encourage you to make it this one.
I also suggest you go further and visit Mr. Koch's company. You won't really understand what he's talking about until you see people applying this management philosophy.
Bravo, Mr. Koch!
A Distinct Worldview .......2007-08-06
Before reading The Science of Success, I had heard of Koch Industries and Charles Koch in passing, but had never really thought about the company, its people or, most importantly, their philosophy. After reading it, however, I've come to understand, just a bit, why Koch and his company are so successful in every way.
His Market-Based Management is much more than a recipe for success. It's a distinct, ethical and principled worldview in a world and age often lacking in well-thought out and much-less adhered to worldviews. I am not a businessman and work for myself. Nevertheless I found The Science of Success far more than just a book which explains why the company is so successful. The worldview expounded upon by Koch involves an understanding of history, human nature, the economy, culture and politics, among others. He draws on these as he explains, in greater detail, his Market-Based Management and how it applies to Koch Industries. But I believe it can be applied not only to business, but individuals as well and how we live our lives. The subjects of vision, virtue and talents, knowledge processes, decision rights and incentives (the five dimensions which make up MBM), can all be applied to us as we go about our busy lives, in our interactions with family, friends, co-workers, bosses, and others. It is this philosophy which makes The Science of Success an important read to those wanting to make a positive impact on the world around them.
Integrating Theory and Practice.......2007-08-06
By putting complex philosophical ideas into a practical context, Charles Koch's primer for prosperity demonstrates that voluntary exchange and individual responsibility are at the heart of success. Koch recognizes that his investment is in people--and that encouraging each employee find his inner entrepreneur creates value for the organization. Businessmen and bureaucrats alike will benefit from Koch's reasoned and readable discussion of how markets foster transformation, innovation, and ultimately, a freer society.
Book Description
The Toyota Way Fieldbook is a companion to the international bestseller The Toyota Way. The Toyota Way Fieldbook builds on the philosophical aspects of Toyota's operating systems by detailing the concepts and providing practical examples for application that leaders need to bring Toyota's success-proven practices to life in any organization. The Toyota Way Fieldbook will help other companies learn from Toyota and develop systems that fit their unique cultures.
The book begins with a review of the principles of the Toyota Way through the 4Ps model-Philosophy, Processes, People and Partners, and Problem Solving. Readers looking to learn from Toyota's lean systems will be provided with the inside knowledge they need to
- Define the companies purpose and develop a long-term philosophy
- Create value streams with connected flow, standardized work, and level production
- Build a culture to stop and fix problems
- Develop leaders who promote and support the system
- Find and develop exceptional people and partners
- Learn the meaning of true root cause problem solving
- Lead the change process and transform the total enterprise
The depth of detail provided draws on the authors combined experience of coaching and supporting companies in lean transformation. Toyota experts at the Georgetown, Kentucky plant, formally trained David Meier in TPS. Combined with Jeff Liker's extensive study of Toyota and his insightful knowledge the authors have developed unique models and ideas to explain the true philosophies and principles of the Toyota Production System.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Lean Mfg Reference Book.......2007-09-28
For those interested in learning about a Lean environment, this is probably one of the best references.
Implementing Lean Principles.......2007-07-19
This is an excellent on how to implement lean in a manufacturing facility. The plant leadership at our site has used this book to start a bookclub, reading one chapter a week and reviewing it the next. I wish we would have read this book sooner. It would have help to reduce a lot of frustrations. The book also covers Toyota's leadership structure and suggests how to go about implementing lean on the shopfloor if you are just beginning the journey.
Practical and useful "how to" companion to the Toytota Way.......2007-07-16
Book description: what's the key message?
While Jeffrey Liker's book The Toyota Way was an examination of the 14 Principles of the Toyota Way, it was not an explicit "how to" guide at a tactical level. This follow up book is intended as the more practical guide to Becoming Lean (to borrow the title of an earlier book written by Liker). The Fieldbook is organized in the framework of Toyota's 4 P's:
* Philosophy
* Process
* People and Partners
* Problem Solving
The book starts first with "philosophy," not lean tools. It develops an important relationship between the two. The book, in its entirety, emphasizes that copying Toyota tools, regardless of how thoroughly, is not enough to become lean. Early chapters talk about defining your company's purpose and philosophy, providing many examples of Toyota's purpose and unique view of their place in society and the world. From there, the Fieldbook guides you through a reasonable progression of lean topics and methods to work with in your own company. While there is no simple linear progression through a lean transformation, the authors address the challenge well in structuring the flow of the book. Typical "early" stages of lean learning and implementation are covered first, including learning how to identify waste, establishing process stability, and developing flow. The book spends more time on organizational culture and management methods, as opposed to tools. The book remains practical and actionable, rather than theoretical.
A strong central portion of the book focuses on developing leaders, how to lead in a lean environment, and how to develop "exceptional" employees. One particular highlight are the detailed examples, including a breakdown of the roles of Group Leaders, Team Leaders, and Team Members in a lean setting, not covered in most lean books.
The book recognizes that companies are not Toyota as a starting point. Rather, they are trying to become a Toyota-like lean organization. There is a chapter on respecting suppliers and managing them as Toyota does. The last sections of the book cover Toyota problem solving and implementation strategies, including a discussion of the pros and cons of different common lean transformation or implementation approaches, including kaizen events and the development of a "Company Production System."
How does it contribute to the lean knowledge base?
This book is a unique compilation of Toyota Production System methods, concepts, and philosophies. There are many adaptable examples of Toyota tools and methods, including Standard Work Combination tables, Cross Training matrices, 5 Why's problem solving analysis, and A3 reports. There are many new case study examples in the book that will be helpful, even to an experienced lean practitioner.
The book is also unique in that it is co-authored by a former Toyota team leader, an American, as opposed to reading an older book by Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno or consultant Shigeo Shingo.
What are the highlights? What works?
The book is very readable and easy to understand. Its layout and format borrows many of the good practices of the "For Dummies" series. You might consider this to be a "Toyota Production System For Dummies" book. There are many callouts with icons indicating "Tips" and "Traps" to look out for in your own lean implementation, to help avoid common lean implementation mistakes or failure modes.
This is very helpful, as the authors realize that it can be difficult work implementing lean. They never talk down to you or make you feel bad that you might struggle with the Toyota Way in your own environment, because you are not Toyota.
Furthermore, co-author David Meier was a group leader at Toyota. Many perspectives on Toyota come from the process or industrial engineering perspective, but the perspective of front-line supervisor is of significant value and often overlooked.
What are the weaknesses? What's missing?
While this is clearly a field book in its application focus, it is less clear how it is connected to companion book, The Toyota Way. The 14 principles of that book are mentioned briefly but are not integrated into this book. The Fieldbook has value as a standalone volume, but those looking for a specific companion to The Toyota Way will be disappointed.
You might be surprised to not find much information about Kanban, a process made famous by Toyota. Although the concept of pull is covered, there is no chapter on Kanban or examples of calculations or Kanban cards. Thankfully, there are many references and other books available on this topic.
How should I read this to get the most out of it?
The book can be read straight through. For an experienced lean practitioner, it can easily be used as a reference book. Topics are well organized and tools are easy to find with a well-documented index. For example, if you want an example of an A3 Report, you will find many pages of explanation about the tool and how to use you. You will also find fully completed examples of the tool. This is extremely helpful and adds to the book's value as a practical reference.
Great addition to Toyota Way but not as good.......2007-05-27
The Toyota Way Fieldbook is excellent and it's a great addition to the Toyota Way. It's hard to write a book as good as the Toyota Way, this book is good, but not as good as Toyota Way.
When I started reading the fieldbook, I was highly dissapointed. The first 200 pages basically just explained the basic lean tools. It's good if you do not know them, but I felt that the book didn't add anything to the existing lean literature. I expected more from Jeff Liker, especially after the excellent Toyota Way.
Part IV of the book starts around page 200 and talks about developing people. Here, for me, the book took a turn and became better the more I continued. (I also immediately ordered the new Toyota Talent book to hope to get more information on this side of Toyota). The organizational structures and training descriptions was very concrete, as I would expect in a fieldbook. Then Part V started around page 300 and it was... excellent. It's about find root causes and continuous learning. Just chapter 14 is worth the whole book. The description of the "therefore" method and it's relationship to the 5why's is very important. (this section talks about how 5why is a method for finding the root cause, but it's just as important to abstract the problem in "the true problem" so that you got more flexibility in ways of solving it).
The last part is about managing the change. The stories are all very nice and concrete. The advise is useful.
I really like this book, especially chapter 14! It gave me, again, new insights in Toyota's way of working and especially it's culture. The stories made it concrete and they were fun to read. Recommended, after you finished the Toyota Way.
Ideal companion for other Lean texts.......2007-04-29
I got this book from a VP of continuous improvement along with a few others that they were using to implement Lean. It is important to note that Lean is the Toyota system/version of JIT, and these terms should not be used interchangeably (i.e. JIT is a subset of Lean). After reading it and taking extensive notes, here's a summary review.
Pro:
-Emphasizes Leader Standard Work as the critical element that all else hinges on and in my view is perhaps the most important lesson from this book
-Describes objectives and Toyota perspective of various tools, going beyond describing tool use that help prevent common misuses of tools, simple as they may be... focuses a great deal of energy on methodology or tool "intent" rather than "results"
-In addition to giving Toyota specific thinking and perspective, reinforces that even an aggressive multiple-year teaching/learning only provides a basic and crude level of Lean skill despite how easy the concepts are... the complexities and difficulties are really rooted in how different the methodology and thought process is
-Specifically calls out "Tips" and "Traps" behind various Lean methods
-Excellent chapter summaries
Con:
-A tempting shortcut for those who have too much work and too little time, wish to learn "the Lean toolkit," or those looking for ready-made recipes. I think that this sort of thinking is a trap which really neglects the greater opportunities Lean will present...
Bottom Line: A must have for the Lean enthusiast, however, I suggest first "The Toyota Way" and then "Creating a Lean Culture" as prerequisite readings. Also, any of the Womack series of texts are also excellent and worth reading as well to add a full and deep understanding of the Lean basics.
Book Description
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE SUCCESS!
You already know the Starbucks story. Since 1992, its stock has risen a staggering 5,000 percent! The genius of Starbucks success lies in its ability to create personalized customer experiences, stimulate business growth, generate profits, energize employees, and secure customer loyalty-all at the same time.
The Starbucks Experience contains a robust blend of home-brewed ingenuity and people-driven philosophies that have made Starbucks one of the world's “most admired” companies, according to Fortune magazine. With unique access to Starbucks personnel and resources, Joseph Michelli discovered that the success of Starbucks is driven by the people who work there-the “partners”-and the special experience they create for each customer. Michelli reveals how you can follow the Starbucks way to
- Reach out to entire communities
- Listen to individual workers and consumers
- Seize growth opportunities in every market
- Custom-design a truly satisfying experience that benefits everyone involved
Filled with real-life insider stories, eye-opening anecdotes, and solid step-by-step strategies, this fascinating book takes you deep inside one of the most talked-about companies in the world today.
For anyone who wants to learn from the best-and be the best-The Starbucks Experience is a rich, heady brew of unforgettable user-friendly ideas.
Customer Reviews:
All fluff no substance.......2007-10-05
This is a charming book and I've learned a lot about Starbucks by reading it. However, it was all fluff and no real substance and it came across as a PR piece for Starbucks.
If you're expecting a book that will give you some insight as to how to replicate the "Starbucks experience", you won't find that here. In truth, I read 1/2 to 3/4 of this book and gave up on it. After a while, it became tiresome to read anecdote after anecdote without any real substance behind it.
Highly Recommended Reading.......2007-10-03
Why has Starbuck's seen such phenomenal success and growth in a highly competitive niche? How have they becoming synonymous with coffee the way Kleenex is to tissue?
Michelli makes the case that it's partly consistent quality coffee, but much more so the whole "experience" consumers can expect at any Starbucks.
The author breaks down what makes up the Starbucks Experience into:
1) MAKE IT YOUR OWN
2) EVERYTHING MATTERS
3) SURPRISE AND DELIGHT
4) EMBRACE RESISTANCE
5) LEAVE YOUR MARK
He fills the book with stories that demonstrate the points made which makes it very readable. I did find the distinction between items 1-3 above a little vague and that many of the examples could easily have fit into one of the other categories he created.
I would be fascinated to hear more about how Starbuck's screens to get employees that give service well beyond the norm.
If your vocation involves any level of customer service this is for you and great to share with your friends, employees and business partners.
starbucks is special because it is personal.......2007-09-20
this book shows why starbucks is special. At first blush, it is so glowing in its praise that it seems like propaganda. But the sheer volume of anecdotes and the homely feel of many of them quickly sink in. One in particular sticks in my mind. A starbucks shop was hiring partners (employees) and decided to hire some local homeless people. The partners chipped in to buy them suitable clothes until they could earn enough to stand on their own. Now tell me, why can't other companies do this? good question.
Attention to Details.......2007-09-16
The Starbucks Experience provides an interesting insite as to keeping it simple and staying focused on details. From the fields to the customers, a total focus on details makes the Starbucks Experience a terrific guide on how to conduct business.
REALLY LIKED IT - BOUGHT 4 MORE COPIES!.......2007-08-29
A quick read with tasty principles and mouth-watering ideas. I bought 4 copies for a church organization's staff to give them guidance as they grow to be a dynamic place in their community. (And, because Starbuck's in one of their favorite places to buy beverages!)
Book Description
KISS THEORY GOOD BYE
NEW BUSINESS BOOK GIVES TEXTBOOK THEORY THE BIG KISS OFF!
Business Expert Writes the Playbook on 'How To' Rapidly Increase Performance and Profit in Any Company.
Bob Prosen cuts like a laser through the fog of political correctness and business-as-usual in his new book, Kiss Theory Good Bye: Five Proven Ways to Get Extraordinary Results in Any Company.
Prosen says he's had enough of the business books that tell readers what to do rather than how. "Forget the platitudes and feel-good anecdotes from a few CEOs and business gurus. Get to the point—the how-to details that can actually help leaders get the results they need in the companies they run," Prosen counsels.
With the same genius that he used to turn around inherited, underperforming operations within 12 to 18 months in some of the world's most prominent companies including AT&T, Sprint, Hitachi, NCR, and Sabre, Prosen delivers a straightforward, no-nonsense, battle proven guide to accelerate performance and profits in any organization.
"A smart business leader can achieve unprecedented bottom-line results by forsaking abstract discussions and vague textbook theory, shutting down endless excuses, killing off company politics, holding people accountable, and simply doing things that clearly work," says Prosen.
Kiss Theory Good Bye shows you how to quickly and consistently achieve extraordinary results in leadership, sales effectiveness, operational excellence, financial management, and customer loyalty.
Packed with easy to follow, step-by-step instructions, this book will show you how to
•Achieve consistent results, quarter after quarter
•Align your entire workforce to meet the organization's top objectives
•Increase accountability so you get the results you need
•Attract and retain top talent
•Beat your competition and lock in customer loyalty
•Reduce costs while increasing quality
•React less and have more time to plan
•Make your job easier and your organization run more smoothly
Contrary to the book's seemingly corporate focus, readers quickly point out that his business execution principles apply equally to not-for-profit organizations. As Los Angeles Unified School District Business Manager Michael A. Eugene reports, "Kiss Theory Good Bye is a compelling read, offering a toolbox to public- and private-sector managers alike to help establish clear focus, increase accountability, effective management, and measurable outcomes."
While other business books try to tell you what to do to run your business better, faster and for greater profit, Bob Prosen's Kiss Theory Good Bye gives you the tools and step-by-step directions to make it happen. For leaders who demand superior results, Kiss Theory Good Bye delivers the goods for taking immediate - and lasting - action.
My goal for sharing my knowledge and experiences is to give you the answers you need to immediately enable your enterprise to achieve its full potential. Leaders want their ideas and initiatives consistently carried out without hassle and rework. They want accountability, and value results over theory. I wrote Kiss Theory Good Bye with two principles in mind. First, theory would be replaced with proven tools, tactics, and answers that get results. Second, all of the information must be relevant and directly applicable to today's business challenges without the need for translation.
Until now this information has only been available piecemeal, leaving you to find, assemble, and translate it to fit your business. You might have gathered some of it through mentors, by trial and error, or by surviving the "school of hard knocks." But by the time you finish reading Kiss Theory Good Bye, you will have the answers you need to immediately begin improving results throughout your entire organization. And you will find that this book will remain a useful resource for quick, proven answers to resolve your most pressing business challenges.
Customer Reviews:
Required Reading for MBA Students.......2007-09-24
From the moment I read Prosen's book, I knew it had to be required reading for the MBA class I'm teaching. Because my day job puts me in the trenches with organizations of all sizes, I knew that this book hit the nail on the head. While other books make the case for getting from "good to great" this book creates the roadmap for HOW to achieve it. With relevant examples, usable tools, and a down-to-earth common sense approach, Prosen provides a timeless tool of common sense for senior leaders of organizations. He also provides applicable reasons for addressing the "nay sayers" in the organization. If you're tired of books that provide a lot of fluff with little take-back-to-your-desk-application, then get this book. My MBA students have assured me that they are keeping this book in their library.
Practical advice and a powerful read!.......2007-08-11
Our CEO group used the content from this book to transform our businesses in 2007! The tools and concepts are both practical and measurable. To date it has helped our group increase enterprise value by over $500M! The entry price of this book seems pretty reasonable for the return.
There are better places to spend your business-book dollars.......2007-07-19
Thirty-one Amazon customers loved Kiss Theory Good Bye: Five Proven Ways to Get Extraordinary Results in Any Company (Bob Prosen, Gold Pen Publishing, 2006, 256 pages). I didn't. I'm more inclined to agree with Publishers Weekly that this book is "prosaic" and "utterly familiar." There are better places to spend your business-leadership-book money.
Prosen set out to provide answers and tools to help business leaders overcome barriers to success. Drawing on 25 years of consulting experience, and on the self-ratings of some 66 leaders, Prosen claims to have found five crippling habits that prevent success and five attributes of successful organizations.
Unless you just crawled out of a cave, you already know what it takes to succeed:
Superior leadership
Sales effectiveness
Operational excellence
Financial management
Customer loyalty.
You need to read many books, watch many leaders in action, and try many things yourself to really understand each of these. Prosen devotes between 14 and 24 pages to each one. That's just not enough to give you any new insights or ideas.
If I were you, I'd turn to these books instead:
For general leadership insight, look to Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right and 12: The Elements of Great Managing.
For sales effectiveness, turn to Strategic Customer Care : An Evolutionary Approach to Increasing Customer Value and Profitability and Delivering Profitable Value: A Revolutionary Framework to Accelerate Growth, Generate Wealth, and Rediscover the Heart of Business.
For operational excellence, your focus should be on increasing value-adding activities and eliminating non-value-adding activities. (This isn't the same as Prosen's cost-control focus.) Here I recommend two books that explain Lean thinking: Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated and The Toyota Way Fieldbook.
The best source on financial management I've read is Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean.
For customer loyalty, you can't go wrong if you pick up Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together.
Back to the Basics.......2007-07-15
A refreshing theme throughout this book is the need for companies to create cultures based on accountability and results. When organizations have clear directives and hold team members accountable to achieve them, great things happen. Without these basic building blocks, some of the "cripplers" that Bob enumerates - rationalizing inferior performance, planning in lieu of action, and aversion to risk/change spread throughout organizations substantially eroding their effectiveness. This is "common sense, but not common practice" - a mantra frequently repeated by the author.
Bob introduces 5 attributes of highly profitable companies - superior leadership, sales effectiveness, operational excellence, financial management, and customer loyalty. He then explains how to execute in each of the areas. Bob asks questions to help the reader identify where his/her organization stands in each area so focus can be placed appropriately. Lists of actions complete each chapter with references to additional helpful materials available on the author's website.
Leaders/Managers at all levels need to get back to the basics. This book shows them the way. It cuts through the clutter and noise and addresses common problems with practical and proven solutions. If the tips in this book are "practiced," and institutionalized extraordinary results will follow.
Nick McCormick - Author, Lead Well and Prosper: 15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good Manager
Finallly a book with practical and real-world application.......2007-07-02
I was fortunate enough to see Bob speak at a local SMEI event several months back which prompted me to purchase the book there in person. His practical, real-life examples and principles are a must for the successful GM and sales leader. Thanks Bob for a book we can all apply right away!
Mike Merrill
Account Executive
Dell, Inc.
Plano, TX
Amazon.com
This analysis of what makes great companies great has been hailed everywhere as an instant classic and one of the best business titles since In Search of Excellence. The authors, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, spent six years in research, and they freely admit that their own preconceptions about business success were devastated by their actual findings--along with the preconceptions of virtually everyone else.
Built to Last identifies 18 "visionary" companies and sets out to determine what's special about them. To get on the list, a company had to be world famous, have a stellar brand image, and be at least 50 years old. We're talking about companies that even a layperson knows to be, well, different: the Disneys, the Wal-Marts, the Mercks.
Whatever the key to the success of these companies, the key to the success of this book is that the authors don't waste time comparing them to business failures. Instead, they use a control group of "successful-but-second-rank" companies to highlight what's special about their 18 "visionary" picks. Thus Disney is compared to Columbia Pictures, Ford to GM, Hewlett Packard to Texas Instruments, and so on.
The core myth, according to the authors, is that visionary companies must start with a great product and be pushed into the future by charismatic leaders. There are examples of that pattern, they admit: Johnson & Johnson, for one. But there are also just too many counterexamples--in fact, the majority of the "visionary" companies, including giants like 3M, Sony, and TI, don't fit the model. They were characterized by total lack of an initial business plan or key idea and by remarkably self-effacing leaders. Collins and Porras are much more impressed with something else they shared: an almost cult-like devotion to a "core ideology" or identity, and active indoctrination of employees into "ideologically commitment" to the company.
The comparison with the business "B"-team does tend to raise a significant methodological problem: which companies are to be counted as "visionary" in the first place? There's an air of circularity here, as if you achieve "visionary" status by ... achieving visionary status. So many roads lead to Rome that the book is less practical than it might appear. But that's exactly the point of an eloquent chapter on 3M. This wildly successful company had no master plan, little structure, and no prima donnas. Instead it had an atmosphere in which bright people were both keen to see the company succeed and unafraid to "try a lot of stuff and keep what works." --Richard Farr
Book Description
"This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary products or visionary market insights. Nor is it about just having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies." So write Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in this groundbreaking book that shatters myths, provides new insights, and gives practical guidance to those who would like to build landmark companies that stand the test of time.
Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies -- they have an average age of nearly one hundred years and have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926 -- and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day -- as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?"
What separates General Electric, 3M, Merck, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney, and Philip Morris from their rivals? How, for example, did Procter & Gamble, which began life substantially behind rival Colgate, eventually prevail as the premier institution in its industry? How was Motorola able to move from a humble battery repair business into integrated circuits and cellular communications, while Zenith never became dominant in anything other than TVs? How did Boeing unseat McDonnell Douglas as the world's best commercial aircraft company -- what did Boeing have that McDonnell Douglas lacked?
By answering such questions, Collins and Porras go beyond the incessant barrage of management buzzwords and fads of the day to discover timeless qualities that have consistently distinguished out-standing companies. They also provide inspiration to all executives and entrepreneurs by destroying the false but widely accepted idea that only charismatic visionary leaders can build visionary companies.
Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels,
Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the twenty-first century and beyond.
Customer Reviews:
Identity is Built to Last.......2007-08-30
It is interesting to review a business book more than 10 years after it has been labeled a best seller - is it still relevant today? Yes, in the case of this classic! The lessons conveyed are as useful today, as they were when it was first published. No surprise, given what the authors set out to discover when they began their research: What distinguishes long-time, high performing companies from their competitors? Their key concept about what it takes to build a visionary company - "preserve the core and stimulate progress" seems to be a fundamental truth about the evolutionary nature of free markets. Certainly their, "Try Lots of Stuff and Keep What Works" and "Good Enough Never Is", lessons sound like evolutionary processes of adaptation.
The key concept might be more simply described by saying, "Maintain your identity - core values & purpose - while focusing on a living performance vision." That makes it a personal concept as well as an organizational concept - not a bad thing when you consider that any organization is a collection of people. When something makes sense for the individual and the organization, perhaps there-in resides the reason it is a long-term winner! Dennis DeWilde, Author of The Performance Connection
Built to last.......2007-08-10
This is the most relevant, well-presented, easy-to-read research project I've seen. The data is easily transferable to to practical use. I have seen its implementation make a really big positive difference in groups within organizations.
Must-read for anyone interested in business.......2007-04-13
This book is the result of an elaborative research and a great data-analysis. It gives an insight into the some of the greatest companies of the world in different fields and different time-periods.
Authors have done a great job in explaining and justifying their research and data through the appendices and bibliography. A study of all the existing companies to find the visionary ones is really a daunting task and this research team has done a terrific job in establishing a definition of a "visionary company".
Must-read for professionals at any level of the organization hierarchy!!!
Great insight.......2007-03-30
Both Built to Last and Good to Great are the best business books anyone can ever read. Nice work!
Excellent Research, Very Helpful Findings.......2007-03-25
I would not necessarily agree that the predecessor was a better book. The two books have different purposes, and I believe both are very helpful.
The authors present their research process and findings, as well as 12 myths:
Myth #1: It takes a great idea to start a great company.
Myth #2: Visionary companies require great and charismatic visionary leaders.
Myth #3: The most successful companies exist first and foremost to maximize profits.
Myth #4: Visionary companies share a common subset of "correct" core values. [Note: by this, they do not mean to say that values are not important; on the contrary. However, they explain that there is no specific set of values common to all successful companies, but that these vary from one to another.]
Myth #5: The only constant is change.
Myth #6: Blue-chip companies play it safe.
Myth #7: Visionary companies are great places to work, for everyone.
Myth #8: Highly successful companies make their best moves by brilliant and complex strategic planning.
Myth #9: Companies should hire outside CEOs to stimulate fundamental change.
Myth #10: The most successful companies focus primarily on the competition.
Myth #11: You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Myth #12: Companies become visionary primarily through "vision statements".
The authors debunk each of these myths by presenting their findings.
One of the most powerful lessons, which I underlined, is this: "... most of them view their products and services as making useful and important contributions to customers' lives... they exist to do something useful..."
The authors show that companies with long-term and solid success throughout time are not simply focused on making money or growing their business by X% annually. They have a stronger and greater mission, and their products and service exist primarily to support that vision. This is why, even when products become obsolete, the company with a strong sense of purpose continues to change and evolve beyond product life cycles. An important lesson for most companies in corporate America.
Average customer rating:
- Very fast, superve conditions
- Difficult to use, disorganized
- Thanks you
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- This is a review of only the CD - i.e., Excel model
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Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies, Fourth Edition
McKinsey & Company Inc. ,
Tim Koller ,
Marc Goedhart , and
David Wessels
Manufacturer: Wiley
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ASIN: 0471702188 |
Book Description
Hailed by financial professionals worldwide as the single best guide of its kind, Valuation, Fourth Edition with CD-ROM combines is thoroughly revised and expanded to reflect business conditions in today’s volatile global economy. Valuation provides up-to-date insights and practical advice on how to create, manage, and measure an organization’s value. Along with all-new case studies that illustrate how valuation techniques and principles are applied in real-world situations, this comprehensive guide has been updated to reflect the events of the Internet bubble and its effect on stock markets, new developments in academic finance, changes in accounting rules (both U. S. and IFRS), and an enhanced global perspective. This package contains a solid framework that managers at all levels, investors, and students have come to trust.
Customer Reviews:
Very fast, superve conditions.......2007-06-08
I strickly recommend this shop: just 10 days to Barcelona and new!
Difficult to use, disorganized.......2007-04-12
I used this book for an MBA finance class but I am not keeping it as a reference. I felt it was convoluted and badly organized. It was difficult to look up subjects using the index when you wanted to just crack the book and find a formula or look for something specific. Since that's what I would do if I kept the book as a reference, the value for me is not there. I'm looking for a different book that is better organized and easier to understand for my reference book.
Thanks you.......2007-02-12
I got the book right away and it is still in perfect condition. I am absolutely satify with market order. Thanks you so much.
new bk delivered within a week.......2007-02-11
the shipping fee is free and i got the bk within a week. Most importantly, it's a new bk which price is nearly half of the original price in the bookstore!! awesome!
This is a review of only the CD - i.e., Excel model.......2006-03-28
Let me say that I like the McKinsey model and use it a lot to value certain companies. Overall, I found that the Results section of the model really helped me understand the detailed nuances of the McKinsey model, especially given that the book itself is sometimes vague.
I gave the CD product 4 stars, instead of 5 stars, because I felt that:
1) The PDF instructional manual on using the model is woefully inadequate.
2) There were a few serious errors in the model.
3) The model took the easy way out on a lot of difficult valuation items.
1. The PDF manual is woefully inadequate. Reading it, you think the model is self-explanatory, but it really isn't. You have to really study the numbers to understand what assumptions the model wants you to make. In this regard, the book is marginally helpful, the examples in the book is slightly more helpful. In many cases, I had to turn to other valuation texts to figure out a few things.
2. The model is for the most part, error-free. But I did catch two calculation errors that I will share, so that others can avoid the pain. First, in the Forecast Drivers tab, there is a data row called Capex. It looks back at the optional Capital Expenditure line as an off-balance sheet item in 'Historical Data.' This is inconsistent with the book's data driven approach and specification that CapEx = change in Net PPE + Depreciation. You may want to recorrect the Capex formula to specify this. Why the model asks us to manually specify the Capital Expenditures in Historical Data, I have no idea.
Another error I saw is in the Results tab. In the Ratios section, there is one called 'Enterprise value / EBITA'. If you look at the formula, it points to EBIT. You need to correct this by having it point to Reported EBITA.
3. I think the model takes the easy way out on a lot of the most difficult items. For example, the book advocates treatment of R&D as a capitalized asset, and yet the model excludes this entirely. The book advocates dealing with the market value of debt, but the model just incorporates the book value of debt. The model leaves as an entry item the value of the lease as a balance sheet item, when it you could easily just as well incorporate extensions to model this. This is the same for options, convertible debt, customer receivables, unutilized/discontinued assets, etc.
Basically, the book is aggressive in advocating a firm estimation of operational value, NOA value, and Debt/DE claims, but the model is much less ambitious.
This does not make the model useless. It's a great data-driven model. It just requires the user to build sophisticated extensions to deal with the most complicated parts. At the same time, this is no cheap model. They are probably making lots of money on it. I would have expected the folks at McKinsey to provide extensions to handle the most complicated aspects of valuation, in addition to the core items.
Book Description
The essential guide for forward-thinking business leaders who see the Green Wave coming and want to profit from it
This book explores what every executive must know to manage the environmental challenges facing society and business. Based on the authors' years of experience and hundreds of interviews with corporate leaders around the world, Green to Gold shows how companies generate lasting value, cutting costs, reducing risk, increasing revenues, and creating strong brands, by building environmental thinking into their business strategies. Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston provide clear how-to advice and concrete examples from companies like BP, Toyota, IKEA, GE, and Nike that are achieving both environmental and business success. The authors show how these cutting-edge companies are establishing an “eco-advantage” in the marketplace as traditional elements of competitive differentiation fade in importance. Esty and Winston not only highlight successful strategies but also make plain what does not work by describing why environmental initiatives sometimes fail despite the best intentions.
Green to Gold is written for executives at every level and for businesses of all kinds and sizes. Esty and Winston guide leaders through a complex new world of resource shortfalls, regulatory restrictions, and growing pressure from customers and other stakeholders to strive for sustainability. With a sharp focus on execution, Esty and Winston offer a thoughtful, pragmatic, and inspiring road map that companies can use to cope with environmental pressures and responsibilities while sparking innovation that will drive long-term growth. Green to Gold is the new template for global CEOs who want to be good stewards of the Earth while simultaneously building the bottom line.
Customer Reviews:
Superior Primer for the Green Movement.......2007-09-17
This book was a primary resource for the development of my client's green program. It was focused enough to provide a thorough understanding of the hot environmental issues, without being too tree-huggerish. It highlights the responsibilities of global stewardship along with those of being financially accountable in the business arena.
Excellent Book.......2007-09-10
Green to Gold is a very thorough, well written book. Anyone involved in marketing should definitely take the time to read this book. I learned a great deal from this book it was well worth my investment of money and time.
Straightforward sustainability manual.......2007-06-15
Sesame Street's Kermit the Frog famously observed, "It's not easy being green." Whether easy or not, environmental and social pressures are pushing more and more companies to ride the "green wave" to ecological sustainability. In this beautifully organized, crisply written book, Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston, both Yale professors, describe how sustainability can create competitive advantage. They succinctly make the business case for sustainability, and then provide a playbook of green strategies and tactics. The presentation is neither too abstract nor too detailed: It's just right. Nor is their presentation one-sided: They enumerate many ways sustainable products and strategies can go wrong. While some of their suggestions may seem obvious, the authors deserve praise for collecting so many excellent tips and tricks, and for describing them in memorable (mostly) jargon-free prose. We highly recommend this smart book to any business leader who wants to move beyond rhetoric to action. While Kermit's wisdom is doubtless correct, this handbook makes being green much easier.
Green to Gold.......2007-05-14
I bought the book because of the title. I was not disappointed. The book is more focused on business prospects than on real environmental issues but it was what I was looking for.
Best Available Primer for Top Management.......2007-03-15
I have read and praised "Natural Capitalism," "Ecology of Commerce," and "Cradle to Cradle," here at Amazon, and I mention them to emphasize that this book, "Green to Gold," is the hands-down no-contest best primer for top management. The others are intellectual presentations. This is a business oriented primer with lots of facts, lists, and resources.
It is a pro-business book that focuses on opportunities. It is extremely well-organized, with three parts, twelve chapters, and three appendices including a superb list of active web sites relevant to doing well by doing good.
This book is based on hundreds of interviews over four years, and every aspect of it is professional presented, including boxes with "10 second overviews" interspersed throughout.
The authors are compellingly pointed in their discussion of how the environment, and attendant regulations and attendant risks of catastrophic costs, is no longer a fringe issue. Mistakes in cadmium content of connecting cables can cost hundreds of millions.
The authors excel at discussing the new pressures from natural limits that are now visible (changes that used to take 10,000 years now take 3--see my reviews on Ecological Economics, the Republican War on Science, the varied books on Climate Change, etc) and the fact that there is a growing range of stake-holders who are altering the balance of power.
The authors are clear in noting that environmental compliance and wisdom is neither easy nor cheap, but they are equally detailed in documenting that most investments to reduce environmental costs are recouped within 12-18 months. In one cited example, 3M saves $1 billion in the first year alone on pollution reduction, and over the course of a decade, was able to reduce its pollution by 90%.
On page 33 they list the top 10 environmental issues and I like this list very much as an expansion on "Environmental Degradation" which is the over-all threat that the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations ranked as third out of ten, to Poverty and Infectious Disease. They are:
01 Climate Change
02 Energy
03 Water
04 Biodiversity and Land Use
05 Chemicals, Toxics, and Heavy Metals
06 Air Pollution
07 Waste Management
08 Ozone Layer Depletion
09 Oceans and Fisheries
10 Deforestation
The authors do a superb job in summarizing each of these in several pages perfectly suited to the busy manager. For those desiring more in-depth looks, see my many reviews across the board, including "Priority One," various books on energy, "WATER: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource," "Pandora's Poison," and "Blue Frontier."
The bottom line for the first part of the book: extremes can no longer be dampened down; and we now recognize the eco-system value of the wetlands that we have paid the Army Corps of Engineers to eradicate for decades.
The authors devised a schema for businesses to develop an understanding and then a strategy for reducing their environmental footprint. The authors do extremely well with their organized examination of Aspects, Upstream, Downstream, Issues, and Opportunities (AUDIO), and anyone looking at the book in a store can go directly to pages 62-63. This is an operational management handbook.
There is an excellent overview of the many new stake-holders (or significantly matured stake-holders including NGOs, religions, and local citizens. Business can no longer bribe government--government cannot "deliver" the way it used to (see my review of "Class War" for a sense of how corruption of other elites by our elites has accelerated all the ills of the world).
Regulations, according to these authors, should be seen as vital incentives and parameters for both reducing costs and gaining trust.
Forty global banks, and many insurance companies, now demand proper examination of ecological costs as a condition for funding or coverage.
The authors remind me of General Tony Zinni, whose books I have reviewed, in their emphasis on relationships developed over time. They urge a strong focus on relationships NOW, across the board, as a means of building a "trust bank" as well as a deeper understanding. Blocks that used to be labels "not our problem" or "not legally liable" are now labeled "IMPORTANT TO US."
In the middle of the book they explore the digital information advantages that can accrue to those who get out of their closed loops and increase innovation. In one instance, simply adding load to trucks reduced fuel consumption and emissions considerably.
The middle of the book contains 8 detailed "Green to Gold" plays, and I won't spoil it by listing them. A box in this section says "Truth Matters" and I applaud silently.
The authors stress that mind-set, not just a check-book, is required to get this right. Five basic rules are 1) See the forest; 2) Start at the top; 3) No is not an option; 4) Feelings are facts; and 5) Do the right thing, morality DOES pay.
Pages 168-169 are sheer brilliance, and illustrate why the value chain must be completely integrated into the environmental strategy of each element of that value chain and most especially the largest and most powerful of the elements, which must carefully consider and accept responsibility for demanding improvements by the smallest elements.
Eight lessons of partnering, 13 problems and their solutions, and a final chapter of very specific actions that managers can take, conclude the book.
My final note on this book: a pleasure to read, easy to read, so well done I got through it in half the time characteristic of denser or less well designed books. This is first rate stuff!
Amazon.com
Ram Charan learned about business from his family's shoe shop in India before attending Harvard Business School and going on to advise senior executives in companies large and small. His experiences taught him that universal laws apply "whether you sell fruit from a stand or are running a Fortune 500 company," and that the business acumen that comes from understanding these basics can be applied throughout any operation. What the CEO Wants You to Know is Charan's primer on this point, which he illustrates with explanations filtered through the eyes of street venders and other small shopkeepers. One, for example, involves a woman in Managua, Nicaragua, who sells clothing from a small cart and beats the oppressive interest rates on her loans and the puny profit margins on her goods with a skillfully selected inventory that is quickly and repeatedly turned over. Whether it's a corner merchant or a giant manufacturing concern, Charan notes, "the faster the velocity, the higher the return." Relating such thinking to cash generation, customer satisfaction, and other essentials, he describes the universal principles that help all companies make money. "What your CEO wants you to know is how these fundamentals of business work in your company," he writes before embarking on a very lucid explanation that can be quickly absorbed and put into practice. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
The universal laws of business success . . . no matter whether you are selling fruit from a stand or running a Fortune 500 company.
Have you ever noticed that the business savvy of the world's best CEOs seems like a kind of street smarts? They sense where the opportunities are and how to take advantage of them. And their companies make money consistently, year after year.
How different is it to run a big company than to sell fruit from a cart or run a small shop in a village? In essence, not very, according to Ram Charan. From his childhood in India, where he worked in his family's shoe shop, to his education at Harvard Business School and his daily work advising many of the world's best CEOs, Ram understands business as few can.
The best CEOs have a knack for bringing the most complex business down to the fundamentals -- the same fundamentals of the family shoe shop. They have business acumen -- the ability to focus on the basics and make money for the company.
What the CEO Wants You to Know captures these insights and explains in clear, simple language how to do what great CEOs do instinctively and persistently:
* Understand the basic building blocks of a business and use them to figure out how your company makes money and operates as a total business.
* Decide what to do, despite the clutter of day-to-day business and the complexity of the real world.
Many people spend more than a hundred thousand dollars on an MBA without learning to pull these pieces of the puzzle together. Many others lack a formal business education and feel shut out from the executive suite.
What the CEO Wants You to Know takes the mystery out of business and shows the secrets of success used by business legends like Jack Welch of GE.
Customer Reviews:
charan knows the worker.......2007-04-02
mr charan understnads and explains how profit works for companies and he understands why certain workers work really well in an environment and then fail in another.
Business Simplified.......2006-12-29
Ram Charan cuts right to the chase in this book. It's a short one, but it's packed with goodies. Charan explains the keys to making money and increasing wealth: 1) Business Acumen (the main components being cash generation, margin, velocity, return on assets, growth, and focus on the customer) and 2) Getting things done (which includes selecting the right people, increasing their capacity, and linking their efforts to a core set of business goals - developed using business acumen). Sounds simple, right? Frankly, it is. It's a no-nonsense explanation of what all managers, and all employees ought to know about business to enable them to gauge the performance of their company/organization/group, and put practical achievable plans in place to improve it.
Nick McCormick - Author, Lead Well and Prosper
simple, straightforward, short, repetitive.......2006-07-04
This book can be read in several hours and is definitely worth of the invested time. I am a total beginner in business, In fact, I study informatics. After reading this book I have a clear view of basic aspects of business. Also, it gave me a more clear understanging of what is a CEO's role.
let's summarize my thoughts:
+simple
+short (less then 130 little pages)
+gives a great overview of core business aspects
+good for beginners (contains even links to popular business web sites)
-focused on employees in a leader position
-focused on international (stock) companies. (I work at software companies, can't see, how could I apply the velocity principle here. We have no shareholders, no transparent assests, nor stock, nor transparent margins)
-quite repetitive. The word 'business acumen' is listed at least one hundred times. Some may find the repetition usefull...especially me not
p.s.: I've found this book on the recommended list of PersonalMBA (personalmba.com)
Ok book but a little too wordy.......2006-02-09
Yes, it's a small book already but I thought the author could have got to the points sooner with a little less prose and more advise. I can see that he did a lot of work and is obviously an intelligent person it just as another reviewer put it "the book does not deliver on what the title suggests".
It's worth a read on a long airplane ride but not worth setting your career by.
Dangerously Oversimplified and Misleading.......2005-10-11
This is the first book I've picked from the ChangeThis "Personal MBA" list (http://www.changethis.com/17.PersonalMBA) and boy am I disappointed.
I thought this primer-level introduction to business would give me the tools I needed to understand the nuts & bolts of Collins and Lazier's *Running the Small to Mid-Sized Business* but no such luck.
He gives us a taste of the math that is required to understand business, but I guess he's afraid of scaring people off with too much math, because it's glossed over in such a way as to be unusable. It's like sex without penetration.
And right now I'm reading a section where he says, "Obviously, the higher the P-E multiple, the more wealth is created."
By that logic, all those overvalued internet stocks during the dot com bubble created a lot of wealth. And so did Enron.
I hope the other books on the "Personal MBA" list are better than this.
Average customer rating:
- Science of positive reinforcement
- Clarity, results, contribution
- Based on a flawed worldview
- Good book but not as good as her other book
- Must Have Book for all Managers, Parents & Pet Owners
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Bringing Out the Best in People
Aubrey Daniels
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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