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Susie Essman
Built to Last:
Successful Habits of Visionary Companies: James C. Collins, Jerry I. PorrasThis is one of the most important business books written in the last decade. The characteristics defined to select the most successful companies are excellent measures of quantity and quality. The key idea, that success does not depend on having an early vision and charismatic leaders but on identity, culture and commitment to the company steer us into different paths for future success. It places the focus, not only on the executive team to set the tone, but on the hiring process and the freedom people are given to create. Executives who want their companies to stand the test of time cannot hire people who are "stalled" or foster a "stalled" culture.
The Profit Zone looks at how profit happens in today's customer-driven economy. The authors demonstrate why market share often leads to a "no-profit zone" and identify 22 profit models that have helped dozens of companies consistently make money. Included are in-depth looks at companies--Disney, GE, Microsoft, Intel, Charles Schwab--that have successfully redesigned their businesses and dramatically increased the value of their companies. Instead of focusing on market share, these innovators first looked at their customers' needs and how they could profit from fulfilling them. The book considers example after example of how the profit zone works, from Disney's theme parks to Schwab's marketing and selling of mutual funds. The final chapter is a handbook that allows managers to apply the ideas to their own companies. Clearly written and immensely practical, The Profit Zone deserves a place on every manager's bookshelf.
Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know: Thomas H.
Davenport, Laurence Prusak
At the corporate level, knowledge is a key component of what has become known as intellectual capital, the intangible assets that give a company a sustainable advantage over less-savvy competitors. For an entire company--rather than just a handful of employees--to have knowledge, that information must be coordinated and made accessible. Thomas H. Davenport, a professor of information management at the University of Texas, Austin, and Laurence Prusak, IBM's competency leader in knowledge management, offer an elegantly simple overview of the "knowledge market" aimed at fulfilling that goal. Davenport and Prusak are also refreshingly candid about potential obstacles to effective knowledge management.
The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning
Organization: Peter M. Senge
Peter Senge, founder of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management, experienced an epiphany while meditating one morning back in the fall of 1987. That was the day he first saw the possibilities of a "learning organization" that used "systems thinking" as the primary tenet of a revolutionary management philosophy. He advanced the concept into this primer, originally released in 1990, written for those interested in integrating his philosophy into their corporate culture.
The Fifth Discipline has turned many readers into true believers; it remains the ideal introduction to Senge's carefully integrated corporate framework, which is structured around "personal mastery," "mental models," "shared vision," and "team learning." Using ideas that originate in fields from science to spirituality, Senge explains why the learning organization matters, provides an unvarnished summary of his management principals, offers some basic tools for practicing it, and shows what it's like to operate under this system. The book's concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever.
1001 Ways To Reward
Employees: Bob Nelson
Better than money: Praise and personal gestures motivate workers. Things that don't cost money are ironically the most effective. Finally, managers are catching on to something employees already know: What really motivates a person to perform are those thoughtful, unexpected gestures that signify real appreciation. This chock-full guide to rewards of every conceivable type for every conceivable situation, written by management specialist Bob Nelson, offers over a thousand innovative ideas beyond the expected raise and/or promotion.
Competing on the
Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos: Shona L. Brown, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
This well-written volume about managing in an environment of constant change takes as its context complexity theory--the decade-old scientific perspective often associated with the Santa Fe Institute and concepts such as artificial life. The authors--Shona L. Brown, a consultant with McKinsey & Co., and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, a Stanford University professor--emphasize examples of successful management that are as complex and unexpected as the theory itself. The authors distill 10 rules of strategy, organization and leadership for competing on the edge and then compare them with traditional rules of management. For those who can live with fundamental ambiguity, the examples make clear how powerful and successful this unorthodox approach can be.
Gung Ho! Turn on
the People in Any Organization: Kenneth H. Blanchard, Sheldon Bowles
Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, co-authors of the New York Times business bestseller Raving Fans, are back with Gung Ho!-an invaluable management tool that outlines foolproof ways to increase productivity by fostering excellent morale in the workplace. Through the inspirational story of business leaders, the revolutionary technique of Gung Ho! is revealed in three simple, yet amazingly powerful principles:
Only the Paranoid Survive is about recognizing, overcoming, and even profiting from the inevitable groundshifts in commercial life that, by changing the fundamentals of the business environment, shake established enterprises to the ground and raise newcomers to power and wealth. Grove takes this simple--if unarguably true--idea and brings it alive with a wealth of examples, shrewd understanding of corporate dynamics, and unblinking realism about why businesses succeed or fail. Many of his war stories are based on Intel's own missteps, including the famous Pentium floating-point fiasco. He also spends a lot of time talking sense about corporate cultures, how they react under extreme stress, and the factors that enable one to survive while dooming another to die. Only the Paranoid Survive is a mirror in which everyone in the computer industry should view the company they work for, and the course of their own career.
The Profit Zone: How Strategic Business Design Will Lead You to
Tomorrow's Profits: Adrian J. Slywotzky, David J. Morrison
Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis
Points That Challenge Every Company and Career: Andrew S. Grove