Author Archives: Harry K. Jones

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Peaks and Valleys

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Peaks and ValleysPeaks and Valleys: Making Good and Bad Times Work for You-at Work and in Life
by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

Here we find another of those very popular “mini-books” (103 pages) aimed at those readers craving a powerful message via a short read. Who better to grant that request than author Spencer Johnson, who did exactly that in Who Moved the Cheese, The Present, and his solid contributions to the One Minute Manager series? More than 46 million copies of Spencer Johnson’s books are in print worldwide in more than 47 languages.

The timing couldn’t be better for this story. If you’re a person who has been trying to survive or just make it during these tough times, this narrative may just provide that valuable clarity that you need right now.

This tale focuses on a man who is struggling in his life. A friend tells him a story about another man in a similar situation. He lives unhappily in a valley until he meets an old man who lives on a peak. That meeting changes his work and life forever.

Initially, the young man has no idea he is talking with one of the most peaceful and successful people in the world. However, through a series of conversations and experiences, the young man learns that peaks and valleys are all a part of life. The key to living a richer life is how you perceive and address the peaks and valleys and what you learn while you are traversing the peaks and valleys.

He realizes he can use the old man’s remarkable principles and practical tools in good times and bad times to make a difference in his life. As a result he becomes more calm and successful and takes more control of his life.

While the messages may be somewhat basic, they are indeed powerful if properly applied. For instance:

  • “You can have fewer bad times when you appreciate and manage your good times wisely.”
  • “The pain in a valley can wake you up to a truth you have been ignoring.”
  • “The path out of a valley appears when you choose to see things differently.”

Understand and apply this wisdom to successfully navigate the peaks and valleys of your life at work and at home. Recognize and utilize the positive that is so often hidden in the bad times. Appreciate and capitalize on your good times. This book will provide you with the clarity to do just that.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Monkey Business

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Monkey BusinessMonkey Business: 7 Laws of the Jungle for Becoming the Best of the Bunch
by Sandy Wight, Mick Hager, and Steve Tyink

Here we have another of the numerous “mini-books” adorning book store shelves today. Three experienced consultants have combined their experience, talent and creativity to fill a mere 114 pages with a light-hearted approach to the serious business of engaging customers and employees in a mutually beneficial relationship.

What I found intriguing was the fact that they managed to accumulate, in so few pages, so many basic rules, lessons, ideas, principles and strategies for creating the optimum customer service environment—most of which are not being used by the majority of today’s organizations.

The jungle provides a clever metaphor of today’s business climate and that theme is astutely carried out from cover to cover.

You’ll discover the profound power of “Monkey See-Monkey Do” as well as the 7 Laws of the Jungle for Becoming the Best of the Bunch.

  1. Establish Your Rock.
  2. Create Your Value Vine.
  3. Live the Exclamation Factor!
  4. Set Your Customer Connection Points.
  5. MMFI (Make Me Feel Important).
  6. Take Full Responsibility for Our Customers.
  7. Use the Energy Advantage!

Utilizing the magic of analogy and fantasy, the authors have created a guidebook on customer service that will captivate readers from start to finish.

To enhance your experience, you’ll discover useful and unique tips and tools in the form of sidebars on most every page. They’ve been arranged in four categories:

  • Monkey Wisdom – (66)
  • Monkey Magic – (14)
  • Monkey Instinct – (10)
  • Monkey Speak – (15)

Join a special spider monkey, Leader, on his journey through the jungle, and you’ll learn along with him how to create an enduring, relationship-driven, service-focused, customer-centered, profitable organization.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

50 Prosperity Classics

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50 Prosperity Classics50 Prosperity Classics: Attract It, Create It, Manage It, Share It (50 Classics)
by Tom Butler-Bowdon

I’ve already reviewed the acclaimed trilogy written by this particular author. You might want to revisit those three reviews as they are certainly very valuable resources that should be kept at arm’s length of your personal office and/or home library. Simply click on the following links for these reviews:

The author now follows up those terrific resources with 50 Prosperity Classics. I should again alert you to the fact that you more than likely will not find these titles on the shelves of your local book store but can certainly order them very easily from your favorite store or online from Amazon.com.

This fourth book focuses on the great works on wealth, entrepreneurship, personal finance, investing, economics and philanthropy, providing guidance and encouragement to develop the millionaire mindset, become a wealth creator, make wise investment decisions and―once you’ve made it―give a little back.

Butler-Bowdon follows the same reader-friendly format here that was so successful in his trilogy. I’ll explain that template here and then share the individual content under each title. Each classic has its own chapter which is reasonably short and to the point while extremely revealing. The first page of each chapter begins with a few notable quotes from the classic followed by a feature titled “In a nutshell.” This profile summarizes the entire classic in one or two sentences followed by another interesting feature, “In a similar vein,” which lists several other classics that address the same subject. Thus far–one page.

The author then offers the main idea, context, and impact of the book itself followed by a short, interesting biography of the author.

The author has organized his content into four elements for easier access to this reader-friendly material.

  • Attract It: Master the inner game of wealth and abundance with books such as Rhonda Byrne’s bestselling The Secret, Charles Fillmore’s Prosperity, Napoleon Hill’s The Master Key to Riches.
  • Create It: Learn from the secrets and strategies of wealth creators such as Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Conrad Hilton, Anita Roddick and Donald Trump.
  • Manage It: Discover the nuts and bolts of personal finance and investing such as Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, Suze Orman’s Women and Money, Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Revisited and Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street.
  • Share It: Understand the flow of wealth and how to give something back with inspiration from Andrew Carnegie’s The Gospel of Wealth, Paul Hawken’s Natural Capitalism and Lynne Twist’s The Soul of Money.

This book is loaded with wisdom in the form of interesting quotes from some of the greatest minds in this area.

The book concludes with five pages of “Prosperity Principles” and recommendations for 50 additional prosperity classics.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Outliers

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OutliersOutliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell

The author of #1 international bestsellers The Tipping Point and Blink is a staff writer for The New Yorker and was formerly a business and science reporter at the Washington Post. Malcolm Gladwell’s one of the very few authors kind enough to consider his readers by offering a definition of his chosen title in the first paragraph of the book. I’ll do the same for you in my second paragraph.

Out-li-er \ noun 1. something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body 2. a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample.

After reading several chapters, I found myself identifying outliers as those men and women with skills, talent, and drive who do things out of the ordinary. We’ve all known someone like this from school, work, church or the neighborhood. We knew them—we just didn’t always understand them or how they managed to reach such levels of performance so effortlessly. It left us wondering why some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential?

Challenging our cherished belief of the “self-made man,” he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don’t appear in their cribs as aggressive life changers ready to take on and conquer the challenges of the world as we know it.

The author claims: “They are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.”

In this book the author continues to do what he does best—illuminating secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. He does so while sharing examples from every aspect of our lives.

He examines the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, building the convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, “some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky.”

He asks the question: What makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Read this book if you’d like to learn:

  • Why most pro hockey players were born in January.
  • How many hours of practice it takes to master a skill (10,000 hours).
  • How a pilot’s culture impacts his/her crash record.
  • What Bill Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common.
  • Why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York.
  • How a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math.
  • The reasons for school achievement gaps.

Malcolm Gladwell expounds on how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential.

Like his previous work, Outliers is a thought-provoking, category-defying book. It is also available in audio form read by the author.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time

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The 100 Best Business Books of All TimeThe 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You
by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten

Ok, let’s get a few things straight right off the bat. Yes, this is a book about books … in fact, it’s a list of books you should read if you really enjoy business books. Why do you need to invest your time and money on something like this? Well, there is good reason.

More than 1.9 million business books are now offered by Amazon, including more than 267,000 in the “business management” category. Last year, 11,000 business book were published in the U.S. Yes, 11,000 focused on business. Placed one on top of another, the stack would stand as tall as a nine-story building! Can you visualize that? And the 880 million words in that nine-story pile would take six and a half years to read. Locked somewhere in this tower of paper is the solution to your current business problem. It’s that simple. However, do you have the time and money to purchase that pile and then search for that answer? Of course not, and that’s where this book comes in.

It’s much more than a simple list of books. It’s truly informative as it gives you a quick recap of the author and content, provides fantastic insights you couldn’t find elsewhere, some great one-liners, and important take-aways and sidebars.

Now, let’s be realistic; anyone reading this book is going to discover books listed that they personally would not have included in their own personal list of top 100 business books. They’ll also identify other titles which they feel should have been included and were not. This is typical. You can’t please everyone.

The authors, Covert and Sattersten, didn’t simply list their favorite books. They actually utilized a system to rate the hundreds of business books they’ve read and reviewed as founder and president, respectively, of 800-CEO-Read, a specialty book retailer. To choose the books in this list, the authors used a three-point criteria.

  1. The quality of the book’s idea.
  2. The applicability of the idea to businesses today.
  3. The accessibility of the book’s writing.

They then divided the books into twelve specific categories: You, Leadership, Strategy, Sales and Marketing, Rules and Scorekeeping, Management, Biographies, Entrepreneurship, Narratives, Innovation and Creativity, Big Ideas, and Takeaways.

Within those categories, the authors waste no time in telling us the major themes of each book, why they’re important for us to read, and how they can actually help us. At the end of each review, the authors direct readers to other books both inside and outside The 100 Best.

They even recommend movies that display characters with outstanding leadership characteristics, novels, and even children’s books that offer equally relevant insights. Some additional treats I found interesting include:

  • Fresh Perspectives Not in a Bookstore Near You.
  • Leadership in Movies.
  • Conferences to Attend.
  • The Best Route to an Idea.
  • Results of a Reader’s Poll.
  • Getting Your Bearings.
  • Globalization of Manners.
  • For Your Ears Only (podcasts).
  • Industry in Depth.
  • Choose Your Approach to Learning.
  • Selling on the Silver Screen.
  • Business Books for Kids of All Ages.
  • Learn from Experience (case studies).
  • Business Issues Found in Fiction.

At the end of the book, we’re invited to visit 100bestbiz.com for more information about all of the books discussed, including chapter excerpts, interviews with authors, videos about the books, and more. I also signed up for the 800-CEO-READ Blog which provides daily updates of various kinds. This book is a valuable resource to anyone who reads for business regularly.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

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Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald'sEverything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s: The 7 Leadership Principles that Drive Break Out Success
by Paul Facella

I must be honest here. When I began my business career decades ago, the above title would have been my very last choice for a successful business book. Who could have known?

Of course, those were the days when a McDonald’s hamburger sold for 15 cents, a cheeseburger sold for 19 cents, golden french fries were only 10 cents, a Coke was just a dime, and you could get a triple-thick shake for a mere 20 cents.

Now that I’ve read the book, I can assure you that this book should be mandatory reading for anyone about to enter or already working in the customer service industry and anyone leading employees in hopes of providing ultimate service.

I also learned a great deal about a company I’ve taken for granted for years as I drove by or feasted at thousands of its Golden Arch locations from coast to coast. For instance:

  • McDonald’s serves food to nearly 52 million people daily in 31,000 restaurants worldwide!
  • McDonald’s has sold well over 100 billion hamburgers!
  • McDonald’s employs more than 1.5 million people!
  • McDonald’s operates in more than 119 countries on six continents. Antarctica is the only continent without a McDonald’s!
  • McDonald’s has also produced more millionaires from within its ranks than any company in history!

I’m not certain this particular book could have been written by anyone more qualified as company insider Paul Facella. He’s one of many who started working behind the counter at age 16. Over the next 34 years, he moved from the counter to the grill to Regional Vice President. I guess you could say he practically grew up within the golden arches. As a result, he has a first-hand education living the fast-food giant’s management practices and culture. He has also built strong personal ties to its legendary leaders, including founder Ray Kroc and CEOs Fred Turner, Mike Quinlan, Jack Greenberg, former President Ed Rensi, and current CEO Jim Skinner. That may have led to some of his memories seeming a bit syrupy at times, but that’s understandable as he is speaking about what he considers his family and one of the great American business success stories.

The author shares seven good leadership principles that have certainly passed the test of time and, if implemented properly, should help any business … even in tough business climates like those we’re facing today.

These principles are:

  1. Honesty and Integrity: All in a Handshake.
  2. Relationships.
  3. Standards: Never be Satisfied.
  4. Lead by Example.
  5. Courage: Telling It Like It Is.
  6. Communications.
  7. Recognition.

Facella devotes a separate chapter to each of the seven principles, sharing examples and anecdotes supporting each.

Throughout his 226 pages, the author includes 36 valuable “Lessons” accompanied by “Food for Thought” personal observations to enlighten his readers. At the end of each chapter, he provides a brief “In Summary” recap and “Key Learnings” from that chapter.

The author also uses an interesting “one-on-one” feature to share personal insights about company executives, franchisees, and vendors. These reader-friendly devices certainly add value and insight as this book delivers an up-close-and-personal look at a company where talent is cultivated and encouraged to thrive, from the individual restaurant to the corner office.

Again, we tend to overlook how successful this organization has become as we think of it as only a local fast food restaurant. Keep in mind that seven out of the top 10 current McDonald’s executives began as restaurant “crewmembers” and built their careers through the chain. In addition, Fortune magazine reveals that McDonald’s revenues were greater last year than all of the following competitors combined: Burger King, Wendy’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, A&W, Long John Silver’s, and Cracker Barrel.

Pick up a copy of Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s and learn how it achieved and managed to maintain that level of performance.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

A Sense of Urgency

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A Sense of UrgencyA Sense of Urgency
by John P. Kotter

Here’s another much-needed approach to the very familiar but often ignored subject of change. I’m not certain anyone could be more suited to address this critical issue than change guru John Kotter. This Harvard Business School Professor is widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on leadership and change. His is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually “do” change. He’s very well-known for his previous best-sellers, Leading Change, The Heart of Change and Our Iceberg Is Melting.

In his newest work, A Sense of Urgency, Kotter shows what a true sense of urgency in an organization really is, why it is becoming an exceptionally important asset, and how it can be created and sustained within organizations. His latest work is, simply put, a sequel of his previous book; Our Iceberg Is Melting … a fictional story of emperor penguins who fight for survival during the threat of change. In that bestseller, Kotter shared the eight steps to overcome and embrace change. The initial step of the eight was a sense of urgency.

His latest book is focused on that first step. As Kotter wrote, “Most organizations handle step 1 poorly.” This book is sorely needed in today’s times for that very reason. Without a “true” sense of urgency, the following seven steps to embrace change are simply an exercise in futility. A sense of urgency is vital to a process of change. Kotter also reveals the two most hazardous enemies to developing a sense of urgency: complacency and false urgency and how to cope with each.

This focused narrative concentrates on the actions and practices involved in creating and sustaining a sense of urgency. Kotter provides four core tactics for driving urgency into an organization. These tactics are supported by anecdotal stories and detailed tools which make the book actionable and practical. The tactics are:

  1. Bring the outside in.
  2. Behave with urgency every day.
  3. Find opportunity in crisis.
  4. Deal with NoNo’s.

Kotter provides tips, tools and strategies for overcoming the fear, anger, and ingrown complacency that derail the change process. Charts and chapter summaries help connect theory to the practical question: How do we move people to act?

A Sense of Urgency is a powerful tool for anyone wanting to win in a turbulent world that will only continue to move faster.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution

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Six Disciplines® Execution RevolutionSix Disciplines® Execution Revolution: Solving the One Business Problem That Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier
by Gary Harpst

I really enjoyed this book for the simple reason that it addresses an issue which could very well be the decisive factor for any organization in pursuit of success—an illusive target in today’s chaotic environment.

The author, Gary Harpst, is right on target with his sub-title: “Solving the One Business Problem That Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier.” Let’s identify that one business problem right up front—execution.

Much of this book is everyday common sense that we’ve been hearing for years. The author has re-framed basic knowledge that is anything but new to today’s business leaders. His approach is appropriate because this priceless knowledge has also been avoided like the plague for just as long.

This point is illustrated by some convincing observations the author derived from other experts:

  • An astounding 90% of well-formulated strategies fail due to poor execution.
  • Only 5% of employees understand their corporate strategy.
  • Only 3% of executives think their company is very successful at executing its strategies, while 62% think they’re only moderately successful, or worse.
  • More than 671,000 new businesses open each year, and every year nearly 544,800 businesses close down.

This book is built on three core premises.

  1. What most business leaders think their greatest challenge is, isn’t. And whatever their problems are today, they’ll be different tomorrow, and they will be bigger too.
  2. There is one business problem that, if solved, will make solving all other problems easier. This foundational challenge is executing strategy.
  3. An execution system helps organizations get the right things done by identifying execution problems as early as possible and addressing the problems.

Harpst introduces his Business Excellence Model to explain that the focus and capability of an organization can be understood in two dimensions: strategy (deciding what to do) and execution (getting it done). Coupled with four quadrants of performance, the author explores the topic of excellence and how we can go about pursuing it.

In this book, the author sets a new course for how small and mid-sized businesses can finally confront the never-ending challenge of executing strategy. It centers on a methodology designed to guide you through actionable steps to become better at execution within the business, with the goal of taking your business to the next level. Just as his first book focused on Six Disciplines, Harpst has focused Execution Revolution on a six-phase system to address problems with execution:

  1. Decide what’s important (Strategy).
  2. Set goals that lead (Plan).
  3. Align systems (Organize).
  4. Work the plan (Execute).
  5. Innovate purposefully (Innovate).
  6. Step back (Learn).
  7. And the whole thing repeats.

The challenge is simple. How do we close the ever-challenging “knowing-doing gap”? This book will provide a formula to help you assemble a strategy and keep on task with that strategy. With execution of any strategy, losing focus is the main issue. This will keep you on track, and focused.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

You Can’t Order Change

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You Can't Order ChangeYou Can’t Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney’s Turnaround at Boeing
by Peter S. Cohan

What a fantastic title. Short, basic and true wisdom indeed! Many people don’t immediately recognize the name of Jim McNerney and may therefore wonder why a book would be written about his accomplishments. Let’s see if we can address that issue.

GE has developed a reputation as a breeding ground for CEOs. Jim McNerney was one of Jack Welch’s top protégés at General Electric and one of three finalists to replace the retiring Welch as CEO:

  1. Welch made a judgment call in choosing insider Jeffrey Immelt over the other two finalists. The wisdom of that choice will be debated for decades to come.
  2. Robert Nardelli was passed over for the leadership post. However, Home Depot snatched him away as its chairman and CEO where he stayed for six years before moving on to take the post of Chairman and CEO at Chrysler Corporation.
  3. McNerney was also passed over and immediately accepted an offer to move to 3M as the Chairman and CEO. He stayed with 3M for five years before choosing passenger planes over Post-It notes by taking the helm at The Boeing Company as Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO. In doing so, he offered stability and a top-notch executive pedigree to a company that has steadfastly refused to be shaken by two CEO resignations in less than two years.

McNerney has quite an impressive background, spending three years at Proctor and Gamble as a brand manager, four years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, and 19 years at General Electric followed by five years at 3M. That’s quite a resume. He has since emerged as one of the most effective leaders of his generation.

This is the eighth book for author, Peter S. Cohan, who is a noted management consultant and venture capitalist. The focus of this particular work is a study of how McNerney manages Boeing. To do so, he interviewed people who worked with McNerney over the years to discover his approach to accountability, strategy, operations, growth, cost-cutting, leadership development, customer focus, and many other universal challenges.

You Can’t Order Change tells the amazing story of McNerney’s turnaround at the world’s leading aircraft manufacturer, which had faced a series of tough problems. Boeing is extremely hard to run, with more than $66 billion in annual revenue and 161,000 employees. McNerney continues to face dynamic challenges in a global business impacted by worldwide economic constraints.

Pressure to boost revenues and cut costs led him to develop a leadership style designed to win the hearts and minds of employees. His mantra—”you can’t order change”—implies that change must come from employees if it is to succeed.

McNerney has come up with very effective techniques for addressing 11 common CEO challenges. The author describes each technique complete with examples of how McNerney used them to improve performance.

  1. Help Your People Get 15% Better.
  2. Lead Groups to Higher Ground.
  3. Link Pay to Profit and Process, Not Stock Price.
  4. Build Strategy on Customer Focus.
  5. Invest in Your Strengths.
  6. Grow Through People, Not Deals.
  7. Tackle Challenging Situations Quickly and Effectively.
  8. Tighten Operations with Process-Improvement Tools.
  9. Partner with Global Suppliers to Reduce Risk and Accelerate Time to Market.
  10. Make Ethics and Compliance a Clear Competitive Advantage.
  11. Cut Your Company’s Environmental Footprint.

This book is certainly reader-friendly and will help executives tackle persistent and difficult leadership problems while motivating employees and producing results.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 20.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Our Iceberg Is Melting

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Our Iceberg Is MeltingOur Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber

Here’s still another of the popular mini-books (147 pages) we see adorning the shelves of our favorite bookstore haunts today. There are several reasons for this growing trend:

  • The quick-read format provides convenience for readers coping with today’s chaotic time challenges.
  • The use of the ever-popular fable to influence behavior.
  • The gift of wisdom, strategies, and tools to cope with real-world challenges in the work place.

For these reasons, you can expect to continue to see these classics emerge, entertain and educate as long as there are gifted writers to convey these critical lessons.

This particular fable comes to us from two gentlemen who know of what they speak. John Kotter is a leadership and change guru at Harvard Business School who has authored 11 business bestsellers, and Holger Rathgeber is a highly respected modern global manager.

Our Iceberg Is Melting presents a framework for an effective corporate change initiative through the tale of a colony of Antarctic penguins facing the danger of global warming. This colony of penguins will remind you of your typical business organization as they take on the personality traits and demonstrate the leadership skills of many of the characters we work with on a regular basis.

The central character is a particularly astute middle management Emperor Penguin named Fred who has identified a major challenge in the reality that the iceberg they call home is melting. His first obstacle is to convince everyone that there is a problem which must be dealt with.

Fred experiences frustration in having to deal with No No, the penguin who resists change, actively and passively. No No, of course, represents those many people in any organization who are basic blockers to change. Other recognizable personalities include: the naysayers and nitpickers, the innovators and agitators, the leaders and followers. The idea is that everyone in a group must play a role in navigating change. Fred must convince his colony’s Leadership Council that his research has discovered that if they don’t move to another iceberg soon they will suffer disaster beyond their comprehension.

They must implement a thoughtful plan for leading their fellow penguins in the colony through a time of necessary but gut-wrenching change. They quickly discover that the central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. Although each of these elements are important … the core of the matter is always about changing behaviors of those involved.

This is where we are introduced to the “The Eight Step Process of Successful Change.” The following chapters explain the critical flow of a successful change effort as we witness the colony discover that change is a never-ending process rather than an ultimate destination.

We, too, must realize that we continue to face many changes such as sales, technology, global competition, profits, ROI, retention, customer service, market share, etc. Desirable change is an on-going, never-ending process which demands one requirement above all others: adapt or perish.

This book is a must read for everyone who manages people at any level and recognizes the challenges involved with that responsibility. The eight-step change process is profound and can be applied to any organizational change effort.

Each step of this change process is also illustrated in some entertaining videos on Kotter’s web site at www.ouriceburgismelting.com.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.