Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

You’ve simply got to read this one! I truly feel sorry for those who will avoid this book because they don’t like and/or respect Lee Iacocca. A lot of people I know fall into one or both of those categories, and I’m certain they feel justified to feel as they do. However, they’re doing themselves a disservice. They’re going to miss some great humor, fantastic insight, decades of solid experience, shocking facts, engaging stories and unbelievably straight talk.

Several critics greeted the author’s most recent literary effort with charges of senility. They can’t believe his criticism of politicians and business leaders the world over. I think those critics are simply blind to the fact that Iacocca has nothing to lose by speaking his mind and calling things as he sees them. He owes nothing to no one and answers no one other than himself. You don’t have to like the author, and you certainly don’t have to agree with him. However, there is much to learn from his experience.

This isn’t a man who’s inherited his legacy, benefited from a streak of luck, or cut corners to achieve an unequaled track record:

He created the Mustang for Ford Motor Company, leading to his eventual firing over a power struggle with Henry Ford.
He joined Chrysler as President and CEO shortly after Chrysler reported its worst earnings ever. He went on to restore Chrysler through shrewd financial policies, a $1.2 billion loan guarantee, and tax concessions granted by Congress. By the way, he repaid the loan in record time and masterminded the Minivan as though he had some extra time.
He almost bought out Ford and turned down a nomination for President of the United States!
In the 1980s, at the request of President Reagan, he spearheaded the campaign to refurbish the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, raising over $500 million to do so.
He also engineered Chrysler’s $1.5 billion acquisition of American Motors, creating the Big Three from a mild-mannered four.
The Iacocca Foundation recently announced the opening of its Los Angeles office. The Los Angeles office will help coordinate JoinLeeNow (www.joinleenow.org), an $11 million fundraising initiative to bring a potential cure for type 1 diabetes to human clinical trials. He has dedicated himself to this cause since the death of his wife in 1983 from complications of diabetes.

This man hasn’t had time to slip into senility. He’s been much too busy engineering what appears to be nothing less than a much needed national enema! He starts his campaign with his photo on the cover of the book. There he stands in his trend-setting solid black collarless golf shirt under an American-flag-decorated black sport coat, casually holding a giant cigar as he grins impishly at the readers. He reeks confidence and wisdom as he poses the question, “Where Have All The Leaders Gone?”

Iacocca grabs you by the throat on page one and doesn’t let you take a breath until he closes on page 263 with a challenging question you’re certain he’s directing to you personally!

He takes on President George W. Bush and his administration in an issue by issue autopsy of the many sins committed over the past seven years. In all fairness, he then offers his no-nonsense, straight-up assessments of the politicians vying to replace Bush in 2008. He certainly doesn’t mince words as he evaluates the front-runners from both parties.

His suggestions are simplistic but extremely powerful as he stresses we return to our focus on people and priorities. For instance, he calls for all presidential candidates to reveal their Cabinet choices BEFORE the election so voters can evaluate the team and not just the man.

Iacocca quickly focuses on the rapid demise of leadership in our country from politicians and business leaders to educational advisers and military commanders.

He tackles the national issues we’re all concerned about such as Iraq/Iran, the health-care crisis, our loss of competitive edge in the global marketplace, the massive trade deficit, a border that is a sieve, the slow death of the middle class, jobs, education, and energy policy. Iacocca then goes on to provide clear and credible recommendations for each of these problems based on his decades of observation and personal experience as a leader. Now 82, he has seen the U.S. overcome some of its worst crises, including the Great Depression and World War II, through great leadership. He shares his desire and recommendation that we return to that strategy.

The book opens with a discussion of the nine C’s of leadership: Curiosity, Creativity, Communicator, Character, Courage, Conviction, Charisma, Competency, and Common Sense. He defines each element and discusses how they impact leadership in all walks of life. He shares both negative and positive examples from today’s headlines focusing on the presence or absence of each element and the consequences which follow.

With a reputation as a straight shooter, he hopes to inspire more young people to vote. This is a surprisingly outspoken take on the pressing need for real leadership in this country.

The book closes with a discussion of four traits he learned from others: Optimism; Common Sense; Discipline; and―from his mother―Love.

You’ll enjoy the excellent societal insights from a man historians will long recognize as one our greatest leaders!

(This book review was originally published in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 16.)

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.

Blue Ocean Strategy

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
by W. Chan Kin and Renee Mauborgne

This book was recommended to me. I must admit that I probably wouldn’t have read it otherwise. I’m still torn as to whom I might recommend it to. On one hand, I found it to be far too deep for me. I found lots of rhetoric about strategy analysis and formulation, the importance of using solid empirical data and rigorous analysis, and the development of heavyweight analytical tools to assist them in the realization of their goals. If that previous sentence left you dumbfounded and doubting whether you want to read on, fear not and bear with me.

I often felt as though this book was intended only for serious strategy planners, MBA students, Business Development Managers, readers of the Harvard Business Review and the professors who write for those readers. Needless to say, I don’t fall into that group. In fact, I don’t fall anywhere near that group. However, at other times, I felt as though trusted peers were offering me a set of very practical frameworks and models that allowed me to grasp what appeared to be very obvious points. However, in reality, these points were profound insights and breakthrough contributions to business strategy literature.

The authors put my mind at ease as they shared information about several outstanding companies that have dominated (if not rendered irrelevant) their competition by penetrating previously neglected market space. At this point, they were talking my language as I love to learn what makes successful companies stand head and shoulders above their competition. The examples included the Body Shop, Callaway Golf, Cirque du Soleil, Dell, NetJets, the SONY Walkman, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, the Swatch watch, and Yellow Tail wine. Focusing on familiar organizations made it much easier for me to understand their precise, actionable plan for changing the way companies do business.

Kim and Mauborgne chose a colorful metaphor as the title of their book—one not normally associated with strategy. As a result, they have provided us with a very simple and memorable way of distinguishing their approach from more traditional ones. Let’s start with a simple definition:

A Blue Ocean is simply a market space that is created by identifying an unserved set of customers, then delivering to them a compelling new value proposition.

This is as opposed to a Red Ocean, where the market is well-defined and heavily populated by the competition. All parties in these markets are engaged in an intense competitive struggle for the same customers, with different value propositions.

Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, the authors argue that tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by creating “blue oceans” of uncontested market space ripe for growth.

In short:

DO NOT compete in existing market space. INSTEAD you should create uncontested market space.
DO NOT beat the competition. INSTEAD you should make the competition irrelevant.
DO NOT exploit existing demand. INSTEAD you should create and capture new demand.
DO NOT make the value/cost trade-off. INSTEAD you should break the value/cost trade-off.
DO NOT align the whole system of a company’s activities with its strategic choice of differentiation or low cost. INSTEAD you should align the whole system of a company’s activities in pursuit of both differentiation and low cost.

The authors elaborate on six basic principles that define and separate Blue Ocean strategy from competition-based strategic thought. These principles are introduced and then discussed in great detail, presented in a direct, jargon-free manner. You’ll learn to reconstruct market boundaries, focus on the big picture, reach beyond existing demand, get the strategic sequence right, overcome organizational hurdles, and build execution into strategy.

This Blue Ocean Strategy seems so obvious and easy to understand you might wonder why everyone doesn’t adopt this approach. The answer is quite simple. To do so requires a broad set of multi-disciplinary skills as well as fresh thinking about even the most mundane options. It requires both discipline and inspiration, which is indeed a rare combination in today’s marketplace.

As much as I enjoyed this book, I must admit that there was much I simply didn’t understand. However, I learned enough to know that I must schedule a re-read in hopes of grasping even more insight into this intriguing strategy. It provides a precise, actionable plan for changing the way companies do business with one resounding piece of advice: SWIM FOR OPEN WATERS!

(This book review was originally published in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 15.)

About Harry K. Jones

Fast Company’s Greatest Hits

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

Fast Company's Greatest Hits Fast Company’s Greatest Hits: Ten Years of the Most Innovative Ideas in Business
Edited by Mark N. Vamos and David Lidsky

Fast Company has been called the hottest business magazine of the past decade. It’s been referred to as the Fortune Magazine of today’s generation. In my travels I have found only two, almost opposite, reactions to Fast Company. People either love it and can’t wait for the next issue, or they’ve never heard of it. The first issue hit the newsstands in 1995, and there are many people in the business community who have never seen it.

Due to the fact that reading books and magazines is instrumental to my work, I happened to pick up the very first issue of Fast Company and have never missed one since that time. My early memories are few but vivid. I remember being astounded by the size of the publication. It appeared to contain 500 pages and weighed at least 5 lbs. as I lugged it through the book store. I’m certain both of those numbers are highly exaggerated, but they certainly represent my first impression. I was also astonished at the number of articles, the quality of the writing, and the impressive list of writers chosen by the editors. It was the first magazine that made me want to read almost every article from cover to cover. I found the majority of the stories to be very informative, challenging, and well-written. Over the years, the size of the magazine has been reduced substantially but the quality remains.

Fast Company set out to get readers excited about the new, Internet-driven world of business, aiming to create “the language of the revolution.” To some extent, it succeeded, becoming the flagship publication of the new economy. Fast Company has been the place to turn for cutting-edge business ideas and profiles of amazing companies and their leaders.

This book offers an engaging cross section of the past 10 years of management ideas, profiles, trends and rising stars by offering 32 articles presented in chronological order. What you’ll find within these covers are the magazine’s best and most enduring articles, the ones that generated the most buzz and the deepest insights.

As the respected Jim Collins writes in his foreword: “Reading these articles is like listening in on a series of fascinating conversations with some of the best minds and creative thinkers of a generation.”

This is the perfect book for Fast Company‘s hundreds of thousands of devoted fans—and for others who missed these great articles the first time around.

Some of the articles you’ll find include:

“Everything I Thought I Knew About Leadership Is Wrong” by Fast Company‘s founding editors.
“But Wait, You Promised…” “… And You Believed Us? Welcome to the Real World, Ma’am.” by Charles Fishman (Why is customer service so bad? And is there any hope?)
“What Are We After? We Are Literally Trying to Stop Time” by Bill Breen (John Smith trains the world’s best athletes to reinvent how they run.)
“The Brand Called You” by Tom Peters (Tom’s call to arms to develop your own signature or suffer the consequences may be more relevant than ever.)
“Why We Buy” by Charles Fishman (Apple design guru Jonathan Ive reveals the ideas that let Apple—and anyone—create innovations like the iPod.)
“In Search of Courage” by John McCain (Learn how to exercise courage like a muscle.)
“Malcolm Gladwell: The Accidental Guru” by Danielle Sachs (Read a profile of the hottest business thinker of the age.)
“Join the Circus” by Linda Tischler (Learn how the artists at Cirque du Soleil reinvented the dying relic we knew as the circus.)

There are 32 articles in all … each a page turner. Continue the experience by checking out the next monthly issue of Fast Company.

(This book review was originally published in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 15.)

About Harry K. Jones

Execution

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

Many people will avoid this book like the plague, and they’ll do so for much the same reason they would avoid a diet or time management book. The reason is simple. Reading this book will remind them of many things they know they should be doing. It will also explain why they’re not doing those things, the consequences if they continue on that course, and how to overcome this crucial challenge.

This is another book recommended to me by someone who attended one of my keynote presentations. He said the opening page of the book reminded him of many of the comments I made in my keynote. That comment piqued my curiosity, which lead me to the book store.

The book begins by quoting a CEO as he searched for the reason why his great strategic initiative had failed. He struggled as he explained that he had one of the brightest, talented and experienced teams in the industry, conducted two off-site meetings, did a great deal of benchmarking, got the metrics, and even involved the famed McKinsey team to assist. They had a good plan and the market was good. He assigned stretch goals. He empowered his team. Everyone knew what had to be done. The incentive system was clear. The team worked together with high energy. They failed miserably. He was fired. This was a true story.

How many of us can say we’ve ever been that well prepared to undertake a crucial project? And yet they failed. The reason was simple and, in retrospect, very evident. The key ingredient that was missing—execution.

This same scenario plays out almost daily in the national press accompanied by prominent names from numerous industries. It will more than likely continue. Execution is the focus of this book by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan—two pros who know of what they speak. Larry is one of the world’s most acclaimed CEOs, a man with few peers who has a track record for delivering results. Ram is a legendary advisor to senior executives and boards of directors, a man with unparalleled insight into why some companies are successful and others are not. Together they’ve pooled their knowledge and experience into this guidebook explaining how to close the gap between results promised and results delivered—something everyone in business needs to know today.

The book is divided into three parts:

Part I: Why Execution Is Needed
Part II: The (3) Building Blocks of Execution
Part III: The Three Core Processes

You’ll also learn:

The Gap Nobody Knows
The Leader’s Seven Essential Behaviors
The Job No Leader Should Delegate

You’ll learn many detailed examples of well-known organizations that have and have not yet learned the importance of “Execution.” The authors will convince you that execution (that is, linking a company’s people, strategy, and operations) is what will determine your success in today’s business world. Can you afford to pass on this book? If you think you can, you might want to reconsider.

This book is also available in an audio version recorded by the authors themselves.

(This book review was originally published in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 15.)

About Harry K. Jones

Know-How

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t
by Ram Charan

Take a look at this subtitle. If the author knows his stuff, this book should certainly jump off the shelf into the hands of any CEO, manager, leader, supervisor or team leader in any business—global, national, or local. It should also catch the eye of any individual who wants some insight into what it takes to be a productive performer. By the way, the author does know his stuff. Ram Charan is the co-author of the bestseller Execution, the author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and many other books in addition to being a highly acclaimed speaker and advisor. He’s a noted expert of business strategy and has coached some of the world’s most successful CEOs.

Glance at any current newspaper or magazine, and you know that this country is in dire need of leadership in every field. Well-known industry giants are disappearing with regularity. Front pages are suddenly spotlighting “overnight wonders”—businesses producing billions of dollars at time when others say it can’t be done. In this current environment of global competition and constant chaos, the difference is clearly seen in the separation of leaders who perform and those who don’t. We speak of it often in our seminars as a very transparent knowing-doing gap. The author tells us it all boils down to “Know-How.”

In these pages, Charan shares his four decades of leadership observations. He details eight critical skills, which he calls “know-hows,” that are essential for leadership success.

The eight critical Know-Hows include:

Positioning and repositioning the business to make money.
Connecting the dots by pinpointing and taking action on patterns of external change.
Getting people to work together by managing the social system of your business.
Leaders are made, not born: Judging, selecting, and developing leaders. Discovering and developing a person’s natural talent.
Molding high-energy, high-powered, high-ego people into a working team of leaders.
Knowing the destination where you want to take your business by developing the proper goals.
Setting laser-sharp dominant priorities that act as a road map for meeting those goals.
Dealing with forces beyond the market. The ability to deal with pressures you cannot control but affect your business.

Charan shares many case studies from his consulting practice to demonstrate both success and failure in leadership situations.

Throughout the book, the author provides helpful tips and tools such as:

“Questions to Ask Yourself”
Early warning signals that may reflect a need for change
How to spot the future leaders of your business
Cognitive traits that improve the Know-Hows
Six personal traits of leaders that help or interfere with the Know-Hows
Traits of leaders who connect the dots
Tips for setting priorities

Charan wraps things up with an encouraging eight-page letter to a future leader, Michael, in which he shares some very sound advice, tips, tools, strategies and insights. While indeed encouraging, the author spares no punches in clearly stating that being a business leader in today’s world is not for the faint of heart.

You’ll find this book very practical, revealing, and application-oriented. Upon completion, you’ll want to keep it close for continuous reference.

(This book review was originally published in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 15.)

About Harry K. Jones

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

Oh, the Places You'll Go! Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
by Dr. Seuss

Yes, it’s Dr. Seuss. Yes, it’s that Dr. Seuss. The one I read to my children decades ago and still find on the bookshelves of my grandchildren to this day.

Do us both a favor and bear with me on this one. So many times we fail to pause to investigate certain areas of life because we naturally assume they hold no value, quality or learning opportunities for us. I honestly feel we might be shocked if it were revealed how much “good stuff” we missed over the years as we hurried on to things we thought were more rewarding. I learned this the hard way several years ago.

I don’t care what you do for a living or to what height you have risen on your chosen career path. You need to sit down and read this book. Contemplate the content and see how close to home it hits. Then read it to your children or grandchildren for what will hopefully be the first of many recitals. What’s really rewarding about this classic is the fact that it provides an excellent opportunity for you to add your own personal anecdotes and experiences to better clarify the many lessons shared in the good doctor’s wise words.

I’m a little embarrassed but even much more proud to admit how I first became exposed to this particular primer. A young high school student, wise beyond her years, presented me with her own personal copy of what she described as “one of the greatest leadership books ever written for children.” Those were her grandfather’s words to her as he gifted her with a book that would greatly influence her life. That book now sits in the leadership section of my personal library, and I cherish the worn cover and dog-eared pages as a symbol of what it meant to her. The fact that she passed it on to me as a token of her appreciation means even more. If you want to read the entire story, it is “A Surprise from Dr. Seuss” in our newsletter.

I’m going to share very little of the content here because I feel it’s crucial for you to experience it yourself. However, here’s a short sample of Seuss’s unique wisdom:

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
Any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go!”

Now tell me that doesn’t pertain to us and probably many of those who work for us and with us. That’s just the tip of the iceberg! Do yourself a favor; take a few minutes and smell these roses. It won’t take you very long, and you’ll never regret it. In fact, you’ll want to share your discovery with others, I’m sure. There are only 52 pages. Twenty-two of those have no words, only illustrations. And the remaining 30 pages consist of only one or two large-print paragraphs. Yet the significance of its contents will be greater than you have received from many so-called leadership books boasting several hundred pages.

I don’t know how much you know about Dr. Seuss, but this guy is the Rocky Balboa of creative literature. His real name is Theodor Seuss Geisel, and he wrote his first book in 1937. It was rejected 27 times before finally being published by Vanguard Press! Many of us would have given up at that point. However, he apparently believed what he spoke under his pen name because he went on to publish 44 children’s books in 15 languages selling well over 200 million copies! His wondrous words found their way into homes, heads, and hearts around the world. His works became the source of 11 children’s television specials, a Broadway musical, and a feature-length motion picture! His honors include two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and a Pulitzer Prize! He wrote this particular book in 1990, but you’ll find it as relevant today as it was the day it was published. Dr. Seuss died the following year at 87 and will be missed dearly. However, many generations to come will learn much from the mythical doctor as his mesmerizing messages are timeless.

Take a moment to read our story on the web site and you’ll see a prime example of how his work influenced just one of so many impressionable teenagers striving for success today. I still firmly believe that this particular book offers great advice to any adult sharing that same goal. This joyous ode to personal fulfillment encourages readers of all ages to find the success that lies within us.

“So will you succeed?
Yes! you will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed!)”

(This book review was originally published in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 15.)

About Harry K. Jones

The First 90 Days

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels
by Michael Watkins

Personally, I can’t think of a modern-day business person and/or organization that wouldn’t benefit from this great read. Let’s face it, can you think of an organization that won’t be experiencing some kind of staff transition in the future? Are you aware of an individual who won’t be dealing with a transition of some sort in pursuit of his/her career track?

Webster defines transition as: “a passing from one condition, place, etc. to another.” Therefore, we’re not talking only about someone becoming a CEO, although that high level transition is certainly covered in this book. Michael Watkins provides a great hands-on guide to anyone dealing with any one of a multitude of transitions ranging from a job change or promotion to launching a start-up or leading a turnaround.

Watkins points out the obvious by noting that as long as there have been leaders, there have been leadership transitions. The changing of the guard and the challenges it poses for the new leader are as old as human society. Those challenges have not gotten any easier given the complexity of modern organizations and the speed at which business is conducted. Watkins knows of what he speaks as he is a noted leadership transition expert as well as an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

The author said he was struck, as we all should be, by how few companies invested in helping their precious leadership assets succeed during transitions—arguably the most critical junctures in their careers. Why do companies leave their people to sink or swim? What would it be worth to companies if managers entering critical new positions could take charge faster? I guess I’m amazed why this individual author would ask these questions BEFORE all of these companies would consider it. After all, it’s the companies that suffer the losses or enjoy continued growth and prosperity from the gains!

The pressure on new leaders to hit the ground running has never been greater, and the likelihood and cost of failure is escalating. For three years he explored these issues by studying dozens of leadership transitions at all levels, by designing transaction acceleration programs for leading companies, and by developing an outline performance-support tool for new leaders. That work culminated in the writing of this book.

In this hands-on guide, Watkins provides strategies for avoiding the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and shows how individuals can protect themselves—emotionally as well as professionally—during what is often an intense and vulnerable period. He provides a road map for creating your own 90-day acceleration plan. The conceptual backbone of the road map is ten key transitional challenges:

Promote yourself
Accelerate your learning
Match strategy to situation
Secure early wins
Negotiate success
Achieve alignment
Build your team
Create coalitions
Keep your balance
Expedite everyone

If you succeed in meeting these core challenges, you will have a successful transition. Failure to surmount any one of them, however, is enough to cause potentially crippling problems. Concise and actionable, this is the survival guide no new leader should be without. The First 90 Days should be incorporated into every company’s leadership development strategy, so that anyone making a transition in an organization can get up to speed quicker and smarter.

(This book review was originally published in 2005 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 14.)

About Harry K. Jones

If You Don’t Make Waves, You’ll Drown

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

if-you-dont-make-waves-youll-drown If You Don’t Make Waves, You’ll Drown: 10 Hard Charging Strategies for Leading in Politically Correct Times
by Dave Anderson

Prior to every keynote or seminar, we offer the disclaimer that we’re about to share with you what you NEED to hear rather than what you WANT to hear. I guess I always felt that was pretty daring and bold in this day and age of pampering audiences and sharing warm fuzzy antidotes in hopes of inspiring enhanced productivity, profitability, and prosperity. Never again. Our remarks seem insignificant after reading this book.

Two chapters into Dave Anderson’s rantings, I must admit I was angered, insulted, disturbed, embarrassed, offended, irritated and exhausted. I felt abused, almost drawn and quartered. I felt I had been kicked in the shins, slapped in the face, and had the wind knocked out of me. But wait, don’t misunderstand. That’s apparently a good thing. The author actually predicted many of those reactions. In fact, he claims he would have failed his readers if, in fact, he had NOT provoked those many emotions within us. As he says, frustration and dissatisfaction are unequalled motivators, and that’s exactly what is needed in today’s chaotic business environment.

I bought this book at the airport in Los Angeles prior to a long red-eye flight back to Michigan. It shortened the flight dramatically. I discovered very quickly that this is certainly not your typical business book. Anderson’s direct and bare-knuckles approach makes you realize that he has no intention of inspiring you but has every intention of taunting you into action.

He pulls no punches in pointing out that today’s business leaders are running out of time. Look around and you’ll see that our businesses are mired in mediocrity today. You won’t find academic remedies to your business challenges within these fast-turning pages. In fact, you’ll find the opposite—tips on how to be a tougher, take-no-prisoners style manager.

He shows you how to be more direct without being disrespectful; how to give honest feedback even when it hurts; and how to hold employees accountable for results. In short, you’ll learn how to get the most out of your business. Refusing to beat around the bush, the author tells you how to motivate lazy employees, reward the winners, fire the losers, and run a tight and profitable ship. No doubt this advice will be tough medicine for some companies until they consider the obvious alternative which is reported almost daily in headlines from coast to coast.

As a business consultant, I’d like to put this book into the hands of every one of our clients. It’s filled with simple, to-the-point wisdom that only sounds clichéd because it works. This is the perfect book for aligning your company and your employees to grow your organization and exceed customer expectations. Anyone using this book as a template for a bold new business model will clearly reach levels only dreamed of in the past!

Buy this book. Grab a legal pad. Lock your door. Turn off your phones. Climb into a very comfortable chair. Buckle your seatbelt. Don your armor. Open your mind.

If you want real answers to your business challenges, this is the reference book. There is no sugar coating here, just the facts. You’ll find many solutions that will definitely work if YOU have the guts to pull the trigger! This may well be your last chance!

(This book review was originally published in 2005 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 14.)

About Harry K. Jones

The Daily Drucker

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done
by Peter F. Drucker with Joseph A. Maciariello

If you know of Peter Drucker, the 95-year-old Austrian-born author and analyst who left behind a body of work that laid the foundation for modern management science, you’ll want this book. If you know little or nothing of this man who was often called “the world’s most influential business guru” and top management thinker in the world, you need this book.

Peter Drucker died in November of this year (2005). He is the American Business Philosopher—a guru and teacher who writes about the business of business in a fundamental and memorable way. He has written more than three dozen books, translated into 30 languages, over a period of 66 years. In addition, he has written countless articles for newspapers and magazines world-wide. Millions of people read those books and articles. Millions more, even if they never read Drucker, knew his concepts and catch-phrases: “management by objective,” “knowledge worker,” “empowered employee,” “privatization,” “decentralization,” “creative abandonment,” and the list goes on and on.

His thinking transformed corporate management in the latter half of the 20th century and his work influenced Winston Churchill, Bill Gates, Jack Welch and the entire Japanese business establishment.

I was always personally impacted by the fact that, until the day he died, Peter Drucker referred to himself as a student rather than a teacher. He expressed gratitude each day for what he learned from others. We’d be much better off if only today’s high school and college students would adapt that life-long philosophy.

This hardbound book is an anthology of 366 brief excerpts from Drucker’s 36 books and countless articles. Drucker himself explains that “the most important part of this book is the blank spaces at the bottom of its pages. They are what the readers will contribute, their actions, decisions and the results of these decisions. For this is an action book.” The reader is also provided with an extensively annotated bibliography and a comprehensive list of “Readings by Topic.”

Oddly enough, this book actually resembles a bible and even has a ribbon to mark your page. For so many business leaders, Drucker was a business guru akin to a spiritual guru. His insights are profound, logical, and prophetic. Indeed, his words were a guidebook to those he inspired. This is a book that can fit on anyone’s desk for a quick dose of inspiration.

No other business thinker has been more influential than Peter Drucker. Every page should be read, meditated, and implemented. It should be read everyday. The content is far from being technical. A business education or background certainly isn’t required to understand or enjoy it. The book is a joy to read for those who seek business knowledge in its highest form. If you are going to buy only one Drucker book, then buy this one as it contains his best collections. Future generations will continue to benefit from his intellectual journey in the coming 1,000 years. This fine collection of “Druckerisms” would make a fine gift for anyone. Its content will be as relevant in a century as it is today.

His longtime friend and colleague, professor Joseph A. Maciariello, assisted with the selection and organization of the material. Here are just a few of the excerpts:

To make hierarchies less appealing to executives, he suggested, just limit executive pay. No executives, Drucker wrote in 1982, should be making more than twenty times the pay of their workers.
Smart enterprises, he preached, don’t order their employees around. They value their employees, encourage their contributions, and tap their wisdom at every opportunity.
Dumb enterprises, by contrast, create obstacles to information sharing. They layer bureaucracy upon workers and smother their imagination. They shield executives from real-world knowledge.
Central to his philosophy was the belief that highly skilled people are an organization’s most valuable resource and that a manager’s job is to prepare and free people to perform.
In the early 1950s, when other business leaders figured the worldwide market for computers was in the single digits, he predicted that computer technology would thoroughly transform business. It has indeed done just that.
In 1961, he alerted his followers to the rise of Japan as an industrial power, and two decades later, he warned of its impending economic stagnation.
In 1997, he predicted a backlash to burgeoning executive pay, saying, “In the next economic downturn, there will be an outbreak of bitterness and contempt for the super-corporate chieftains who pay themselves millions.”
Quotation: “If we didn’t spend four hours on placing a man and placing him right, we’d spend four hundred hours on cleaning up after our mistake.” (Alfred Sloan).
“In cost control an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
“The right answer to the wrong problem is very difficult to fix.”
“People’s decisions are the ultimate—perhaps the only—control of an organization. People determine the performance capacity of an organization. No organization can do better than the people it has.”
“Every organization needs one core competence: innovation.”
“Effective executives build on strengths—theirs and others. They do not build on weaknesses. “
“The one person to distrust is the one who never makes a mistake … Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried, and the trivial. The better a person is, the more mistakes he will make …”

(This book review was originally published in 2005 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 13.)

About Harry K. Jones

Winning

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Harry K. Jones

Winning Winning
by Jack Welch with Suzy Welch

Jack Welch has written a number of books on a variety of subjects such as leadership, management, business, values, and competition, to name just a few. Even more books have been written about him and his illustrious career with General Electric. When this particular book hit the book stores, I received a number of comments, via e-mail and in person, from friends and associates who were eager to share their impressions. Oddly enough, the reviews were mixed. In fact, they ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other. Several told me it was the very best book they’ve read by and/or about the man who Fortune Magazine crowned “Manager of the Century,” Others told me that it was nothing more than a re-hash of every other book he’s written. After reading the book myself, I could obviously identify with both viewpoints. In fact, I did. However, I believe this outcome was intentional for a number of reasons.

Winning was a joint effort for Jack and his wife Suzy. His talented wife is the former editor of the Harvard Business Review. She attended Harvard University and the Harvard Business School, and is the author of numerous articles about leadership, creativity, change and organizational behavior, and a contributor to several books about general management.

I must admit I’ve met very few people who are neutral on the subject of Jack Welch. Most everyone seems to love the man or hate the man. That might have something to do with the fact that the man’s personal life differed somewhat from his management philosophies. Obviously, readers focus more on one than the other. Those who choose to focus on his personal life, may very well find reason to disapprove of him. However, if you want some simple, powerful and proven management practices, then he is arguably one of the best ever.

Personal feelings aside, you can’t ignore the facts. Jack Welch knows how to win. During his forty-year career at General Electric, he led the company to year-after-year success around the globe, in multiple markets, against brutal competition. He transformed the industrial giant from a sleepy “Old Economy” company with a market capitalization of $4 billion to a dynamic new one worth nearly half a trillion dollars.

His honest, be-the-best style of management became the gold standard in business, with his relentless focus on people, teamwork, and profits. Since Welch retired in 2001 as chairman and chief executive officer of GE, he has traveled the world, speaking to more than 250,000 people and answering their questions on dozens of wide-ranging topics. He decided to write this book as a way to provide documented answers to the many questions he received during his travels.

Welch’s objective in this book is to speak to people at every level of the organization, in companies large and small. His audience is everyone from line workers to college students and MBAs, from project managers to senior executives.

He kicks things off with an introductory section called “Underneath It All” where he shares his personal business philosophy.

The core of the book is then divided into three sections:

He looks inside the company, from leadership to picking winners to making change happen.
He looks outside at the competition focusing on strategy, mergers, and Six Sigma to name just a few areas.
Here he focuses on managing your career—how to find the right job, get promoted, deal with a bad boss, and achieve work-life balance.

The final section of the book Welch calls “Tying Up Loose Ends.” Those interested in the human side of great leaders will find this last section especially appealing. In it, Welch answers the most interesting questions that he’s received in the last several years while traveling the globe addressing audiences of executives and business-school students.

Critics seem to agree that Winning is destined to become the bible of business for generations to come. To avoid the content of this book because you disapprove of Jack—the man—would be a disservice to you, the student of leadership. There is a wealth of valuable insights, original thinking, and solutions to nuts-and-bolts problems within these pages. It’s difficult to think of anyone in business who wouldn’t benefit from reading this savvy, engaging cubicle-to-boardroom guide to success.

(This book review was originally published in 2005 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 13.)

Book Reviews

Book reviews written by professional speaker and consultant Harry K. Jones.

Category Archives: Leadership Books

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

About Harry K. Jones

Blue Ocean Strategy

About Harry K. Jones

Fast Company’s Greatest Hits

About Harry K. Jones

Execution

About Harry K. Jones

Know-How

About Harry K. Jones

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

About Harry K. Jones

The First 90 Days

About Harry K. Jones

If You Don’t Make Waves, You’ll Drown

About Harry K. Jones

The Daily Drucker

About Harry K. Jones

Winning

About Harry K. Jones