Book Description
This book is well suited to a variety of students, including undergraduate and master’s degree students studying compensation. Martocchio provides a framework for understanding strategic compensation that can be used by all business professionals and business majors.
Customer Reviews:
Great book for compensation managers.......2007-09-20
I bought this book as part of a course, am reading it. The text is good for ppl new to this field of compensation and one easily gets the hang of things. The book was much cheaper than if I bought it from the regular store, and it was in great shape, no highlights, no lines, as promised by the seller.
Customer Reviews:
Why some companies seem to have a devoted customer base..........2007-06-20
There's a difference when you fly Southwest vs. United. You feel different shopping at Costco than you feel shopping at Wal-mart. Why? That question is explored and answered in the book Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose by Raj Sisodia, Jag Sheth, and David B. Wolfe. This is one of those books that will cause you to think about why you feel as you do towards certain companies, and how those feelings translate into real profits.
Contents: A Whole New World; It's Not Share of Wallet Anymore - It's Share of Heart; New Age, New Rules, New Capitalism; The Chaotic Interregnum; Employees - The Decline and Fall of Human Resources; Customers - The Power of Love; Investors - Reaping What FoEs Sow; Partners - Elegant Harmonies; Society - The Ultimate Stakeholder; Culture - The Secret Ingredient; Lessons Learned; Crossing Over to the Other Side; Acknowledgements
On Wall Street, companies are usually judged on their profit. Squeeze as much out of your business as you can, cut costs wherever possible, and make sure you meet your numbers. To be sure, plenty of companies are successful under those rules (such as Wal-mart). But when you look at their performance over the last few years on the stock market, returns have been stagnant or have trailed the field. The alternative way to run a business is as a "firm of endearment" (FoE). These companies have a passion for what they do/sell, they have a strongly defined purpose for what they want to accomplish, and they look to contribute to society in more ways than just the quarterly dividend to shareholders. These FoEs, like Costco, Whole Foods, Harley-Davidson, and others, include stakeholders to mean all parts of society that they touch... shareholders, employees, the community, etc. The focus isn't on pure profit, but instead on contributing to the well-being of all the stakeholders. That's why a company like Costco can afford to pay their employees a living wage, have low turnover, and *still* turn a substantial profit. They have captured the hearts of their customer base, and that base will go out of their way to shop at Costco whenever possible. That's also why a company like Ikea can propose a new location and have nearly universal acceptance in the community, while a new Wal-mart location brings out protesters in force. There's obviously a lot more that differentiates FoEs from their counterparts in the marketplace, but once you recognize an FoE, you'll understand why they are successful by *not* following the same formula as everyone else.
It's tempting to think that all the FoEs covered in this book can do no wrong. That's not the case. JetBlue was/is an FoE that badly damaged their reputation during the winter when storms caused massive cancellations. It even led to the resignation of the CEO. Like other business books of this genre (In Search Of Excellence, From Good To Great), only time will tell how these companies will fare over the long term. It may well be that a decade from now, the stars of this book will have all fallen to the wayside. But I would venture to guess that the companies covered here will have a much larger margin of forgiveness than would other companies that are just focused on the next quarter...
This is a book that is highly recommended for anyone running a business. It should cause you to rethink the factors of success for your company, as well as point you in directions that could lead you to become an FoE in your niche.
Why "endearing companies tend to be enduring companies".......2007-05-16
In the Prologue, when discussing The Age of Transcendence through which the contemporary business world is now proceeding, the co-authors (Rajendra S. Sisodia, David B. Wolfe, and Jagdish N. Sheth) suggest that it is "a cultural movement in which physical (materialistic) influences that dominated culture in the twentieth-century are ebbing while metaphysical (experiential) influences become stronger. This is helping to drive a shift in the foundations of culture from an objective base to a subjective base: People are increasingly relying on their own counsel to decide what the truth is...That shift acknowledges a long-suppressed idea in a world largely guided by Newtonian certainty that chemistry Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine says is scattering to the winds: Ultimately, everything is personal."
Thus do the authors establish a frame-of-reference for the thesis of their book: That each stakeholder in an organization tends to thrive best when all stakeholders thrive. That is, no stakeholder group is more important than any other. "It is disciplined dedication to the well-being of all stakeholders that separates firms of endearment from their competition." Stakeholder relationship management (SRM), the authors suggest, can achieve and then sustain superior business performance that, in turn, will create n a decisive competitive advantage. They are convinced that SRM business models will increasingly be seen "as the most efficacious way to achieve sustained superior business performance in years to come" but only if (huge "if") the interests of all stakeholder groups are brought into strategic alignment.
Two Questions: Are all stakeholder groups of equal importance and do they have the same interests? Also, are all members of a stakeholder group (e.g. shareholders) of equal importance and do they have the same interests? These questions occurred to me as I read the first chapter, especially the brief discussion of the "distinctive" core values, policies, and attributes that firms of endearment (FoEs) share in common. Eventually, Sisodia, Wolfe, and Sheth provide answers to these questions, answers best revealed within the narrative.
If indeed "endearing companies tend to be enduring companies," how do the 28 FoEs that "made the final cut" for this book compare with the 11 companies praised by Jim Collins in Good to Great? "Over a 10-year horizon, FoEs outperformed the Good to Great companies by 1,026 percent to 331 percent (a 3.1-to-1 ratio). Over five years, FoEs outperformed the Good to Great companies by 128 percent to 77 percent (a 1.7-to-1 ratio). Over three years, FoEs performed on par the Good to Great companies: 73 percent to 75 percent." (FYI, there are no duplicates on the two lists.) As with the exemplary companies discussed by Thomas J. Peters in Robert H. Waterman, Jr. in In Search of Excellence, not all companies on any such list continue to meet the criteria that were the basis of their initial selection.
For me, some of the most interesting material is presented in Chapter 11, "Crossing Over to the Other Side." At one point, the authors cite Oliver Wendell Holmes's observation "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." They then quote one of my favorite passages in James O'Toole's The Executive's Compass:
"To move beyond the confusion of complexity, executives must abandon their constant search for the immediately practice and, paradoxically, seek to understand the underlying ideas and values that have shaped the world they work in. Managers who clamor for how-to instruction are, by definition, stuck on the near side of complexity."
According to Sisodia, Wolfe, and Sheth, the big challenge of the times is to transcend the zero-sum mindset because, given the profusion of new opportunities, absolutes (by nature limiting) are found everywhere on the near side of complexity. "They emerge from people's perennial quest for pat solutions, or `silver bullets,' as they are sometimes described. This is a key point because, as Sisodia, Wolfe, and Sheth explain, a zero sum mindset leads to the conclusion that one stakeholder group can only benefit at the expense of the other stakeholder groups...However, opportunities increase by an order of magnitude when the mind breaks free of zero-sum thinking."
There are specific reasons why endearing companies tend to be enduring companies and one of the most important is their having "the ability to transcend ruthless competition and embrace the fruits of cooperation [which is] the essence of evolved humanness."
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Bill George's Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value and his later book, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, co-authored with Peter Sims. Also Michael Ray's The Highest Goal, Adrian J. Slywotzky's The Upside: The 7 Strategies for Turning Big Threats into Growth Breakthroughs, Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson as well as Ram Charan's Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't, Lynda Gratton's Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz with Energy - And Others Don't, Robert J. Herbold's Seduced by Success: How the Best Companies Survive the 9 Traps of Winning, Jack Alexander's Performance Dashboards and Analysis for Value Creation, and Michael Useem's The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide--Knowing What to Do and When to Do It.
Excellent description of a service oriented business model.......2007-05-16
This book identifies a batch of companies that have oriented their business model to providing a superior feeling in the minds of their customers. In many cases I absolutely agree with them.
Wegman's supermarkets for instance presents an excellent shopping experience. I particularly love their cheese department where knowledge people stand ready to discuss their magnificant array of choices and even to giving you samples to taste seemingly without end or sales pressure. In turn I buy far more cheeses than I would otherwise. We both win.
But then they turn to Wal-Mart and repeat a litany of alleged problems with employees, suppliers, and communities. My own experience with Wal-Mart is limited to one store in the small town where I live. But my experience doesn't match the alleged problems. I go there, the people, from the greeter at the door to the most junor sales clerk are friendly and willing to walk halfway across the store to help me find something. I talk to people who work there (away from the store) and they universally say that it is the best job they've ever had. Does the Wal-Mart experience depend on the store? Are the alledged problems just that, allegations? And for that matter, does every Wegman's have such an excellent cheese department? And what about Microsoft? Everyone (nearly) uses their products and most people hate the company. What does this say about their future? I guess we'll just have to watch and see.
This is a book that describes one way of doing business that has worked for a lot of companies. It provides a good insight into what these companies do.
Impressive Examples of Serving the Full Gamut of Stakeholders.......2007-05-08
What is a Firm of Endearment? The authors argue that their example companies share a common set of core values, policies, and operating attributes which include:
1. aligning the interests of all stakeholder groups (customers, employees, partners, investors, and society) rather than seeking profit optimization
2. below-average executive compensation
3. open-door policies
4. employee compensation and benefits are above average for their industry
5. above-average employee training
6. empower employees to satisfy customers
7. hire employees who are passionate about the company's purpose
8. humanize customer and employee experiences
9. enjoy below-average marketing costs
10. honor the spirit as well as the letter of laws
11. focus on corporate culture as a competitive advantage
12. are often innovative in their industries
Companies identified include extensive examples drawn from Commerce Bank, Container Store, Costco, Harley-Davidson, Honda, IDEO, IKEA, jetBlue, Johnson & Johnson, Jordan's Furniture, New Balance, Patagonia, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Timberland, Toyota, Trader Joe's, UPS, Wegmans, and Whole Foods.
These companies are often contrasted with Wal-Mart and the Good to Great Companies identified by Jim Collins in 2001 in terms of stock price growth.
The authors argue that there is a new level of consciousness emerging that rewards those who do good while doing well. The implication is that all firms should shift to stakeholder optimization and the cultural values identified in the example companies.
While they don't make this argument, it's clear that the authors have identified many of the mindsets that lead a company to seek optimizing results for all stakeholders.
Before you assume total cause and effect, I would like to raise some issues not fully addressed in the book:
1. This is an after-the-fact evaluation. As such, (like Good to Great), we may mostly be seeing what the leaders are proud of . . . rather than what caused their success. For example, Southwest's success is focused on their corporate culture. But the company also has a better business model than almost any other airline (Ryanair's is better) and does a better job of fuel cost hedging than any other U.S. airline. Those factors aren't mentioned.
2. These companies are almost all in consumer products or services. A class of socially conscious consumers has sprung up who look hard for such firms. It's not clear that OEM and industrial buyers have evolved their preferences nearly to the same extent. So many of the lessons may only apply consumer goods and services (except for those validated by Gallup for having a motivated and effective group of people working for you).
3. Almost all of these firms are highly effective business model innovators who have gained enormous advantages over competitors who seldom innovate their business models. As a result, they can afford practices that may or may not pay off in profit without incurring any negative reaction. The next business model innovation will pay for the cost.
I was surprised that this book didn't look at the study I made from 1992-2001 that identified continuing business model innovation as the single best factor for explaining high levels of corporate performance (see The Ultimate Competitive Advantage). The books share some examples in common (including Jordan's Furniture and Timberland), but many of FoE's examples are also superior business model innovators (Amazon, BMW, CarMax, Caterpillar, Container Store, Costco, eBay, Google, Harley-Davidson, IDEO, IKEA, jetBlue, Patagonia, Starbucks, Trader Joe's, UPS, Wegmans, and Whole Food).
4. It often pays better to serve stakeholder interests than to ignore them. Why? Because ignoring stakeholders often burdens both the company and the stakeholder with costs and experiences that neither want. This economic case for stakeholder focus isn't fully developed outside of the customer arena.
5. The book emphasizes sustainability, but much of that argument is built around companies disappearing from the Fortune 500 (something that happens whenever a merger happens . . . which doesn't mean that the organization goes away, just the corporate headquarters in most cases). In the research of my students on environmental sustainability (see Hiroshi Fukushi's work, A Strategic Approach to the Environmentally Sustainable Business, for example), it's apparent that making the environment cleaner than when you touched it is economically advantaged in most situations. The idea of sustainability is based on the outmoded notion of not doing too much damage rather than finding profits in making the world better than you found it.
But it's a good book that creates more questions than it answers. This one will probably stimulate some more careful thinking in the area of where seeking to be more considerate of others is going to create better results as well as better sleep.
Sharp, New Millennium Look at Emotional Intelligence as a Quantifiable Value in Corporate America.......2007-04-16
With the tidal wave of publicity for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the spotlight it has given to the green movement, it seems like a ripe time to take stock of companies who are incorporating more social responsibility into their charters. Co-authors Raj Sisodia, Jag Sheth, and David B. Wolfe make a compelling case for how such thinking is not only a much-needed injection of humanism into private enterprise in this country but also the impetus for long-term success at a time when people are seeking greater meaning in their lives. Wolfe, the only non-academic of the three, ventures the furthest in delineating what he considers the art of empathy and the power of bringing soulfulness to the workplace. Such seeming intangibles have been repeatedly dismissed by those unwilling to recognize the human equation at the base of such operations.
Wolfe's bottom line is that soft skills translate into hard numbers, and he feels the days of well-known autocratic CEOs like Disney's Michael Eisner and Hewlett-Packard's Carly Fiorina are numbered if not over. The book's coy title actually refers to the model firms - Whole Foods, Harley-Davidson, Trader Joe's, Costco, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, Patagonia, IKEA and New Balance among them - who have aligned principles of emotional intelligence with shareholder value in ways that induce more loyalty among the most valued employees. The data gathered by the co-authors suggests that firms which encourage emotional intelligence are more likely to have workers who benefit from feedback and achieve more for themselves and their companies over time. Emotional intelligence manifests itself in several ways, whether it is more modest executive salaries, open-door policies, better employee benefits, better training or a stronger focus on the customer experience. Moreover, the co-authors place high value on environmentally friendly practices and social consciousness as part of a company's vision.
The emphasis on emotional intelligence represents a major paradigm shift and one that has been working in tandem with globalization in recent years. It has given birth to the stakeholder relationship management business model (SRM), which supersedes the well-established customer relationship model with its primary focus on products and profits. Reflecting a much broader vision, the SRM is more dependent on coordinating systems which help keep healthy the company's economic ecosystem, which is the basis of its growth, development and economic health. The ensuing loyalty among employees gives rise to what the co-authors term "share of heart". It's an elusive concept but one mastered by a new breed of CEOs who manage to inspire with their idealism even when short-term profitability looks bleak. Sisodia, Sheth and Wolfe provide intriguing portraits of these leaders and the unique cultures they have managed to develop over time while still delivering on their bottom lines. If anything, this eminently readable book is a testament that Machiavellian tenets need not guide companies at the expense of the people who maintain them.
Book Description
Misaligned companies, like cars out of alignment, can develop serious problems if not corrected quickly. They are hard to steer and don't respond well to changes in direction. This groundbreaking book shows you how to get -and keep -all the vital elements of your organization aligned and headed in the same direction at the same time.
Managers must now keep their people centered in the midst of change, deemphasize hierarchy, and distribute leadership by distributing authority, information, knowledge, and customer data throughout their organization. Alignment is a response to the new business reality where customer requirements are in flux, where competitive forces are turbulent, and where the bond of loyalty between an organization and its people has been weakened. The old linear approach to management has given way to one of simultaneity -to alignment.
As pioneers of the alignment concept, the authors have developed this unique approach based on their work with leading companies throughout the world. The Power of Alignment is packed with war stories and the firsthand perspectives of industry leaders. You'll learn how world-class organizations, including Federal Express, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Columbia/HCA Healthcare, Citizens Utilities, AirTouch, and UNUM achieved extraordinary business results. Now, through the authors' expertise, you'll see how alignment can work for your organization.
In essence, alignment links the five key elements of an organization -people, process, customers, business strategies, and, of course, leadership -to obtain breakthrough results, chief among them, sustained growth and profit, loyal customers, and a high-performing work force. The Power of Alignment:
* Offers a clear framework for aligning and linking the crucial elements that build and sustain a company's success
* Provides self-assessment tools as well as benchmarking measures for evaluating an organization's critical competencies
* Enables managers to create a work force where each employee can relate his or her activities to the goals and strategic objectives of the company
* Helps a company determine when and where it is out of alignment, and gives descriptions of such common company pathologies as "The Phantom Limb Syndrome," "Strategy Interruptus," and "Dead Man Walking"
* Prescribes specific steps for getting an organization back on track toward a single, shared vision of its goals
Essential reading for all managers and executives, The Power of Alignment offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance.
"This book is savvy, detailed, timely, and clearly written. I highly recommend it for any leader facing the challenges posed by global business today." - Dana Mead Chairman and CEO, Tenneco Former Chairman National Association of Manufacturers
"It's not only the stars that have to be in alignment to reach your destination, it's all the internal processes, rewards, and drivers. Read The Power of Alignment, and while you may not unlock the secrets of the universe, you will overcome the barriers to corporate success." - William L. Boyan President and COO John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.
"This important book goes beyond TQM and reengineering by creating a new approach called Alignment. The authors show that great companies manage to link strategy and people and integrate customer needs with continuous improvement processes." - Peter Augustsson President and Group Chief Executive AB SKF.
"The Power of Alignment gets to the heart of a critical element of organizational leadership, namely focus. Every leader who reads it will undoubtedly do some serious soul-searching about the consistency of corporate vision, goals, management systems, and incentive mechanisms." - Louis E. Lataif Dean Boston University School of Management.
Customer Reviews:
As significant today as it was when first published.......2007-08-26
After reviewing several books on Strategic Execution, I was continuously left with the feeling that the authors had ommitted a key ingredient. This book has convinced me that that key ingredient was "Alignment".
This book was published 10 years ago (OK, I am embarrassed that I have only just got around to reading it) but it is as significant today as it was when it was first published. Probably more so considering the rapid state of change that most companies are faced with today.
It is a simple read, and the concepts are easy to follow. What I enjoyed most about the book is that the suggestions are practical and you can take them and implement them immediately within an organization.
I noticed that one of the readers who has reviewed the book said that the book was required reading for his MBA course. 10 years on, I still think it should be required reading for any business executive.
This Is a Great Resource!.......2007-07-10
I'm always looking for visual ways of understanding critical elements of strategy. The Power of Alignment offers a very helpful way of thinking about four important ingredients in keeping the main thing, the main thing. Vertical alignment, the relationship between your strategy and the people on your team, "energizes...provides direction, and offers opportunity for involvement." Horizontal alignment refers to the connection between your processes and customers. Taken together the two measures provide some great insight into the development of genuine alignment.
One of the most interesting elements of the book is a 16 question diagnostic tool that is designed to provide a graphic view of your organization's alignment. Very helpful!
Make Sure That Everything You Do Points To Success !.......2006-05-03
Great book! The basic premise is that once a business has a raison d'etre, or a 'main thing', that profits are maximized by the alignment of four key business areas: Strategy, Processes, People, and Customers. Built on this premise are actionalbe ways to build a self-aligning organization. I got the sense of discovering truth while I read this book. Leadership isn't really about power, it is about responsibility. This book shows a manager at any level how to align his area to the overall strategy of the company and to the end products of the company. It shows how processes should be designed and what factors should be used to reward, recognize and evaluate employees. Great food for thought and realistic to implement.
Five Stars
Powerful Organizational Focus.......2003-05-28
Quite simply, this book was one of the best business management and leadership books I have ever read. It was well-written and expertly balanced management and leadership concepts with real-world examples of effectively aligned organizations, such as Federal Express and Southwest Airlines. This book should be read and discussed by leaders and managers at all levels, especially by mid- to senior-level executives.
In brief, alignment deals with the relationships among the people, processes, strategy, and customers of an organization relative to that organization's purpose, or what the authors called "the main thing." Alignment is both a noun, a state of being, and a verb, a set of actions. Vertical alignment connects organizational strategy with the people responsible for transforming that strategy into meaningful work. Horizontal alignment deals with understanding your customers' wants and then creating processes to deliver what your customers want, when and how they want it. Effective leadership nurtures the organizational culture that is built around and upon "the main thing," and it is this culture and leadership combination that drives and sustains self-aligning organizations in turbulent times.
The authors' analogy of landing a plane helped me to visualize the dynamics involved with organizational alignment. To land a plane, a pilot must adjust and react to multiple simultaneous factors and conditions (i.e. air speed, altitude, angle of approach, wind speed and direction, etc.) and then understand how a change in one will affect the others. Likewise, to align an organization, a leader must adjust and react to feedback about his people, processes, strategy, and customers, and then understand how a change in one will affect the others.
The authors clearly and thoroughly explained the alignment factors and conditions throughout the book. They followed their explanations with incisive questions for readers to ask about themselves and their organizations to assess their degree of alignment. Those questions were definitely a highlight of the book for they really helped to stimulate my thinking and should help inspire organizational progress to alignment. Another highlight was the appendices that contained examples of actual tools and products used and created by some of the aligned organizations studied by the authors.
The inside back cover jacket sums up why I give the book my highest recommendation: "Essential reading for all managers and executives, "The Power of Alignment" offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance."
Alignment is Key Essential Usually Overlooked.......2001-07-13
I found this book easy reading, concise, and presented it's basic premise well with specific examples and good suggestions for creation and implementation.
Working as a Director in Managed Care for several pharmaceutical companies, it creates a focus for any organization and a roadmap for the future(physician, health plan, pharmaceutical company) to avoid many of the mistakes and pitfalls that have already been experienced in an attempt to align with the ever changing healthcare landscape.
For those who do account management, it provides a construct and roadmap to use to optimize alignment with internal customers and maximize resources to create value and return with the external customers (....and their customers.) As the authors point, alignment is a continuing process, not a single event in time. Many companies become quickly aligned with the past, and misaligned with the present & future, and can not sustain the competitive edge because they forget this basic premise that the authors reinforce.
The concepts are basic and fundamental, but usually overlooked and forgotten in the day to day business of rapidly growing companies and changing environments.
Book Description
Completely updated and revised, the latest edition of the classic book used around the world provides valuable insight to help you develop a comprehensive and unified plan for learning in your organization.
The Strategic Development of Talent moves beyond HRD to apply the principles of strategic business planning to talent management, knowledge management and workplace learning, and it has been retitled to underscore this emphasis.
Anyone who wishes to use talent to support organizational strategy—including CEOs, operating managers, and HR, HRD and WLP practitioners—will find this text both informative and practical.
You'll learn how to:
Develop a vision for talent development
Formulate a purpose or mission
Analyze present strengths and weaknesses and future threats and opportunities
Assess needs
Benefit from environmental scanning
Choose and implement a strategy
Evaluate the overall effort
The Strategic Development of Talent includes dozens of exhibits, a template to guide you through the process and a self-assessment instrument to determine your readiness.
Customer Reviews:
Starts out good...........2007-03-23
I got through 5 chapters out of 12 before the ideas started to become repetitive and muddled. It was like someone who talks very fast, sharing every thought and theory without a clear idea of the desired outcome. Way too much jargon and Phrases That Were Needlessly Capitalized. Maybe useful as a text book, but for somone looking for a clear process to assist my organization, it really missed the mark. Oh, and the book started to fall apart the second time I picked it up.
A Welcome Guidebook.......2007-02-08
I enjoyed reading "The Strategic Development of Talent". It clears shows that the workplace is changing and CEOs, owners and managers alike need to open their eyes to the changing business landscape. In this book, Rothwell engages the reader with the tried and tested principles of strategic business planning to talent management, knowledge management and workplace learning. The book is very easy to read and understand and contains several exhibits and a template to guide you through the process. There are dozens of bland business books out there, which are difficult, at times, to relate to my own experience in the workplace. "The Strategic Development of Talent", on the other hand, hits the nail on the head. I got the sense that here is a book I can easily relate to, which is practical and useful.
Here is a book that not only "tells it like it is," but offers prophetic insights into "how it needs to be." Rothwell ignites the imagination, expands the possibilities, and offers practical strategies any organisation can use to effectively develop, retain and utilise talent for the benefit of an organisation and enter the fluid, flexible future. Managers at all levels will cheer the sanity Rothwell suggests.
Rothwell's ideas apply to any organisation which competes for available talent and then is challenged to keep its best people who, more easily now more than ever before, can leave the organisation whenever and wherever they wish. From my perspective, effective development of talent is essential to winning the competition for customer's repeat business. A careful implementation of the strategies and tactics which Rothwell recommends in this book will help to achieve that ultimate objective.
Outstanding Text.......2005-10-11
I am a professor and have used this book in one of my classes for preparing managers of training. This book was especially helpful in understanding strategic planning for those who have not been involved in that process previously. It provided several models that can be used to plan strategically the needs of the organization of which talent, is the most critical and difficult factor within an organization to plan for. It is also one of the only books that addresses the issue of people and talent development as a strategic need. It provides a rationale for talent development and an updated review of how the field of training has evolved into Workplace Learning and Performance. The reviewer who was so disappointed with this book probably doesn't understand how these roles have changed. Training as it is tradionally known, would have no need for understanding the criticl nature of talent development. It's time to move into the new millenium!!
Great Information, Reader Friendly.......2005-10-08
I found this book to right on the money and helped tremendously with a project I am conducting on competency modeling as it relates to organizational talent. This book carries pertinent information, but it is organized and written in such a way that is easily digestable. I am confused by the review that states it is poorly written. Are you sure you were reading "The Strategic Development of Talent"?
Well deserved award receiving book.......2005-10-08
I bought this book for my research about talent management and human resource development. It is very clear and practical not to mention that its clear contruction and organization. This book very reserves and actually got award from Academy of Human resource development. Thanks for great book.
Book Description
Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change presents the most current theoretical frameworks and practical applications in the field of human resource development. Drawing from the authors' pioneering research, this book offers the most comprehensive treatment of HRD theory and practice available, providing educators and practitioners alike with a rigorous approach to analyzing and launching successful HRD programs.
Book Description
How are the world's most successful organizations developing their leaders? "This book will help anyone who is charged with a leadership development initiative or is learning about leadership development. Full of practical examples and tools from companies that are known for having a reputation for developing leaders."
Michael Piergrossi; vice president, leadership and organization development, W. R. Grace & Co.
Using the case studies in this book will give you the opportunity you to:
* Benchmark against SmithKline Beecham's 21 Leadership Competencies
* Implement cutting-edge tools including Allied Signal's Career Profile, continuous improvement and performance objectives tools
* Customize a training curriculum that works for your organization based on: Imasco's Operating Company Visits and Work Projects, Colgate-Palmolive's Key Accountability program, or Abbott Lab's Managing Across Boundaries
* And much more!
In 1998, Linkage, Inc., and Warren Bennis collaborated in completing a study of more than 350 companies involved with leadership development and found that:
* Nearly all respondents recognized the need to develop stronger leaders, yet less than 44 percent had a formal process for nominating or developing high-potential employees
* Companies that do successfully build their high-potential employees use structured leadership development systems
* The programs that make a difference include some or all of three critical components: formal training, 360-degree feedback, and most importantly, exposure to senior executives including mentoring programs
The result of this study is Linkage Inc.'s Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook. With its case study approach, this book gives you access to the practical, easy-to-apply tools, instruments, training, and competency models that fifteen world-class organizations use as benchmarks to successfully implement their leadership development programs.
To read the foreword from this book, click here.
To read the first chapter from this book, click here.
Book Description
When it comes to sustained success, vision matters more than strategy. Scores of studies have proven this statement, and millions of business leaders believe it. Yet few executives understand what vision is. They embrace the idea, but ignore the implementation-a disconnect that threatens companies striving for growth in a volatile marketplace.
Organizational expert Mark Lipton argues that this "believing-doing" gap exists because today's fast-paced world demands short-term fixes-pressuring executives to make tactical decisions that ultimately create larger strategic problems down the road. But Lipton shows that vision has more substance than leaders think-and that it is an essential factor in building scalable organizations that last for the long haul.
Based on extensive research and real-world consulting work with executives implementing the scaling process, I>Guiding Growth provides fresh examples of established and new firms that have developed powerful growth visions. Moving beyond token "mission statements," Lipton outlines a step-by-step process for establishing an actionable vision, presenting it to the company, and embedding it into the organizational fabric.
Illustrating how visions become guiding forces for day-to-day behavior and overall company direction, Guiding Growth reveals how companies can stay their course, even as they grow.
AUTHORBIO: Mark Lipton is Founder of the consulting firm Lipton & Co., which specializes in organizational growth. He is Professor of Management and Chair, Human Resources Management and Organizational Change Management at the Milano Graduate School, New School University, in New York City.
Customer Reviews:
I'm a Convert!.......2003-06-21
Ah, corporate vision statements. Before reading Guiding Growth I did not put great faith in them. I, as the author, Mark Lipton, was not convinced of the power of corporate visions at the beginning of his research. Visioning to some extent has been a management fad that has come and gone. However Lipton's research finds that for companies who truly have a vision that helps their companies stretch and grow, and is deeply embedded in their organizations; the market returns are demonstrably better.
Vision, in Lipton's model is composed of three elements: raison d'être, strategy and values. In Guiding Growth Whole Foods Market is quoted as saying `our vision statement reflects the hope and intentions of many people. We do not believe it always accurately portrays the way things currently are at Whole Foods market so much as the way would like things to be. It is our dissatisfaction with the current reality, when compared with what is possible, that spurs us toward excellence and toward creating a better, company and world.' Strong stuff indeed. And in ManyWorlds' experience, for many companies the articulation of a vision is often based on their heritage, not to where they want to grow, and not what differentiates them.
Lipton also examines the role of executive groups (not teams) and the alignment of people processes with vision, to bring the vision alive, real and accountable. The book is as much about leadership and organizational culture as it is about growth and vision, which are of course the fruits and seeds of each other, within the organizational greenhouse. He writes, `Organizations rocketing through extended periods of growth. To succeed, they need a combination of all the right ingredients and they must be in near-perfect alignment. If one element is missing, or out of alignment, then the potential for failure rockets as well...all organization share the same need to have the right ingredients in place and to ensure they are aligned and that is what the executive group accomplishes through the vision framework.'
Peppered with examples from a range of companies and with deeper analysis of high-growth organizations such as Oakley, Lipton has done an excellent job of presenting both a visioning framework and insights into culture and leadership into a practical and usable work. Helpful lists of questions, checklists and exercises bring this already enthusiastic text to a more approachable and actionable level. Highly recommended for executives and managers from a variety of functional areas including business unit heads and `service lines' such as HR.
Vision - beyond the hype.......2003-03-18
Reading "Guiding Growth" has been a joy - finally a practical book about vision. Like Lipton, I was suspicious about the whole vision industry, but his book has helped to look at the concept in a different light.
The distinction between the 3 principles - raison d'etre, strategy and values is most insightful (especially since raison d'etre and strategy are often mixed up).
Despite all good intentions, the reality is that the vision process often ends with the communication of a vision statement. Lipton shows how the real impact can go far beyond just an energising event: it is pivotal in guiding and sustaining growth.
In my own experience vision is often treated with more suspicion in Europe than in the US. Lipton's book, however, is as valuable for those who are in charge of building or changing an organisation in the US as in Europe (or any other part of the world) - Guiding Growth goes beyond the hype. It asks some tough questions and invites you to think about how you can unlock the wholehearted commitment of your workforce by providing meaning to the existence of the organization. A must.
Read this book -- then give it to all your direct-reports.......2003-01-20
Yippee! No academic psycho-babble, overly complex diagrams, or overly simplistic management fables in this one. "Guiding Growth" is smart, witty, and engaging - a must-read for business leaders concerned about sustainable competitive advantage.
Lipton begins by admitting something few other professor/consultant/authors would ever dare: he was wrong. Convinced that the link between vision and growth was over-rated, that vision statements were just a passing fad, Lipton was surprised when his research proved exactly the opposite. Now, readers can reap the benefits of Lipton's change of heart. In "Guiding Growth," he leads us through the journey of understanding how valuable a clear vision can be when articulated and acted upon in a powerful way.
Mark Lipton's writing voice is passionate and profoundly personal. While this book is well-grounded in research and experience, it is Lipton's use of stories and metaphors that will have a long-lasting effect on you. Yes, he makes you think; more important, he makes you feel something in your heart and in your gut. It is this quality that sets this book apart from other business books.
Be forewarned: the feelings "Guiding Growth" provokes can be very uncomfortable at times. Throughout the early chapters, I stopped often to think and jot down notes about my own vision, my own raison d'etre, as Lipton raised "Why?" questions over and over again. By the end of Chapter 4, I was saying "Yes! Yes! Yes!" as the vision for my work became clearer. Reading Chapter 5 brought tears to my eyes as he described the strong connection between vision and deeply held values based on life experiences.
The second half of the book holds valuable advice for all business leaders: how to put that vision into action, overcome obstacles, and avoid pitfalls. Lipton's Vision Framework has been tried and tested - he proves his points with examples drawn from well-known companies.
Kudos to Mark Lipton for having the guts to publicly concede that he was wrong and for taking the time to share his lessons learned with us in this book. -- Cynthia C. Froggatt, author of "Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace" (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2001), ...
From the Perspective of an Entrepreneur.......2003-01-11
I was the founder and CEO of a small software company ..., and was approached by a much larger technology company ... . After making an acquisition offer I could not refuse, I sold my business to them and agreed to run it for four years.
If only we had read this book about using vision to guide growth during our transition. Ultimately, the acquisition failed within two years for the buyer. This book offers three components of a well-developed organizational vision: raison d'etre, strategy and values. The buying company never took the time to go beyond a "bumper sticker" for a vision statement. Although it did seem on track with my company's reason for being, there was never an agreement on the strategy. The tension and disagreement (not to mention the time taken) related to these differences effectively crippled my previously highly motivated and productive staff. The key values of the two companies could not have been more different. The centerpiece of our values before acquisition involved doing whatever it took to make our customers happy-most of which had on-going consulting contracts with us. The executive from the buying company literally told my staff that this philosophy was both unnecessary and an expensive luxury.
This book struck a real chord with me because it made it so clear where the gaps were. It obviously would have taken more than a book to convince the buying company to think more carefully through their plan, but having it all documented could've made the upcoming potholes in the road more obvious. And if we had actually implemented an agreed vision, I am sure the business could have continued on its previous success.
The first half of the book lays out how vision is important and why it is not just another buzzword, but how it is a crucial element to grow a company. The second half gives more guidelines on the details of implementation. It took some patience to pull all the ideas together in Part I-it is much more conceptual than Part II-- but stick with it-its worth it. The anecdotes are great and the corresponding checklists and appendices give it a lot of substance. The second half is an easier read and filled with practical management advice-some related directly to vision and some just good solid management practice guidelines.
As a seller of my business, I was very successful. I would have preferred to make the buyer even more successful and watch my company flourish with their greater resources. This book came four years too late for me. I will certainly recommend it to current clients in my consulting practice and keep it handy for my next venture.
Book Description
Robert Hargrove, leading authority on collaboration, offers a new leadership practice that unleashes the human spirit into action and creates limitless new possibilities. Hargrove shows how creative collaboration is much more effective in reaching desired goals than confrontation and mere cooperation (teamwork). HargroveOs powerful, concise, step-by-step process for creative collaboration maximizes the talent and diversity within the group, making it possible to attain creative breakthrough solutions not attainable on an individual basis.
Customer Reviews:
very useful and interesting to read.......2007-04-18
I have found especially helpful the "7 building blocks", and "Tools" sections that have provided in a detailed format a framework and ideas to work with. The only negative part about this book is that the author overuses the example of Israel-Palestinian security talks. Examples from various disciplines and areas would improve and shape authors ideas much better by providing different perspectives.
Insightful!.......2001-05-25
Robert Hargrove presents a well-organized look at the world of creative collaboration. He argues that collaboration is the new paradigm in a world of change and complexity, as well as an effective management strategy. Hargrove provides a hands-on guide to becoming more collaborative and to organizing effective collaborative groups. In this lively, engaging book, Hargrove shows his familiarity with the latest management expertise. He draws on quotes and ideas from such authors as Margaret Wheatley, Peter Senge and Tom Peters. We [...] recommend this book to executives and managers who wish to facilitate collaborations.
One of the best business books of the decade! Tom Peters.......1998-12-18
I read Robert Hargrove's book on Masterful Coaching which focused on the individual, and prayed he would write one on collaboration. Not your cookie cutter approach to business books . .
Great stories about how creative collaboration can lead to radical innovation in any business, political breakthroughs in the Middle East, transforming your local school system.
Our elected representatives in Washington could learn alot from the simple, powerful how to principles and techniques offered here!
Fantastic book!.......1998-12-04
I was really inspired by this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who has dreams of creating something with others who may see the world differently. Hargrove paints a picture of what collaboration is that is very distinct and that is brought to life with some facinating examples--what he calls interludes. I especially liked the one on the Mid East Peace Accord and found it relevant to what is happening there now. Hargrove's guidelines for building a collaboration and for having collaborative conversations have been a lifesaver in the project that I am working on. They make a lot of sense and have been easy to apply. I can see why so many of the teams that I have worked on were not as successful as I would have liked. Thank you for a wonderful book that is fun to read and loaded with useful tools!
The book promises more than it delivers.......1998-10-13
Robert Hargrove, Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration, McGraw-Hill, 1998.
This book promises more than it delivers. Hargrove presents collaboration as some sort of breakthrough process when it is nothing more than a diverse group of motivated and creative people coming together to do something great. Sounds like teamwork to me but Hargrove dismisses that argument by telling us that "while all collaborations involve teamwork, not all teams are collaborative." "Most teams," he says, "are focused on routine work and doing the same thing better," while "...successful collaborative groups are made up of strange brews, of nascent combinations of people. Most teams, even multidisciplinary teams, tend to be fairly homogeneous."
The last time I looked "homogeneous" is not a word anyone would use to define a multidisciplinary team. And most teams, especially multidisciplinary teams, are not focused on "routine work." They are designing a new telecommunications systems, researching the next cure for cancer, developing an enhanced systems architecture, designing the layout for the factory of the future and understanding the planet of Mars---the very example cited by Hargrove. Hargrove dismisses teamwork but then goes on to present numerous examples of successful teams which he now calls collaborations.
Hargrove borrowed John Nasbit's research methodology of drawing a conclusion and then lining up a series of quotes from newspaper and magazine articles that report wonderful examples of successful teamwork (pardon me, I mean collaboration). In addition, there is not one quote or example that shows a failed attempt at collaboration. All of us learn from mistakes.
Let's assume you don't care about these points, you just want to know how to make teamwork or collaboration or whatever it's called, work in your organization. If you're looking for some great new insights, you won't find them here. But you will find two different lists that both seem to be saying the same old things with a few new age phrases. Hargrove's "recipe for creative collaboration"(pp. 33-38) includes such things as make a declaration of impossibility (which is nothing more than a broad goal), bring extraordinary combinations of people together, build a shared understood goal, do a "what's so" (just a factual analysis of the desired and current state) and identify what missing.
Then, later on, Hargrove presents "The Seven Building Blocks of Collaboration (p. 92). Once again, he talks about bringing together the right people, developing a shared goal, clarifying roles, lots of communication and lots of enthusiasm. This is good stuff, but we heard it all before in the literature of teamwork. And then there is the chapter on collaboration tools which is nothing more than warmed over tips from your favorite books on facilitation, meetings, management, conflict resolution and group dynamics.
A key ingredient that is missing from this formulation is the failure to address the issue of the environment for collaboration. Successful collaboration is more the result of a supportive culture, a flexible structure and encouraging systems and less about good facilitation skills and plenty of whiteboards. Most team failure comes from lack of support from the leadership of the organization, cultural norms that nurture competitive or selfish behavior and systems that do not reward team players.
Having dismissed teamwork allowed Hargrove to skip over a body of work that would have helped him understand these issues more completely. For example, Warren Bennis' Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, presents six case studies of "Great Groups," Lipnack and Stamps' books, The TeamNet Factor, The Age of the Network and, most recently, Virtual Teams, all address collaboration across traditional boundaries, Designing Team-Based Organizations by Susan Mohrman, Susan Cohen and Allan Mohrman shows that it takes fundamental changes in the design and practices of organizations and my book, Cross-Functional Teams: Working With Allies, Enemies and Other Strangers, outlines specific strategies for developing and implementing successful "multidisciplinary" teams. This book was a selection of a book club of senior organizational development professionals who meet regularly to discuss new books. The group had high hopes for the book, but we were generally disappointed.
Average customer rating:
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Human Resource Forecasting and Strategy Development: Guidelines for Analyzing and Fulfilling Organizational Needs
Manufacturer: Quorum Books
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ASIN: 0899304362 |
Book Description
A collection of original articles by leading practitioners and researchers, this volume examines methods for human resource forecasting and planning to meet the strategic needs of the organization. As the editors note at the outset, changing characteristics of the workforce and new skill demands mean that human resource planning must become an integral part of corporate strategy development and implementation. In order to compete successfully in an era of rapid technological change, organizations must be able to adequately forecast their needs for different types of employees, consider the extent to which current employees have the needed skills, and examine labor force availability. This book describes ways to collect the necessary environmental data and formulate human resource strategies that recognize current and anticipated changes both in the organization and in the environment in which it operates. The volume begins with a discussion of environmental scanning techniques. The contributors demonstrate how to identify environmental trends, including labor force demographics, and how to apply this information to the development of human resource strategies. The second section considers ways to analyze the organization's future human resource needs by examining employee demographics and job attitudes. In Part Three, the contributors describe how organizations formulate human resource strategies in response to environmental trends and organizational goals. The next group of chapters offers examples of the human resource implications of organizational change. This section includes separate chapters on job loss and employee assistance programs and the effects of a corporate merger, as well as two case studies of the relationship between human resource planning and corporate strategic goals. The contributors conclude by describing organizational reactions to changing environments brought about by an aging workforce, work-at-home jobs, new computer and telecommunications technologies, and the increasing cultural diversity of the workforce. Indispensable for human resource managers and corporate planning executives, this book will also be of significant value to researchers and students in human resource and strategic planning programs.
Books:
- Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases (with InfoTrac®)
- Strategic Organizational Communication: In a Global Economy (with InfoTrac®)
- Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction: Helping Every Child Succeed (3rd Edition)
- StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths
- Supervision in Social Work
- Teacher Interviews: How to Get Them and How to Get Hired!
- The Accelerated Learning Handbook: A Creative Guide to Designing and Delivering Faster, More Effective Training Programs
- The Accelerated Learning Handbook: A Creative Guide to Designing and Delivering Faster, More Effective Training Programs
- The Art and Science of 360 Degree Feedback
- The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly))
Books Index
Books Home
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