Book Description
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: CONCEPTS AND CASES, 7th edition provides the most accurate, relevant, and complete presentation of strategic management today. Each edition is thoroughly updated to include cutting edge research and trends that are shaping business strategy. The authors guide students through the strategic management process using a unique model that blends the classic industrial organizational model with the resource-based view of the firm to explain how firms use the strategic management process to build a sustained competitive advantage. Throughout the text carefully selected examples and highlights help put the ideas presented into context. The text's stunning four color design, illustrative models and figures also helps to focus students attention on the key points. In addition to the concepts portion, the text includes 35 compelling case studies or you can easily build your own case selections from premier providers such as Harvard, Ivey, and Darden.
Customer Reviews:
great book.......2007-02-23
this is one of the better books for strategic management, the condition was great and price was low..
Book Description
'Leader As Coach' is a straight-forward, practical book that can help you lead your people and your organization to greater success.
The tips and practices in 'Leader As Coach' will enable you to sharpen your coaching skills so that you can attract and retain the talent you need for success, foster growth in others, provide effective feedback, orchestrate learning opportunities, and groom high-potential performers. After all, your people are your most important asset.
Within these pages you'll find:
--Five high-impact strategies for effective coaching.
--Useful insights on how to deal with resistance and motivate others.
--Hundreds of tips and action steps to make you a better coach.
Customer Reviews:
Professional Coaching.......1999-04-10
Our company recently hosted a presentation from David Peterson, one of the authors of Leader as Coach. His audience was a small group of HR managers and Training consultants. He provided us with a no nonsense, credible approach to coaching managers and leaders. The title of his presentation was quite true to that title, providing us with a clear vision of the state of the art and insights into the state of the practice.
David and Mary Dee's book, Leader as Coach, is the foundation for one of the clearest and most well-reasoned approaches to Coaching I have seen after a decade in this business. But don't stop with this book. Go on from here to Personnel Decisions International's Development FIRST and Supervisor's Handbook
This book has been my guide for my active research project........1998-11-12
This book has been both inspirational and motivational for me. I love the quotes and have used them when sending memos to people involved in my Masters active research project. The few colorful pictures are beautiful and representative of reaching high for the stars. The texture of the paper used is similar to a magazine's. I almost felt I was reading one, which felt more like leisure reading. The book is short, easy to read, and to the point. I've taken much of the advise while I've engaged as a leader in my project. I've made efforts to become a better listener, give positive feedback, inspire people to take risks, and built a bond of trust. I learned that I have to model the good habits I'd like others to practice. The strategies suggested are a must for people in the business world and adminstrators or leaders in education. The book is practical for anyone who assumes a leadership role and does not know how to begin the process. Thumbs up!
Book Description
Are you looking for the perfect tool to guide you in today's fast paced business world? In STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: COMPETITIVENESS AND GLOBALIZATION you will discover a unique model that blends both new and old ideas resulting in a cutting edge, accurate and relevant text. Specific examples, models, and figures emphasize important points and make the text easy to understand.
Customer Reviews:
Good content; small font, fair illustrations.......2007-09-20
If you are looking for a graduate level introduction and explanation of strategic management concepts, this is a solid choice. If you expect nice illustrations for texts at this price point - and a readable font for those of us who can't handle small print - look elsewhere. Graduate textbook are expensive because we are a captive audience, and this book is lacking some of the nicer mechanical tools that other graduate texts have at its price range.
The material is laid out well, there aren't superfluous stories, and the progression is logical. I am likely to keep this book after the class is finished.
Review.......2007-03-10
the condition is so good but it takes quite long to be in my hand
A necessary evil - horrible writing.......2006-10-07
This book was a necessary evil for a capstone MBA class.
It contains information that could be useful to someone that hasn't looked at MBA texts before, but in my case I feel like "well duh! I already know this!"
To make things worse, there are factual errors in the book that make it frustrating to read.
Furthermore (having read all of the book) the writing and grammar is awful! Didn't anyone proof read this book?
Overall, I would say that this is an OK book so far as theory is concerned - but it was rushed to go into production which brings its redeeming qualities down.
Book Description
Total Quality Management presents the basic principles and tools associated with TQ and provides many illustrations and end-of-chapter cases that can be used as the basis for class discussion. Many cases focus on large and small companies in manufacturing and service industries in North and South America, Europe, and Asia?Pacific. Unlike most books on TQ, this one is organized according to traditional management topics. This organization helps students to see the parallels between TQ and management theories in areas such as organizational design and leadership. TQ is often presented as new or different, which it clearly is not. This book has three objectives: to show students how these principles and methods have been put into effect in a variety of organizations, to illustrate the relationship between TQ principles and the theories and models studied in management courses and to familiarize students with the basic principles and methods associated with total quality.
Customer Reviews:
More than just quality.......2007-01-06
Best book on Quality Management, Ever. I have had three quality classes with quite a few books on quality. None of them stands out as this one. What this book has to offer goes beyond classroom learning. It provides great information, knowledge, and tools that you will need in improving your ability to run a better business. I have literarly applied the concept and tools at the work place; it WORKS!
Average customer rating:
- Very practical and useful
- The value of being a people-centered organization
- Very Interesting
- The "Value" of this book is certainly "Hidden" from me......
- Detailed case descriptions of high performing companies
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Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People
Charles A. O'Reilly
Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
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ASIN: 0875848982 |
Book Description
Discover How the Best Companies Win Not By Acquiring the Right People--But By Building the Right Organization
The "war for talent" is one battle every company believes it should be waging. But while competitors are busy chasing after the same "hot" individuals, smart companies are doing something infinitely more useful and far more difficult to copy--they're building organizations that make it possible for ordinary people at every desk and cubicle in their companies to perform as if they were stars.
Blowing up the prevailing wisdom that companies must chase and acquire top talent in order to remain successful,
Hidden Value argues instead that the source of sustained competitive advantage already exists within every organization. O'Reilly and Pfeffer, leading experts on organizational behavior and human resources, argue that how a firm creates and uses talent is far more important than how the firm attracts talent. The authors provide vivid, detailed case studies of several organizations in widely disparate industries--including Southwest Airlines, Cisco Systems, The Men's Wearhouse, and NUMMI--to illustrate how long-term success comes from value-driven, interrelated systems that align good people management with corporate strategy.
In a refreshing break from management tomes that force-feed superficial frameworks and trite "rules," the authors instead allow the company stories to take center stage. They guide readers in discovering for themselves how seven different firms maximize talent, why one firm hasn't fully released the hidden value in its work force, and, most importantly, how the winning companies have made it tough for competitors to imitate them. Collectively, the stories reveal a common path to success that places values before strategy, emphasizes implementation over planning, and focuses on getting the best out of all employees, not just individual stars. The authors also explore concerns or questions managers might have about how each company's experience parallels or conflicts with their own.
Providing a rare opportunity for managers to actively participate in an invaluable learning process,
Hidden Value offers a customizable template for building high-performance, people-centered organizations.
Customer Reviews:
Very practical and useful.......2006-12-19
Charles O'Reilly puts out an interesting idea of how to get the most out of people with various management strategies. I worked in a human resources department for a little while and his ideas were among the more useful that I applied. The book is very well written and does a good job of holding your interest. Highly recommend.
The value of being a people-centered organization.......2006-01-27
In a McKinsey & Company's study, "The War for Talent," McKinsey found that of 200 executives interviewed 58 responded that values and culture were absolutely essential in their decision to join, stay with, or leave an organization. The authors believe that by establishing the right value system and culture, companies can make all their employees perform as if they were in the top 10% of their field. The authors further state that companies must find new ways to tap the knowledge, experience, energy, and talents of employees.
Studying several companies that the authors believed had successfully leveraged their "hidden talent," the authors summarized these 6 essential practices:
· These companies place values and culture first
· They make those values real
· They hire people that will appreciate and espouse the company's values
· They invest in people
· They share information widely
· They reward and recognize those who adhere to the company's values.
A key way to have an organization tap this hidden talent is to achieve the status of being a people-centered organization. The authors see successful people-centered organizations have 3 basic themes that are common:
· Each has a well-articulated set of values that are widely shared and act as the foundation for its management practices.
· Each has a remarkable degree of alignment and consistency in the people-centered practices that express its core values
· Each has senior management whose primary roles are to ensure that the values are maintained and constantly made real to all employees in the organization.
Very Interesting.......2005-09-21
Only on Chapter 5. Reading about the excellent practices of these companies makes me want to strive for the best for my employees, also!
The "Value" of this book is certainly "Hidden" from me.............2003-01-31
This book is merely a compilation of case studies. There are few -- if any -- check lists, tables, charts, bullet points, or step-by-step methodologies to help you implement the concepts within your own company or organization. In fact, THERE ARE ONLY 21 PAGES not dedicated exclusively to either a case study and/or an analysis of the various case studies presented within the book. Save your money and purchase "The HR Scorecard", "The Talent Solution", or "Aligning Pay and Results" instead. Very disappointing...
Detailed case descriptions of high performing companies.......2001-12-31
This book tells the story of eight extremely successful companies that manage to bring out the best in their people. The stories are detailed descriptions of the company's backgrounds, strategies, systems and management practices. The stories are also larded with quotes from the company's CEO's, HR managers and employees. Following this approach the authors provide the readers the opportunity to form their own hypotheses about the companies' successes. But the authors also present their interpretations of the case studies.
What these studies show is how these high performing companies have achieved their success by aligning their values, strategies and people. This is something which is easy to understand but hard to do. It requires consistent articulation and implementation of the values and vision and a relentless attention to detail in ensuring that all policies and practices support the company's values. In order to be able to show this kind of consistency a real belief and commitment are needed and a willingness to persevere.
This book shows how high performing companies consciously turn a lot of the conventional management wisdom upside down. For instance:
1. Contrary to what many people now think, recruiting, selecting and retaining unique talent is NOT the prime source of competitive advantage. Although these activities are important, the examples of these extraordinary companies show that it is much more important to build a culture and work system that enables all people to use their talents and develop their talents. A byproduct of this will be that your company will also be better at attracting and retaining people.
2. Values first instead of strategies. The conventional view puts competitive strategy on top and derives from that what structure is needed, what competencies and behaviors are needed and so on. The companies described here work differently. Although they do have competitive strategies these are secondary to their set of guiding values and to the alignment of these values with their management practices. In other words: they have a values-based view of strategy.
3. Respectful and trusting way of dealing with people. Many companies monitor, check and try to control employee behavior. The hidden value companies work differently. In the spirit of Douglas McGregor's book The Human Side of Enterprise, they seem to understand that if you begin by designing systems to protect against the small unmotivated minority, you end up alienating the motivated majority. So they put their people first by treating them respectfully, involving them and trusting them.
Lessons like the ones presented in this book can be found in several other books by for instance Jeffrey Pfeffer himself, David Maister and Jim Collins. What makes this book different and interesting to me is the presentation in the form of detailed case descriptions.
Book Description
""Businesses need to stop focusing on 'paradigm shifts' and 'strategic initiatives' and realize that none of that makes any sense if your front-line employees don't 'give a damn.'"" —Rhoda Olsen, President, Great Clips, Inc.
Transform the Your Bored, Uncaring ""Generation Why"" Young Workforce into a
Powerhouse of Performers and Innovators
According to the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs, by 2012 there will be a shortage of more than two million front-line service workers in retail sales, customer service, and food preparation. Only a fraction of the restless Generation Y workers who typically fill these positions stay with their employer longer than a year! Dubbed ""kidployees,"" these 16- to 24-year-olds share an entirely different set of values, expectations, and skills that must be reckoned with if you're among the millions of business owners and managers in America.
In Getting Them to Give a Damn, nationally recognized Generation Y expert Eric Chester shows readers how to hire, train, manage, and motivate a workforce that won't blindly conform to traditional standards and time-honored company policies and standards. Chester reveals the management techniques that leading-edge employers are using to get these quirky, book-smart, and streetwise kidployees to contribute in innovative and entrepreneurial ways.
Customer Reviews:
Motivate Young Employees.......2005-12-19
I was often puzzled by employees in their early 20s. They brought different values, expectations and skills to the workplace. My job was to teach them the service ethic, to keep them long enough to get the benefit of my training efforts and keep them motivated to put in a good day's work.
This book addresses those issues. Any employer today needs to inform themselves on how to deal with this age group.
A 'must' for any member of the 'next generation employer'.......2005-10-11
Eric Chester's Getting Them To Give A Damn: How To Get Your Front Line To Care About Your Bottom Line provides an excellent key to turning uncaring employees into performers and innovators. The latest generation shares a new set of values and won't blindly conform to company policy - but they can be motivated, and 'Generation Y expect' author Eric Chester shows how. From recruiting the best new employees to using different types of training to make them loyal, this is a 'must' for any member of the 'next generation employer'.
A 'must' for any member of the 'next generation employer'.......2005-10-11
Eric Chester's Getting Them To Give A Damn: How To Get Your Front Line To Care About Your Bottom Line provides an excellent key to turning uncaring employees into performers and innovators. The latest generation shares a new set of values and won't blindly conform to company policy - but they can be motivated, and 'Generation Y expect' author Eric Chester shows how. From recruiting the best new employees to using different types of training to make them loyal, this is a 'must' for any member of the 'next generation employer'.
If you employ them and want to retain them...Read this Book!.......2005-08-17
If you employ a team or are looking to employ (and retain) a team that includes anyone in the 15 to 25 age bracket, this book is an absolute MUST READ.
Several very good examples of what other successful operators are doing and plenty of food for thought that can lead to real application in your business.
A great investment and a very good read!
Much-Needed Book, Right on Target.......2005-05-03
If you are a business owner employing people between the ages of 16 and 24, buy, read, absorb, and apply this book. If you are a manager or supervisor in any kind of company where you are responsible for employees between the ages of 16 and 24, buy, read, absorb, and apply this book. If you are the confused parent of one or more children between the ages of 16 and 24, buy, read, absorb, and apply this book. If you are an educator of students between the ages of 16 and 24, buy, read, absorb, and apply this book. Are we communicating here?
OK, your first reaction is the profanity in the book title. Live with it! You will find the word a few places in the text, but it's there to make a point. Yes, the writing is punchy, direct, and pushes the envelope of your thinking. However, so do the attitudes and behavior of your young people. We older folks (let's say that term refers to all us gray beards over 35) need to wake up and smell the differences between today's young workers and their counterparts in previous generations. They are different, and must be managed differently. Learn how and succeed. Ignore the lessons of this book and continue to pour profits down the drain by recruiting, training, recruiting, training, recruiting, training, ad nauseum.
Eric Chester is respected as the leading authority on this age group, assuming that anyone can be an expert on kidployees. As a consultant and author in the workforce field, I'm very comfortable telling you that the man is right-on in his writing as he is in his speaking. He'll grab you at the beginning of the book and hold your attention with anecdotes (some from his own life) and lessons learned. In page after page, Chester presents knowledge, insight, techniques, and advice that-if heeded-can substantially strengthen a manager's effectiveness.
In the first of five well-organized sections of the book, you'll gain valuable perspectives about the 16-24 year olds (Generation Why), noting how and why they're different...and how the difference can be a powerful asset for your company. Subsequent sections address how to attract, keep, and connect with this important employee group. The last section offers important insight into some employers who get it right...why and how. An index supplements the text, enabling you to go back to particular sections for refresher readings.
You will be amazed at how much the author has packed into this comfortably-sized book.
After you're finished with your first reading, you'll probably be inspired to buy copies for other managers in your organization. Wait. I take that back. That inspiration will come to you before you've finished with the book. It hit me somewhere about half through the pages.
Warning: if your competitor uses this book and you do not, you are in big trouble!
Book Description
Not just another book on the theory of strategic planning, here are dozens of recipes for creative group activities to facilitate strategic planning in any organization. Designed for use by consultants, facilitators, and management team leaders, step-by-step instructions guide you through exercises for gaining employee and management participation, gathering feedback from management about the current state of the organization, creating an organized mission, vison and values statement, and planning so that the vision becomes reality. Ready-to-use reproducible materials and handouts are also included.
Customer Reviews:
Too simplistic. .......2006-11-10
Even popular textbooks in strategic management (Wheelen and Hunger, Davis, etc.), which are oriented toward more thoughtful study of the subject, do a better job presenting a sound applied process in strategic planning. Don't waste your money.
Unique.......2005-09-21
Thee is little written for facilitators and this is a complete summary and approach to the topic with all the tools. I just wish there had been more stories of how each of the tools worked.
Invaluable tools for Organizational Planning.......2003-10-17
I have had the opportunity to use the designs in this book over the past year. The designs or "strategic activities" are creative and guarnateed to advance the planning process for a wide range of organizations. The instructions have just the right amount of detail to adaquately prepare the facilitator. There is tremendous felxibility with each acitivity to accomodate longer or shorter amounts of time. The designs are
crip, imaginative, thoughtful, rooted in practice. Its a book I refer to again and again. Its been an invaluable tool to my work.
Intelligent and Interesting.......2001-08-23
impressive, interesting and different ideas .I like the down to earth , inclusive quality of this book. Thing are explained well and frameworks are provided, so that you can conduct these activities with confidence.I highly recommend it.
Planning First - Learning Always.......2001-08-13
If you have ever been involved in a strategic planning effort that fell short of expectations then this book is for you. In plain language the authors lay out a planning framework with supporting involvement practices to gain organizational buy-in. They provide explanations and case study examples to show the connections between "what needs to be done and how to do it." A chapter titled "The Toolbox" covers the rational and procedures for involvement mechanisms that include "Nominal Group Process to generate ideas, Affinity Diagrams & Mindmaping to organize complex issues and Collapsing Consensus & Las Vegas Voting to help in problem solving & decision-making." There are valuable discussions on organizing the planning effort and post-planning followup / accountability. This volume supports any organizational effort to set goals, improve quality or enhance effectiveness in resource management through collaborative processes.
Book Description
Introduces a new way of measuring and thinking about the contributions of individuals to business success.
Makes the case that the role of Human Resources is increasingly important, as company assets become more intangible and reliant on intellectual capital.
Provides a framework that focuses on identifying where Human Resources issues are performance drivers--or impediments--to strategy implementation.
Develops a measurement system that provides valid, reliable indicators of Human Resources' contribution to the success of strategy implementation, and ultimately to firmperformance.
Includes recommendations supported by clear and persuasive examples, as well as the authors' unique survey of 2,800 firms.
Customer Reviews:
How to determine the ROI of your organization's human capital.......2006-10-31
I recently re-read this book and have even higher regard for it now than I did I when I first read it soon after it was published in 2001. Becker and Huselid later co-authored The Workforce Scorecard with Richard W. Beatty. With rigor and eloquence, they examine three separate but related challenges: Perspective (with an emphasis on differentiation), Metrics (and their relationship to strategy execution), and Execution (which holds senior executives and line managers accountable for workforce success). They suggest that all organizations which successfully meet these three challenges (i.e. those which "do it right") have these six characteristics in common:
1. HR professionals spend less time on employee performance than they did five years ago
2. The relationship between workforce success and strategy implementation defines the ROI of new HR initiatives.
3. Creating a shared mind-set is not taken for granted.
4. The HR function has a staffing structure that effectively balances the tension between being a strategic partner and delivering efficient and effective HR services.
5. Strategic workforce measures are "owned" and coordinated by a single individual or task force.
6. Senior executives, line managers, and HR professionals consider the results of the measurement system worth the implementation effort.
Although it may seem to some who read this brief commentary that will be of substantial value only to large organizations, I hasten to reassure them that, after appropriate modifications, what Huselid, Becker, and Beatty recommend in The Workforce Scorecard can help any organization (regardless of size or nature) to improve the quality of their strategy execution by developing the right perspective on the contributions of its workforce to its success, and, by developing the right execution strategy to ensure that its managers are ready, willing, and able to use workforce metrics to drive business success.
It is important to keep these points in mind when reading The HR Scorecard and I strongly recommend that, if possible, The Workforce Scorecard be read in combination with it, preferably but not necessarily afterward.
Robert Kaplan and David Norton wrote three articles for Harvard Business Review ("The Balanced Scorecard," "Putting the Scorecard to Work," and "Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System") which led to a series of books in which their insights were developed in even greater depth. According to Norton who wrote the introduction to The HR Scorecard, in the New Economy, human capital is the foundation of value creation and that up to 85% of an organization's value is based on intangible assets. "This presents an interesting dilemma: The asset which is most important is the least understood, least prone to measurement, and, hence least susceptible to management." He goes on to commend the co-authors of The HR Scorecard for three specific contributions: their development of causal models which illustrate the relationship of HR value drivers with business outcomes and thereby take the Balanced Scorecard to the next level of sophistication; their research on the drivers of high-performance organizations to provide a framework to decision-makers with which to formulate and implement strategies for human capital growth; and finally, their insights into the competencies required by HR professionals, competencies which can enabler an organization to deliver on the promise of its measurement system.
In essence, the co-authors of The HR Scorecard identify and explain linkages - indeed the interdependence -- between and among people, strategy, and performance. Only by understanding these linkages and their independence can decision-makers in any organization (regardless of size or nature) accurately measure the nature, value, and impact of human capital on the bottom line.
Moreover, decision-makers can then make much more accurate measurement of each individual in terms of the value she or he adds to the organization and, more importantly, to those on whom that organization depends for revenue. Customers who purchase products, of course, and clients who purchase services but also members who purchase members and benefactors to contribute donations.
Here are two other substantial benefits of establishing and then maintaining a HR scorecard:
1. It can guide and inform hiring decisions which ensure that an organization increases its human capital with those to add new value
2. It can also guide and inform decisions concerning the allocation of tangible resources, especially when there are unexpected major developments (either threatening or promising) in the given organization's competitive marketplace.
When concluding their brilliant volume, the authors observe that while much of the work of an HR scorecard is technical, the delivery of the Scorecard is personal. "It requires that HR professionals design to make a difference, align their work to business strategy, apply the science of research to the art of HR, and commit to learning from constant experimentation. When you create the HR Scorecard, using the approach we describe, you are actually [begin italics] linking HR to firm performance [end italics]. But you will also develop a new perspective on your HR function, practices, and professional development. In measurement terms, the benefits will far outweigh the costs."
I presume to add two concluding suggestions of my own. First, that HR professionals use the Scorecard initially to measure their own performance so they can determine how, as individual executives, they can add greater value to their organization. Next, that all others in senior management also read this book as well as The Workplace Scorecard to increase their own understanding of (a) how and why to link people, strategy, and performance enterprise-wide and (b) how to manage human capital much more effectively (also enterprise-wide) when executing strategy.
A Wealth of Ideas.......2006-05-28
If you're in HR and need to establish measures for the value you add, this book contains a huge array of options for measurement. As a resource for "brainstorming" it's unparalleled.
Where the book breaks down is focus. As Jerry McAdams says, measure many things but reward a few. If HR were honestly to establish and maintain 100 measurements, how could even an airline pilot monitor that many gauges on the the dashboard?
It would have been much better if the authors had said, "These are the half-dozen key, even 'universal' measures of HR value-added." As it is, the reader has to wade through the enormous number of options furnished and hope that they've gotten it right.
Worse yet: with all these measures, HR takes "the easy way out" and suboptimizes, picking only those measures which make HR look good. If measures of self-aggrandizement is all we've accomplished, we've not helped our businesses at all.
We All need it.......2006-05-16
This book should be read by all HR Professionals.
I wont waste your time in reading the review, just order it, and do not hesitate.
I read it twice
This book is rapidly becoming an industry best practice framework.......2006-02-28
It has always been difficult to capture the impact of Human Resources on the company's performance. Unfortunately, most of the measures in use currently do not capture the HR contributions to a company's success. The authors argue that anew approach is necessary. One that captures the vital role that HR plays along with providing real measures that can show what contributions HR is making to the company's success.
This new approach involves reversing the traditional bottom-up method with a more comprehensive top-down approach. The implementation of strategy is the key. The authors submit that a company must develop an assessment system that measures HR contribution to the company's strategies and profitability. The authors developed a seven-step approach to implementing HR's strategic role:
Step 1: Clearly define business strategy
Step 2: Build a business case for HR as a strategic asset
Step 3: Create a strategy map
Step 4: Identify HR deliverables within the strategy map
Step 5: Align HR architecture with HR deliverables
Step 6: Design the strategic HR measurement system
Step 7: Implement management by measurement
In order to create the HR scorecard a company must measure: HR: deliverables, policies, processes, practices, system alignment, and efficiency. This represents one-part of the HR scorecard. Developing the scorecard is one part, implementing the scorecard is the other part. The authors recommend seven guidelines for implementing a scorecard:
· Lead Change
· Create a shared need
· Shape a vision
· Mobilize commitment
· Build enabling systems
· Monitor and demonstrate progress
· Make it last
Workforce Score card.......2006-02-14
The book has built on the key philosophy underlying the earlier book, The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance by Brian Becker, Mark Huselid, and Dave Ulrich, which was written with a view to align human resource activities with business strategy. The present book is a follow up of that one. In nutshell, it seeks to introduce a metric system that deals with behaviours, competencies and mindsets and culture necessary for workforce success, as also the way it influences the organizational performance.
The book helps differentiate workforce into various categories which necessitates reliable standards and measures. Developing these will help employees know as to what is expected of them.
The book is undoubtedly a fine contribution towards improving the effectiveness of operations and other managers; it will provide them potent ideas for better delivery of results. It even has the potential of raising the stature of the discipline of strategic HRM. It is well known that HR is presently in an hour of crisis as it has been subjected to tremendous pressure for outsourcing of its activities. The book's hallmark lies in its practical utility to managers. It offers specific guidelines for ensuring that effective measures are identified, accepted and used. The HR managers are bound to give regards for the metrics that have been suggested in this book. It will become one of the widely-read, used and referenced books in the time to come. The book is free from any jargon; yet its conceptualization is powerful. The central line of reasoning flows very well throughout the text. The illustrations and tables are extremely interesting. The book should be an essential reading for line as well as HR managers as they are jointly responsible for executing strategy. All those who are striving to build high-performance organizations must read this book.
Debi S. Saini
MDI, Gurgaon, India
Book Description
This practical, reader-friendly book discusses training and how it relates to business objectives and strategies. Using a model of the training process to assist readers in understanding the training process, it emphasizes the value of developing training programs, with examples provided for both large and small organizations, relating training to the overall strategy of a firm.
This book provides comprehensive coverage of such topics as the role of training in organizations; training in large and small businesses; strategic planning; human resources departments and their role in supporting strategy; theories of learning and their application; needs analysis; training design; training methods; training development and implementation; and training evaluation.
For Human Resources Department managers and staff, trainers, project managers, business strategists, and team trainers and team developers.
Customer Reviews:
Just the facts, ma'am..........2002-02-07
I'm currently using this as a college textbook. It's taken me three weeks to work through three chapters. After two weeks, I ended up skimming over the 2nd and 3rd chapters just to make it through without stopping 4 or 5 times wondering what it was I was reading. I can see it's loaded with important information, but it's an effort to stay focused. The headings and subheadings are bland and repetitive. I often feel like I'm rereading a section, but how can I tell when sections I've read aren't memorable? The authors also show a knack for stating the obvious. For instance, "Identifying the required KSAs is not as obvious, but they are still relatively easy to obtain, by examining each task and asking the question, 'What knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes are necessary to perform a particular task?'" (p.143).
I find it ironic that a book that is attempting to teach people how to make training pertinent and interesting to others is itself uninteresting. This is a book for those who just want the facts and don't care if the writing and presentation are lively or engaging.
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.
Books:
- 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))
- The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook
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