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Title: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Ram Charan, Charles Burck, Larry Bossidy ISBN: 0-609-61057-0 Publisher: Crown Business Pub. Date: 15 June, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.34 (119 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Execute optimally!
Comment: This book describe a necessary leadership behavior in the Execution paradigm -- Insist on realism. As thinking is the basis of action, this concept requires more exploration and explanation. Prior to the introduction of Optimal Thinking into the corporate world, the pervasive motto was Think Positive. Optimism promotes persistence, but it is a poor strategy when the cost of failure or probability of failure are high. With the current integration of Optimal Thinking into leading corporations, the transformation from AnyCorp (consisting of any thinkers) to Opticorp (consisting of Optimal Thinkers) empowers the corporate culture to practice optimal realism. Optimal Thinkers accept what is out of their control, and optimize what is within their control. Using Optimal Thinking to ask questions like, What is within my/our control here? What are my/our options here? What is the worst event scenario? What is our optimal contingency plan? What is in our best interest? What is our highest priority? What are the best actions we can take to achieve it? What is the best thing you/we can do under the circumstances? empowers us to set clear priorities, and take the most constructive actions to follow through -- essential for optimal leadership and optimized execution. Execution-driven leaders who thrive on accountability and reward performance, must select the right people for the right jobs. This is achieved with Optimal Thinking. Read these two books, get your key people to read them too, and you will OPTIMIZE productivity.
Rating: 3
Summary: And the gap still exists
Comment: In the "Introduction" and the first chapter "The Gap Nobody Knows", the authors did promise their book to be superior to most of the common "leadership", "strategy", "corporate culture" management books with its ability to explain and solve the universal problem of why business outcomes almost always fall short of those predicted under the grand strategic plans laid down by golden parachute protected American top corp CEOs. Though it is fluently written, it just resembles most of its competitors in any book store, except by an author coming from a big enterprise called "Honeywell" carrying an eye catching rare term named "Execution".
Before I conclude my review, I would like to give you a brief summary of what this book is about.
To understand execution, readers have to keep three key points in their mind: 1) Execution is a discipline, and integral to strategy 2) Execution is the major job of the business leader 3)Execution must be a core element of an organisation's culture. The discipline of execution is based on a set of three building blocks that every leader must use to design, install and operate effectively the three core processes rigorously and consistently. The seven essential behavour of Building block I are: know your people and your business, insist on realism, set clear goals and priorities, follow through, reward the doers, expand people's capabilities and know yourself. Building block II is about creating the framework for cultural change whereas building block III is about having the right people in the right place. Meanwhile, the three core processes are those of making links between people, strategy and operations.
Without prejudice, the above ideas are quite fundamental. However, I am not saying that this is a bad management book. After reading tens, if not over a hundred books of the same kind, I really cant agree that this book is exceptionally outstanding. Can be a leisure reading, but definitely not on the priority list.
Rating: 3
Summary: Buy it, read it, do it
Comment: The question on the lips of the busy-executive-potential-reader will be: Well, do they do it, do they execute on the promise of this book? The assignment is a tough one - to provide a compelling, expansive, yet intensely practical guide to getting things done. Bossidy and Charan have nothing against theory and big ideas, but without execution they are worthless puffs of ideation. Even iconic intellectual Albert Einstein, the authors rightly point out, spent ten years developing the detailed proof of his stupendous insight which we call the theory of special relativity.
Execution, the link between aspiration and results, seems like a simple matter yet countless corporate corpses demonstrate otherwise. It cannot be left as an afterthought, but must be integral to strategy, is the major job of the business leader, and must form a core element of the organization's culture. The authors refer to these three understandings as the "building blocks of execution" and devote a chapter to each.
Into the breach step Bossidy and Charan to lay out the three core processes of execution. Each of the core processes - the people process, the strategy process, and the operations process - rise from the building blocks, each the leader needs to be deeply involved in all three. Putting this all together presents a massive but vital challenge to leaders. At its best it embodies a rigorous sense of realism and intellectual honesty. The thoughtful reader might spy an apparent paradox in the book. As the authors themselves note, you cannot truly learn how to execute from a book (although books can help). Nor is experience alone sufficient, for some people never learn. Clearly and deeply focusing on experience is the only route to full understanding of your particular business and people, your own strengths and weaknesses, and the qualities of your organizational culture.
Bossidy and Charan have produced a helpful book that points in productive directions and gives examples of good questions to ask. But in the end some readers will feel disappointed by the absence of a distinct recipe or set of instructions. But business leadership is not science and no universal recipe exists to replicate. Nevertheless, Execution nicely counterbalances the predominantly abstract, inspirational, and "visionary" approach of many leadership tomes. Buy it, read it, do it.
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Title: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins ISBN: 0066620996 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title:Discussion Guide: Execution -- The Discipline Of Getting Things Done by Editors of BrownHerron ASIN: B00008WHPW Publisher: BrownHerron Publishing Pub. Date: 24 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $3.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $3.95 |
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Title: First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham, Curt Coffman ISBN: 0684852861 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 05 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni ISBN: 0787960756 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 19 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Built to Last : Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras ISBN: 0060516402 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 20 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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