Authors: Charles A. O'Reilly III. Michael L. Tushman.
Hardcover, 260 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2002-06
Edition: Revised

Reviews :

    "Winning Through Innovation" reveals why short-term corporate success often increases the chance of long-term failure. Drawing on lessons from firms worldwide, this book is the first to provide systematic tools that managers can begin using today to gain practical insights for overcoming the success syndrome, managing innovation, and developing action plans to attain - and maintain - industry leadership. Michael L. Tushman is the MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Charles A. O'Reilly III is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior at Stanford University Graduate School of Business....

Authors: Taylor, Jr. Cox. Jr., Taylor Cox.
Hardcover, 176 pages
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Publication Date: 2001-06-06
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    As the war for talent rages on, organizations are seeking proven methods for leveraging diversity as a resource. Creating the Multicultural Organization challenges today's organizations to stop "counting heads for the government" and begin creating effective strategies for a more positive approach to managing diversity. Using a model outlined in his earlie rworks, Taylor Cox Jr.--an associate professor at the University of Michigan Business School and president of his own consulting firm--shows readers the many practical and innovative ways that top organizations such as Alcoa effectively address diversity issues to secure and develop the talent that they need in order to succeed.


A University of Michigan Business School Series Book...

Authors: Robert J Marshak.
Paperback, 188 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 2006-08-01


Reviews :

    This is the first and only guidebook that specifically outlines methodologies for diagnosing and dealing with all of the "hidden" or covert factors that can subtly sabotage even the most meticulously planned change processes....

Authors: Bernd H. Schmitt.
Hardcover, 192 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2007-12-06
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Business leaders need bold strategies to stay relevant and win. In Big Think Strategy, Schmitt shows how to bring bold thinking into your business by sourcing big ideas and executing them creatively. With the tools in this book, any leader can overcome institutionalized small think the inertia, the narrow-mindedness, and the aversion to risk that block true innovation. Your reward? Big, bold, and decidedly doable strategies that excite your employees and leave your rivals scrambling.

Drawing on years of advising corporate leaders on creativity and strategy development, Schmitt explains how to infuse fresh thinking into the planning process. Through his commentary on the Trojan War, the film Fitzcarraldo, and the composer Gustav Mahler, Schmitt uncovers the essence of bold leadership and the levers of revolutionary change. Abundant examples from Apple, Whole Foods, MySpace, IBM, General Electric, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to name a few, show big think strategy in action.

Tested by daring executives in a diverse range of industries, the practical ideas and tools in this book will help you leverage bold ideas in your strategic planning and position your firm uniquely for lasting market relevance and success....

Authors: Michael Leboeuf.
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Fireside
Publication Date: 1997-08-07


Reviews :

    Corporate downsizing, the desire to balance work and family, and an interest in making money through meaningful work has turned thousands of Americans into aspiring entrepreneurs. In this book, the bestselling author of Working Smart provides guidance for finding the right million-dollar business; starting a business while keeping another job; getting paid for marketing oneself; and using new technologies to increase productivity....

Authors: Arthur Thompson. A. J. Strickland III. John Gamble.
Perfect Paperback, 620 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Publication Date: 2006-06-14
Edition: 15

Reviews :

    Thompson, Strickland and Gamble's, CRAFTING AND EXECUTING STRATEGY, 15e presents the latest research findings from the literature and cutting-edge strategic practices of companies have been incorporated to keep step with both theory and practice. Scores of new examples have been added to complement the new and updated Illustration Capsules. More chapter-end exercises have been included. The result is a text treatment with more punch, greater clarity, and improved classroom effectiveness. But none of the changes have altered the fundamental character that has driven the text's success over the years. The chapter content continues to be solidly mainstream and balanced, mirroring both the best academic thinking and the pragmatism of real-world strategic management. This paperback version of the text does not contain any cases, but it does include 21 readings from noted business writers that support the concepts in the main text portion.. Instructors who would like to create their own case packets to go with this book should go to www.mhhe.com/primis to make their selections.....

Authors: Garry Kasparov.
Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: 2007-09-25
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    ...

    In his 22-year reign as Grandmaster, Garry Kasparov faced more than a few tough choices under the heat of chess competitons. This is a man who knows a thing or two about making smart decisions, and since his retirement in 2005, Kasparov has put his powerful strategic thinking to work in business and politics, showing that a simple reliance on instincts can guide you through even the most complex challenges. With no shortage of wit or eloquence, he's answered our hardest questions about what factors can make or break a decision-making moment. --Anne Bartholomew

---

Questions for Garry Kasparov

Amazon.com: Why do you think decisiveness is such an elusive skill for people to master? Are there simply too many choices? What’s a good first step for negotiating your options?

Kasparov: It’s true that today we are faced with greater complexity in almost every aspect of our lives, from global competition in the business world to more options for entertainment. The connected world has flooded us with a limitless supply of data, and equally limitless choices. One of the problems this has created is that it creates the illusion, or delusion, that we can achieve perfection in our decisions by accumulating more information. It’s too easy to blame faulty decisions on imperfect information, but information is always limited in some way, as is the time available to make our decisions. Forget perfection! Decisiveness comes from the courage to trust your instincts. The more you trust, the more you’ll build up that intuition and the more accurate it will become, creating a positive cycle.

Before you lay out your options, what we might call considering your next move, you have to have a solid understanding of the present. Evaluation is more important than calculation. Rushing into narrowing things down to a list of options is itself a form of making a choice -- and if you do that, you can prematurely rule out important possibilities. Stop looking ahead for a moment and examine the current state of affairs. Good decisions come from a solid understanding of all the factors that come into play. Once you have tuned your evaluation skills and learned to put the options on hold for a moment you’ll often find that difficult decisions become obvious.

Amazon.com: Taking a holistic view of your career, do you recall the moment you identified your talent for thinking strategically? Is it possible for you to separate that sense of yourself from your identity as a chess champion?

Kasparov: In the world of competitive chess, or any sport for that matter, everything is relative. Your results tell you about your talent. How can you identify a talent that goes untested? That’s one reason I’m so passionate about trying new things and about encouraging others to leave their comfort zones. I was fortunate in that my status as world champion brought me into contact with world leaders, top executives, authors, and other luminaries. I very much enjoyed these exchanges, learning about these other worlds. It also gave me the chance to share my own thoughts, something I’ve never been shy about doing. I’m sure they had to humor my impetuousness on occasion! But often they encouraged me and I discovered I had a knack for making unusual connections, a way of seeing the big picture that wasn’t limited to the chessboard.

Until my retirement from chess in March 2005 it would have been nearly impossible for me to separate myself from my chess identity--other than love for family and friends. But since then I have moved into several entirely different worlds. I’m at the table as a politician, or writing editorials, or lecturing about strategy and intuition in front of business audiences. My former chess career still precedes me in these settings, but they aren’t humoring me anymore! Actually, the biggest step was working on this book, which forced me to consider the mechanics of my own mind beyond chess. I had to ask myself if I really had something to offer and then figure out how to express it concretely. The positive reactions of my lecture audiences also helped in this regard.

Amazon.com: Playing chess competitively no doubt requires huge reserves of passion, patience, and discipline. For those readers who haven’t experienced the kind of rigorous training that competitive chess imparts, can you recommend some good ways to practice strategic thinking?

Kasparov: We all do it every day, the difference is that it takes discipline to become aware of it. In the book I ask the reader to consider all the significant decisions they made that day, that week. You don’t have to be a chess player or an executive to benefit from improving your decision- making process. We make hundreds of decisions just to get through each day. A handful are important enough to keep track of, to look back on critically. Were they successful? Why or why not? We can train ourselves, which is really the only way.

Amazon.com: Did you ever find during a particularly difficult match that it was hard to prevent your emotions from clouding your decision-making ability? What was your strategy for coping with stress or anxiety in that kind of situation?

Kasparov: Emotion is a critical element of decision-making, not a sin always to be avoided. As with anything it is harmful in excess. You learn to focus it and control it the best you can. I’m a very emotional person in and out of chess so this was always a challenge for me. When I sat down at the board against my great rival, Anatoly Karpov, it was a special occasion. I knew it, he knew it, and we both knew the chess world was paying special attention. We had such a long and bitter history that it was impossible not to bring it to the board with us every time we played.

On some occasions this anxiety created negative emotions like doubt. More often it generated greater creative tension, greater supplies of nervous tension, which is a chess player’s lifeblood.

Usually when you are under stress there is a good reason for it. Learning not to get anxious about things beyond your control is a separate issue. So don’t fight stress, use it! Channel that nervous energy into solving the problems. Sitting around worrying isn’t going to achieve anything and the loss of time will often make the problem worse. Even in the worst case, mistakes of action teach you much more than inaction. Forward!

Amazon.com: If you could choose five people, living or dead, to play you in chess, who would they be?

Kasparov: Don’t you know I have retired as a chess player? Well, I will go with you to the middle with two and a half opponents.

4th world chess champion Alexander Alekhine (d. 1946) was my childhood chess idol. The book of his collected games was my constant companion. He was a player of limitless imagination and combativeness. Some aspects of his pre-WWII-era chess would be considered antique today, but his talent is timeless. Just sitting at the board with him to analyze and share ideas would be like a youthful dream made real.

My next player requires a change of date as well, since I am now retired. In the period of 2001-2002 I felt I deserved a rematch against Vladimir Kramnik, who took my title in 2000. I was still the top-rated player in the world, the obvious top challenger. So I would choose a 16-game match against Kramnik--in 2002.

Last on my list is a chessplayer who is most definitely dead. Even if chess has by now passed it by, I would take a tiebreaker match against Deep Blue. I won our first match; the machine won the second. Then IBM made sure there would be no chance for a rematch. This time everything would be out in the open, no black boxes. Of course chess machines are considerably stronger today. It would still be pleasant to gain revenge and set the record straight.

(photo credit: Todd Plitt)

---

...

Authors: Shona L. Brown. Kathleen M. Eisenhardt.
Hardcover, 297 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 1998-04-15


Reviews :

    Unstable markets, fierce competition, and relentless change are the only certainties in today's chaotic business world. In their startling new book, authors Brown and Eisenhardt contend that to prosper in such volatile conditions, standard survival strategies must be tossed aside in favor of a revolutionary new paradigm - competing on the edge. To compete on the edge is to relentlessly reinvent, and it's the only way to navigate the treacherous waters of tumultuous markets. Competing on the edge is an unpredictable, sometimes even inefficient strategy, yet a singularly effective one in an era driven by change. It requires charting a course along the edge of chaos, where a delicate compromise is struck between anarchy and order, to the edge of time, where current business is the primary focus, but actions are shaped by past legacies and future opportunities. By adroitly maneuvering through chaos and time, managers can avoid constantly reacting to nonstop change and instead set a rhythmic pace that others must follow, thereby shaping the competitive landscape - and their own destiny. In the first book to translate leading edge concepts from complexity theory into management practice, each chapter focuses on a specific management dilemma and illustrates a solution. Linking where do you want to go? With how will you get there? Here's a bold and surprising strategy that works - when the name of the game is change....

    What do the Atlanta Braves, Microsoft, 3M, Nike, and Intel all have in common? According to Shona Brown and Kathleen Eisenhardt, authors of Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos, each of these organizations are predictably unpredictable. They're leaders not because of their ability to predict the course of their markets; rather, these companies have learned to embrace the notion of change. They're successful because they've learned to find that edge between structure and chaos that allows them to be innovative and creative, while maintaining just enough discipline to focus on executing a plan.

The authors contend that competing on the edge is not an efficient or predictable way to do business. Instead, it's learning how to adapt and lead in a business environment that's in a constant state of flux. "The underlying insight behind competing on the edge is that strategy is the result of a firm's organizing to change constantly and letting a semicoherent strategic direction emerge from that organization. In other words, it is about combining the two parts of strategy by simultaneously addressing where you want to go and how you are going to get there."

Brown and Eisenhardt offer dozens of examples of companies that are successfully and not so successfully finding that balance between anarchy and order. If, on the one hand, you feel like your company is bogged down by rules and bureaucracy or if,on the other, it seems like no one in your company knows exactly what they're doing, you'll find that Competing on the Edge is a valuable handbook for change. The book is clearly written, full of insight, and belongs on every manager's bookshelf. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards ...

Authors: Mark H. Mccormack.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Bantam
Publication Date: 1990-10-01


Reviews :

    A straight-talking must-read of powerful strategies for every executive headed for the top. Written in the same no-nonsense, hard-hitting manner that McCormack brings to his own fast-paced business and management style, this is mandatory reading for executives on every rung of the corporate ladder....

Authors: Bill H. Gates.
Paperback, 470 pages
Publisher: Business Plus
Publication Date: 2000-05-15
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Argues that the capabilities of computers, software, and networks are only beginning to be harnessed, and that companies must start building a modern, digital nervous system now in order to compete quickly and intuitively in the new millennium. Explains how to turn hardware and software into an evolving network of information. Softcover....

    So where do you want to go tomorrow? That's the question Bill Gates tries to answer in Business @ the Speed of Thought. Gates offers a 12-step program for companies wanting to do business in the next millennium. The book's premise: Thanks to technology, the speed of business is accelerating at an ever-increasing rate, and to survive, it must develop an infrastructure--a "digital nervous system"--that allows for the unfettered movement of information inside a company. Gates writes that "The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition ... is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose."

The book is peppered with examples of companies that have already successfully engineered information networks to manage inventory, sales, and customer relationships better. The examples run from Coca-Cola's ability to download sales data from vending machines to Microsoft's own internal practices, such as its reliance on e-mail for company-wide communication and the conversion of most paper processes to digital ones (an assertion that seems somewhat at odds with the now-infamous "by hand on sheets of paper" method of tracking profits that was revealed during Microsoft's antitrust trial).

While Gates breaks no new ground--dozens of authors have been writing about competing on a digital playing field for some time, among them Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian in Information Rules and Patricia Seybold in Customers.com--businesses that want a wakeup call may find this book a ringer. With excerpts in Time magazine, a dedicated Web site, and an all-out media assault, Microsoft is working hard to push Business @ the Speed of Thought into the national dialogue, and for many it will be difficult to see the book as anything but a finely tuned marketing campaign for the forthcoming versions of Windows NT and MS Office. Nevertheless, as Gates has shown time and time again, him, Microsoft, and perhaps even this book you may ignore at your own peril. --Harry C. Edwards...