bookreviews
by Theodore B. Kinni
Customer Intimacy
by Fred Wiersema
IN HIS PREVIOUS BOOK, The Discipline of Market Leaders, co-authored with
Michael Treacy, Wiersema theorized that there are three ways to dominate
a market. A company, he said, can attain a position of leadership by offering
the best price, the most innovative products or the best service. Wiersema's
new book advocates creating a company that is "customer-intimate."
Customer intimacy is not to be confused with customer delight or satisfaction.
Instead, says Wiersema, customer-intimate companies are dedicated to improving
their customers' results.
How is this done? The book is light on details, but Wiersema does offer
a general outline of the task. Three principles of customer intimacy are
presented: Flex your commercial imagination; cultivate your human connections;
and commit, commit, commit.
The book, however, has its weaknesses. As in the previous book, the text
tends to be presented in a simplistic 1-2-3 manner and is aimed at the lowest
common denominator. And even the overzealous effort to emphasize the originality
of the author's thinking doesn't conceal the fact that many of his ideas
are very similar to those of other writers in this area.
On the other hand, Customer Intimacy (Knowledge Exchange, $22.95) is easy
to read and understand. It is also enthusiastic and motivational.
TeamThink
by Ava S. Butler
MORE THAN A BILLION meetings, accounting for 15 percent of total personnel
budgets, are held annually, according to Ava Butler. Even worse, claims
the London-based trainer and consultant, up to 50 percent of all meeting
time is wasted. In response, she offers TeamThink, a practical guide to
increasing meeting effectiveness.
Butler concentrates on decisional meetings, the working sessions in which
an organization's operational and strategic decisions are made. These are
exactly the type of meetings that have increased so rapidly with the advent
of participative, team-based structures.
After a short chapter on meeting basics, such as agenda creation and physical
setup, Butler jumps into the heart of this book-72 specific tools and techniques
organized by use. The collection is fairly wide ranging and relies on many
well-known tools such as mindmapping, process flowcharting and the five
whys technique.
The book includes 20 ways to improve meeting productivity, seven ways to
boost group creativity, six brainstorming techniques, 16 information collection
methods, 11 decision-making techniques, seven ways to implement decisions
and three meeting evaluation tools. Each tool is presented in a two- to
three-page explanation with detailed instructions for use.
The title of this book is a bit misleading. TeamThink (McGraw-Hill, $14.95)
is not a guide to teamwork as much as it is a working guide to the techniques
of decisional meetings, meeting facilitation and group decision making.
Professional facilitators will probably already know most, if not all, of
the tools presented here. Newcomers to teams and team meetings will find
it a more valuable reference.
The ISO 14000 Handbook
edited by Joseph Cascio
This clone of CEEM's well-known ISO 9000 manual is a massive, software manual-sized
collection of information pertaining to the ISO 14000 environmental management
system standards. Like CEEM's early volume, this new book must certainly
be included in any list of required references to the subject.
Compiled under the direction of Joseph Cascio, chairman of the U.S. Technical
Advisory Group to ISO's TC 207 (the drafters of the 14000 series), the handbook
offers a full overview of the subject. From the usual explanation of the
background and structure of ISO to the 14001 and 14004 standards themselves,
this is a comprehensive presentation.
This tome includes a full measure of planning, preparation and implementation
advice, as well as a plethora of case studies. The drafts of the 14020,
14022 and 14024 labeling standards are described and are current as of March
of this year. Auditing and conformity assessments are explained. Even the
international progress of environmental management is examined. The book
also includes appendixes that list contact information for all the ISO and
IEC members, checklists for implementation, selected U.S. and EPA regulations,
and contacts for registrars.
The ISO 14000 Handbook (CEEM/ASQC, $75) is not a cover-to-cover read-it
contains more information than any one person needs to know. Instead, think
of this as an encyclopedia to the standards and dip into it whenever you
need fast answers to ISO 14000 questions.
The Balanced Scorecard
by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
It is an old story: Every year, managers attend days of meetings creating
detailed strategic plans, which are finalized and distributed. Then everyone
goes back to work, and the carefully formulated plans, as often as not,
gather dust until next year's strategy sessions.
It is this dysfunctional cycle that The Balanced Scorecard is designed to
overcome. A balanced scorecard is a series of metrics that allow managers
to quantify, deploy and measure the results of their strategic initiatives.
Balanced scorecards are more than a series of financial measures, such as
those used in traditional accounting systems. Instead, they offer a more
holistic view of a business and encompass four broad perspectives: financial
results, customer satisfaction, internal operations and organizational learning
and growth.
Once a business creates its scorecard, say Kaplan and Norton, all the attention
and effort of the organization can be brought to bear on the achievement
of its vision and strategy. The scorecard becomes nothing less than "the
central organizing framework for a new management system."
For all of its power, the creation of a balanced scorecard is a substantial
undertaking. The authors suggest that a two-year effort is needed to create
and implement a scorecard-based system. And, unfortunately, there is too
little detail offered here to go it alone.
Nevertheless, several thousand new business books are published each year,
and only a few of them qualify as seminal works on original topics. The
Balanced Scorecard (Harvard Business School Press, $29.95) is one of this
year's select few. Read it-your competitors will.
booknotes
Managing for Dummies
by Bob Nelson and Peter Economy
(IDG Books, 358 pages, $19.99)
If you can laugh at the implications of the title, this computer manual-sized
introduction to management skills will prove to be a fun and information-packed
read. The authors cover a wide range of topics: coaching, hiring, discipline,
etc. Their advice is solid and up-to-date.
The Improvement Guide
by Gerald Langley, et al.
(Jossey-Bass, 370 pages, $29.95)
This compendium of improvement concepts is based on the Deming plan-do-study-act
cycle as the primary process of improvement efforts. It describes 70 concepts
in three categories: increased quality, decreased costs and enhanced customer
service.
How to Achieve ISO 9000 Registration Economically and Efficiently
by Gurmeet Naroola
and Robert MacConnell
(Marcel Dekker, 183 pages, $45)
This new volume in Marcel Dekker's Quality and Reliability series suggests
using the train-analyze-plan cycle and the plan-do-study-act improvement
cycle as the basis for a successful registration drive. The authors, who
are RAB-certified auditors and past leaders of corporate registration drives,
bring a wealth of practical experience to the mix.
Confessions of an Accidental Businessman
by James Autry
(Berrett-Koehler, 240 pages, $24.95)
Former Fortune 500 senior executive, author and poet James Autry turns in
another highly literate volume of business thought in this heavily autobiographical
account of his career. A contemplative book in which the important lessons
slowly sneak up on the reader.
Coaching Knock Your Socks Off Service
by Ron Zemke and Kristin Anderson
(Amacom, 160 pages, $17.95)
This new volume, which concentrates on coaching skills for customer service
managers and supervisors, is a valuable addition to the KYSO series. As
readers have come to expect, Zemke and Anderson stick to the nuts-and-bolts
in this practical and fun-to-read paperback.
The Whole Brain Business Book
by Ned Herrmann
(McGraw-Hill, 334 pages, $21.95)
Aimed at executives, this book describes Herrmann's Whole Brain Thinking
theory and applies it at the organizational level. The author explains four
major thinking styles and how each can be used to build profitable businesses.
