Open-Book Management: Coming Business Revolution, The

Open-Book Management: Coming Business Revolution, The Review

Buy From Amazon.com

"Read even the first chapter of this extraordinary book and you'll find yourself cheering, screaming, jumping up and down with excitement. The companies described in this book are decades ahead of the reengineers -- and you don't need to be a Bill Gates or a Jack Welch to put their ideas into practice today." -- George Gendron, editor in chief, Inc.

"Companies that practice open-book management seem to have captured some sort of lightning in a bottle." -- Chris Lee, Training

"This book should be required reading in corporate America." -- Chicago Tribune

"If you want to give your preconceived notions a good kick in the you-know-where, give Case the opportunity to articulate the merits of open-book management." -- Entrepreneur

Open-book management is not so much a technique as a way of thinking, a process that actively involves employees in the financial life of the company. Numerous companies have already found that employees who are informed and aware of the company's financial situation are motivated to seek solutions to problems and assume a greater degree of responsibility for its performance. John Case begins by examining the current competitive climate and the history of established management techniques. He shows how the traditional treatment of workers as "hired hands" with little involvement or responsibility beyond their own area is no longer effective in today's ever more competitive global environment.

Case clearly and carefully explains the principles of open-book management: timely sharing of crucial financial information with employees; educating the employees to understand and apply the information; empowering employees to apply the information to their own work; and offering employees a stake in the successful implementation of their ideas. Open-book management will take different forms at every company, Case notes, but he offers a wide range of suggestions and guidelines for implementing these principles. He concludes with a series of in-depth case studies, featuring companies of various sizes and financial situations that have successfully implemented open-book management. Open-Book Management is the indispensable guide to teaching employees how to think and act like owners.

Buy From Amazon.com

Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose--Doing Business by Respecting the Earth

Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose--Doing Business by Respecting the Earth Review

Buy From Amazon.com

In 1994, Interface founder and chairman Ray Anderson set an audacious goal for his commercial carpet company:  to take nothing from the earth that can’t be replaced by the earth.  Now, in the most inspiring business book of our time, Anderson leads the way forward and challenges all of industry to share that goal. 

 

The Interface story is a compelling one:  In 1994, making carpets was a toxic, petroleum-based process, releasing immense amounts of air and water pollution and creating tons of waste.  Fifteen years after Anderson’s “spear in the chest” revelation, Interface has:

 

*Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82%

*Cut fossil fuel consumption by 60%

*Cut waste by 66%

*Cut water use by 75%

*Invented and patented new machines, materials, and manufacturing processes

*Increased sales by 66%, doubled earnings, and raised profit margins

 

With practical ideas and measurable outcomes that every business can use, Anderson shows that profit and sustainability are not mutually exclusive; businesses can improve their bottom lines and do right by the earth.

Buy From Amazon.com

Changing How the World Does Business: Fedex's Incredible Journey to Success - The Inside Story

Changing How the World Does Business: Fedex's Incredible Journey to Success - The Inside Story Review

Buy From Amazon.com

For a long time, it looked like FedEx would never get off the ground. The company's early years were an unending series of legal, financial, and operational crises that continually threatened its ability to stay in business. Yet FedEx's leaders and employees were incredibly resourceful and resilient. Pilots used personal credit cards to gas up planes, paychecks weren't cashed, and in one of the most famous episodes, founder Fred Smith literally gambled the company's last remaining funds to keep the planes flying. Becuase Roger Frock was with the companies from the start, he is able to chronicle these real-life hardships and hard-fought triumphs as only an insider can. With humor and insight, he describes how FedEx overcame impossible odds to become one of the world's greatest success stories, a revolutionary company that truly changed the way the world does business.

Buy From Amazon.com

The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster & Win More Business

The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster & Win More Business Review

Buy From Amazon.com

"Every great leader is a great storyteller," says Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner.

According to master storytellers Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman, storytelling is a lot like running. Everyone knows how to do it, but few of us ever break the four-minute mile. What separates the great runners from the rest? The greats know not only how to hit every stride, but how every muscle fits together in that stride so that no effort is wasted and their goals are achieved. World-class runners know how to run from the inside out. World-class leaders know how to tell a story from the inside out.

In The Elements of Persuasion, Maxwell and Dickman teach you how to tell stories too. They show you how storytelling relates to every industry and how anyone can benefit from its power.

Maxwell and Dickman use their experiences—both in the entertainment industry and as corporate consultants—to deliver a formula for winning stories. All successful stories have five basic components: the passion with which the story is told, a hero who leads us through the story and allows us to see it through his or her eyes, an antagonist or obstacle that the hero must overcome, a moment of awareness that allows the hero to prevail, and the transformation in the hero and in the world that naturally results.

Let's face it: leading is a lot more fun than following. Even if you never want to be a CEO or to change the world, you do want to have control over your own work and your own ideas. Ultimately, that is what the power of storytelling can give you.

Buy From Amazon.com

Smart Business for Contractors: A Guide to Money and the Law (For Pros By Pros)

Smart Business for Contractors: A Guide to Money and the Law (For Pros By Pros) Review

Buy From Amazon.com

A contractor needs three basic things to be successful in business: an accountant, a calendar, and this book. Completely revised and updated, the advice in Smart Business for Contractors all but insures a contractor's increased efficiency and profitability.
Kramon, aveteran contractor's attorney, walks his readers through details big and small that make the difference between contractors who have more work than they can do yet barely make ends meet and contractors who work at a manageable pace, keep up-to-date records, and turn a profit job after job, year after year. Covering the spectrum of a contractor's career, Smart Business for Contractors includes new detailed information on what a contractor can expect in his first year in business and updated information on tools every contractor needs to plan intelligently for retirement (yes, a contractor needs to begin planning for retirement during his first year in the business!). Also included in this revision is instruction on how to price jobs accurately, draft successful contracts, bill clients and collect payments, optimize every possible tax deduction available to contractors, including the applicable deduction for a home office. There is also timely information on flex-spending plans, record-keeping, and partnership and corporation options all geared toward increasing a contractor's efficiency and profitability.

Buy From Amazon.com