Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization
Author: Jon R Katzenbach
Teams are fast becoming a flexible and efficient way to enhance organizational performance. Yet today's business leaders consistently overlook opportunities to exploit their potential, confusing teams with teamwork or sharing. In this book, two senior McKinsey & Co. partners argue that we cannot meet the challenges ahead, from total quality to customer service to innovation, without teams. The authors talked with hundreds of people in more than fifty different teams in thirty companies to discover what differentiates various levels of team performance, where and how teams work best, and how to enhance their effectiveness. Among their findings: formal hierarchy is actually good for teams; successful team leaders fit no ideal profile; commitment to performance goals is more important than commitment to team-building goals; top management teams are often smaller and more difficult to sustain; and team endings can be as important to manage as team beginnings. The wisdom of teams lies in recognizing their unique potential to deliver results and in understanding their many benefits.
Business Week - Business Week
A thoughtful and well-written book filled with fascinating examples. . . . You will be hard-pressed to find a better guide to the essential building block of the organization of the future.
Publishers Weekly
The importance of teams has become a clichi of modern business theory, but few have a clear idea of what it means. In this new edition of their best-selling primer, Katzenbach and Smith try to impart some analytical rigor to the concept. Drawing on their experience as management consultants and a plethora of case studies at companies like Burlington Northern and Motorola, they cover such topics as the optimal size of teams, coping with turnover in team personnel and nurturing "extraordinary teams" rather than "pseudo-teams." Reacting against the touchy-feely interpersonal bent of discourse on teams, they emphasize hard-nosed principles of "performance, focus, and discipline," over the softer concerns of "communication, openness and 'chemistry.'" Teams, they argue, gel and achieve not by developing "togetherness," but by tackling and surmounting specific "outcome-based" challenges ("eliminate all late deliveries...within 90 days" rather than the vaguer "develop a plan for improving customer satisfaction."). Some of the authors' recommendations are reasonably precise and practical, but too many are nebulous truisms ("[k]eep the purpose, goals, and approach relevant and meaningful") or weighed down by turgid consultant-ese ("[i]ntegrating the performance goals of formal, structural units as well as special ad hoc group efforts becomes a significant process design challenge"). The case studies are better written, but it's not clear that these inspiring anecdotes of team triumph add up to a systematic doctrine. The book leaves the impression that teams ultimately just have to learn by doing. (Mar.) THE FAMILY DINNER: A Celebration of Love, Laughter, and Leftovers Linda Sunshine and Mary Tiegreen. Clarkson Potter, $16.95 (112p) ISBN 1400045924 An ode to the joys of meatloaf and Campbell's soup, Sunshine and Tiegreen's compact book reveres that American family ritual: the family dinner. The authors-longtime friends and collaborators on books about shoes, dogs and other subjects-give the book a decidedly 1950s feel to play up the nostalgia for a time when Mom whipped up a hearty meal while Dad poured himself a cocktail and loosened his tie to dig in. Slightly idealistic ("family dinners establish the rhythm of family life and define who we are, where we come from, and where we might expect to be going"), the authors root their book in vintage photos and concepts. There's a photograph of a big Italian family-men in sleeveless undershirts and women with their hair done up-seated at a table replete with carafes of red wine; and another of a perky housewife, beaming as she takes a bottle of milk out of the fridge. Mini-essays and quotes from Calvin Trillin, Nora Ephron, Ruth Reichl and others complement the black and white photos. While corny at times, Sunshine and Tiegreen's homage is also wistful and oddly reassuring. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
The authors, who are both consultants, conducted extensive interviews with companies to discover how successful teams are created and sustained. The result is not a research report but a collection of minicase histories and commentary. Some of the findings: Teams respond to performance challenges and not to managers' exhortations for more ``teamwork.'' Organizations committed to high-performance standards and willing to modify individual accountability requirements experience the greatest success with teams. Successful team leaders are not necessarily those with remarkable leadership qualities. Instead, they ``simply need to believe in their purpose and their people.'' Team leaders do real work, remove obstacles, and build trust and confidence. Recommended for larger public libraries and special business collections.-- Andrea C. Dragon, Coll. of St. Elizabeth, Convent Station, N.J.
What People Are Saying
John A. Byrne
John A. Byrne, Business Week
You'll be hard-pressed to find a better guide to forming what many consider an essential building block of the organization of the future.
Christopher Lorenz
Christopher Lorenz, Financial Times
An unusually thorough study of teamsThe book is full of advice about how to organise proper - and properly effective - ones..
Senator Bill Bradley
Former Senator Bill Bradley
The Wisdom of Teams captures the power and vision of what great business teams can accomplish. Its stories and lessons should be read and learned.
Table of Contents:
AcknowledgementsBooks about: Financial Accounting or The Pocket Idiots Guide to Performance Appraisal Phrases
Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, Standard Edition
Author: Stephen A Ross
The best-selling Fundamentals of Corporate Finance (FCF) is written with one strongly held principle– that corporate finance should be developed and taught in terms of a few integrated, powerful ideas. As such, there are three basic themes that are the central focus of the book: 1) An emphasis on intuition—underlying ideas are discussed in general terms and then by way of examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation. 2) A unified valuation approach—net present value (NPV) is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject covered is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how particular decisions have valuation effects. 3) A managerial focus—the authors emphasize the role of the financial manager as decision maker, and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.
The Eighth Edition continues the tradition of excellence that has earned Fundamentals of Corporate Finance its status as market leader. Every chapter has been updated to provide the most current examples that reflect corporate finance in today’s world. The supplements package has also been updated and improved. From a new computerized test bank that is easier than ever to use, to new narrated PowerPoint for students, to new interactive learning modules, student and instructor support has never been stronger. There is also an optional, exciting new web-based program called "McGraw-Hill’s Homework Manager" that will help your students learn corporate finance by duplicating problems from each chapter in the textbook and by providing automatic grading andfeedback to both students and instructors.
No comments:
Post a Comment