The difference between successful organizations is not between the business and the social sector, the
difference is between good organizations and great ones.
Customer Reviews:
Super Social.......2007-10-22
In my own research on high performance I have found that there is indeed such a thing as a Superperforming nonprofit. The pattern is the same here as well - robust process wed to robust culture. The volunteer and fundraising nature of nonprofits seems to render culture and process a special case, but it does not seem so different to me then the PXC phenomenon in a profit-seeking enterprise. In fact, I have run across incredibly enlightened and spiritual for-profits, and astonishingly evil (yes that's right, and you know who you are) and destructive nonprofits, some even faith-based! The simple truth is still the simple truth - - - look to the tip top of the organization and there you will learn what kind of organization you are dealing with. BTW, this is a great 'monograph' Jim Collins is most definitely a "level 5" thought leader.
also read Superperformance
Thought-provoking for non-profits.......2007-09-06
A friend mentioned Good to Great in a sermon and I thought it might be a worthwhile read for me as the executive director of a non-profit association facing the challenge of how take the organization to the next level.
I found the book fascinating and will share it with my Board of Directors as a roadmap for how we will move our organization from good to great.
The monograph provides a great overview of the concepts developed in the book and is of a very manageable length.
I would strongly recommend it to leaders of non-profits as a basis for a conversation about their organization making the great leap forward.
A must read for anyone in a leadership position.......2007-09-05
This is a great companion for Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't for anyone that works in the social sector. As an assistant principal in a large, suburban high school, this book helped to bring into focus the principles reviewed in Good to Great.
Great Principles make for Great Outcomes.......2007-09-04
The social sector does not need to be more business like; it needs to implement more great business principles tailored for the social entities economic engine - so says Collins in this 35 page, add-on for a future "Good to Great" update. In addition to tailoring some of the Great principles
* Define Great by calibrating success without business (monetary) metrics
* Lead thru a blend of personal humility and professional will to get things done within a diffuse power structure
* Get high quality people with a personal commitment to the cause on-board the bus
* Find the intersection of the social entity's Passion, Best at, and its Resource Engine
* Build brand recognition
to the specifics of the social entity, Collins suggests that the leadership principle of managing within a diffuse power structure is something for the business sector to learn; as business executives do not have the same concentration of pure executive power they once enjoyed.
All in, a useful bit of thinking for those in a not-for-profit enterprise, as well as for business leaders who like to look at organizational effectiveness from different perspectives. Dennis DeWilde, author of The Performance Connection
Good to GREAT.......2007-08-10
Jim Collins is always spot on. The insights he presents are presented with such clarity and ease of reading that I look forward to anything he does. I use it as a key part of the extensive Strategic Visioning work I do. While I enjoy all of his work, being in the social service sector, I can personally and professionally validate this offering with enthusiasm.
Book Description
With its conversational writing style, cutting-edge content, current examples, the three-level integrative model, dialogues, and technological learning tools, Organizational Behavior remains
the global book, used by more readers interested in the topic than any other since 1979. The 12th edition retains all of the best features of the previous editions, yet adds much more: contemporary issues and research have been included into a seamless, whole, and comprehensive tome.
Many topics are comprehensively covered, but on the whole, this book is written in a conversational, easy to read style. Topics include: management functions; the social sciences; helping employees balance work and other responsibilities; improving people skills; improving customer service; motivational concepts; communication; power and politics; conflict and negotiation; culture; and stress management.
Globally accepted and written by one of the most foremost authors in the field, this is a necessary read for all managers, human resource workers, and anyone needing to understand and improve their people skills.
Customer Reviews:
Organizational Behavior.......2007-09-30
This was my first experience ordering a College Textbook on Amazon. I ordered a brand new book and CD and was very pleased to receive my order in time for my class. Most important I was able buy a brand new textbook at a used textbook price. I liked being able to provide my credit card information to an Amazon rep by phone rather than send it over the Internet. I plan to use Amazon again for my future requirements.
A classic reference for OB.......2007-07-01
Recently I took a course about Organizational Behavior & this was the course textbook. It's a reasonable choice for an introductory course. I found it easy to read & informative. However, the accompanying SAL CD-ROM was disappointing - I didn't think it was worth the effort.
Bottom line - I would recommend it.
Product Description
Strategic IT Portfolio Management delivers a solution to the IT dilemma that has evolved over the past 40 yearsnamely, how do we get the most value from our IT investment? Author Jeff Kaplan, a lead partner in the Strategic IT Management Practice at consulting firm PRTM, puts nearly two decades of expertise to work exploring and identifying the knowledge, techniques, and strategies needed to maximize technology investments and achieve long-term business transformation for all types of organizations. Written for executives from all disciplines, the book highlights many of the root causes of the IT value dilemma and explains how executives can prevent and counter these issues. Readers will learn the portfolio management methods essential to achieving value. The book provides executives with the tools to: - Illuminate, assess, and improve existing practices - Design a governance structure and allocate appropriate decision rights - Ensure centralized control with decentralized execution - Increase collaboration between business-unit and IT leadership - Instill a culture of continuous improvement and innovation Executives, board members, policymakers, analysts, and the media all want to know: are companies spending too much on information technology (IT)? But the question they should ask is whether organizations are seeing sufficient value from their IT investmentthe value that comes from effectively managing technology as part of overall business transformation. Many organizations dont know how to move from managing technology to managing overall business transformation. Large-scale transformation efforts often go awry because the business leadership team and IT project teams are out of sync. In most of these cases, the organization lacks a governance method that fuses strategic management of the business, the technology, and the projects. Portfolio management is the governance method thats needed. Strategic IT Portfolio Management describes the portfolio management governance method necessary for transformation success. This book highlights many of the root causes for the IT dilemma and explains how executives can prevent and counter these issues. Readers gain an inside look at how portfolio management can instill a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within the organization.
Customer Reviews:
IT & Business Drivers hand in hand.......2007-05-17
I'm a technology consultant, Manager for IT Infrastructure Professional Services. Seeking for business value from the ground IT infrastructure, I got to Portfolio Management and Governance. This book has a terrific content and knowledge design, so you can get from the basic to specific easily. I loved it from the begining, starting for Making IT matter, and stating a clear vision of business value from IT, justifying a critical position in the primary activities for any Value Chain, raising from the support units. Great description on How we got to this mess, and the historical and contingency analysis of the facts and secuencing of thresholds that drive IT to a magnifically described "Death Spiral". Design chapters are described to praxis and granular enough so you can get the specifics you need as well as the whole enchilada. Precise and concise despcription of the Success Enablers, like Best Practices and Performance Metrics descriptions.
Worth getting this book.
Absolutely recommended for those interested in governance, project management, portfolio management, IT Business Value and how to fit your Professional Services Value message to customers.
Book Description
This book makes an authoritative and practical introduction to organizational behavior. It contains leading-edge coverage of topics and issues combined with a wealth of learning tools that help readers experience Organizational Behavior and guide them to becoming better managers.
Chapter topics discuss individual differences: personality, ability, and job performance; work values, attitudes, moods, and emotions; perception, attribution, and the management of diversity; learning and creativity at work; pay, careers, and changing employment relationships; managing stress and work-life linkages; leadership; power, politics, conflict, and negotiation; communication flows and information technology; organizational culture and ethical behavior; and organizational change and development .
For business professionals preparing for a career in management.
Customer Reviews:
Workplace success..........2007-03-29
This book has all sorts of information that will help any group of people working together get along better because of a greater understanding of different kinds of people.
not for MBA students.......2006-03-16
This book was required for an MBA class. It is more suited for undergraduates. It does not encourage deeper thinking or analysis appropriate for the graduate level.
The book is strong in theoretical understanding but weak in management applications. It is nice to be able to list the names of motivation theories, for example, but the authors seem uanble to provide criteria one might want to consider for policy decisions. I wonder if this book is by and for academics who have no real life work experience but need to publish or perish.
End of chapter supplementary articles are only from the New York Times. Although the book's introductory material lets us know how wonderful this is, a greater variety of source material would enhance the overall effectiveness. After all, the book does speak of diversity.
To its credit, the book is reasonably readable and does not overwhelm us with too much esoteric academic speak.
Great book. Must have it, if you are studying Org. Behavior.......2005-03-14
A colorful introductory textbook on organizational behavior that integrates concepts, theories, and research findings to examine individuals in organizations, groups and organizational processes, and inter-group relations and the organizational context. Case studies illuminate concepts and provide managerial implications. There is a diversity of heuristic features, some integrated into the text and some at the end of each chapter or part.
Great book. Must have it, if you are studying Organizational Behaviors (OB).
Also, this book is well known to many of top ranked universities in Graduate Programs (MBA) and No. of copies this books have been sold are in few hundred thousands !!! (@ 380,000 copies) justifies it's strength and quality of knowledge as well.
Amazon.com
In their previous book, The Balanced Scorecard, Robert Kaplan and David Norton unveiled an innovative "performance management system" that any company could use to focus and align their executive teams, business units, human resources, information technology, and financial resources on a unified overall strategy--much as businesses have traditionally employed financial management systems to track and guide their general fiscal direction. In The Strategy-Focused Organization, Kaplan and Norton explain how companies like Mobil, CIGNA, and Chemical Retail Bank have effectively used this approach for nearly a decade, and in the process present a step-by-step implementation outline that other organizations could use to attain similar results. Their book is divided into five sections that guide readers through development of a completely individualized plan that is created with "strategy maps" (graphical representations designed to clearly communicate desired outcomes and how they are to be achieved), then infused throughout the enterprise and made an integral part of its future. In several chapters devoted to the latter, for example, the authors show how their models have linked long-term strategy with day-to-day operational and budgetary management, and detail the "double loop" process for doing so, monitoring progress, and initiating corrective actions if necessary. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
In today's business environment, strategy has never been more important. Yet research shows that most companies fail to execute strategy successfully. Behind this abysmal track record lies an undeniable fact: many companies continue to use management processes-top-down, financially driven, and tactical-that were designed to run yesterday's organizations.
Now, the creators of the revolutionary performance management tool called the Balanced Scorecard introduce a new approach that makes strategy a continuous process owned not just by top management, but by everyone. In The Strategy-Focused Organization, Robert Kaplan and David Norton share the results of ten years of learning and research into more than 200 companies that have implemented the Balanced Scorecard. Drawing from more than twenty in-depth case studies-including Mobil, CIGNA, Nova Scotia Power, and AT&T Canada-Kaplan and Norton illustrate how Balanced Scorecard adopters have taken their groundbreaking tool to the next level. These organizations have used the scorecard to create an entirely new performance management framework that puts strategy at the center of key management processes and systems.
Kaplan and Norton articulate the five key principles required for building Strategy-Focused Organizations: (1) translate the strategy to operational terms, (2) align the organization to the strategy, (3) make strategy everyone's everyday job, (4) make strategy a continual process, and (5) mobilize change through strong, effective leadership. The authors provide a detailed account of how a range of organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors have deployed these principles to achieve breakthrough, sustainable performance improvements.
Presenting a practical, proven framework steeped in rich case study experience, The Strategy-Focused Organization helps solve a universal management problem-not just how to formulate strategy, but how to make it work. Building on one of the most revolutionary business ideas of our time, this important book shows how today's leaders can shape their own companies to meet the challenges and reap the rewards of a new competitive era.
Robert S. Kaplan is the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School. David P. Norton is President of Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc.
Download Description
The creators of the revolutionary performance management tool called the Balanced Scorecard introduce a new approach that makes strategy a continuous process owned not just by top management, but by everyone. In The Strategy-Focused Organization, Robert Kaplan and David Norton share the results of ten years of learning and research into more than 200 companies that have implemented the Balanced Scorecard. Drawing from more than twenty in-depth case studies--including Mobil, CIGNA, and AT&T Canada--Kaplan and Norton illustrate how Balanced Scorecard adopters have taken their groundbreaking tool to the next level. These organizations have used the scorecard to create an entirely new performance management framework that puts strategy at the center of key management processes and systems. Kaplan and Norton articulate the five key principles required for building strategy-focused organizations: 1) translate the strategy into operational terms, 2) align the organization to the strategy, 3) make strategy everyone's everyday job, 4) make strategy a continual process, and 5) mobilize change through strong, effective leadership. The authors provide a detailed account of how a range of organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors have deployed these principles to achieve breakthrough, sustainable performance improvements.
Customer Reviews:
Overview, technique and implementation.......2006-08-21
An outstandingly well written book that decribes the balanced scorecard and provides excellent examples. An effective, practical guide for C-level executives and mid-level managers for implementing strategic scorcarding. I recommned this book for the breadth and depth of the explanation of the subject matter and concise implmentation examples.
If you can measure it, you can manage it.......2006-02-28
The Balanced Scorecard was initially designed as a financial and non-financial corporate performance measurement tool. Organizations focused on strategy have taken the Balanced Scorecard and transformed it into a strategic tool for measurement. These 5 key principles transform the Balanced Scorecard:
Principle 1: Translate Strategy into Operational Terms. Describing the strategy of the organization, communicating it via the Building Scorecard in an insightful, consistent and operational manner is the cornerstone to putting strategy at the center of an organization. This principle accomplishes this by using the Balanced Scorecard to view strategy from 4 different perspectives: financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning.
Principle 2: Align the Organization to the Strategy.
The Balanced scorecard can link the many different and dispersed functions. It can clarify the values, beliefs and ideas that reflect the organization's identity, and clarify the actions mandated at the corporate level that create synergies at the business unit level.
Principle 3: Make Strategy Everyone's Everyday Job.
This principle, utilizing the Balanced Scorecard, focuses on three processes to align employees to the strategy: creating strategic awareness, defining personal and team objectives, and linking compensation to the Balanced Scorecard
Principle 4: Make Strategy a Continual Process.
The Balanced Scorecard creates a reporting system to monitor progress and serve as a link between managing strategy and managing operations. This system enables organizations to accomplish three things: link strategy and budget, close the strategy loop, and test, learn, and adapt.
Principle 5: Mobilize Change Through Executive Leadership.
The Balanced Scorecard helps executive leadership implement large scale changes that are necessary to implement new strategies. Specifically, it helps organizations specify, in detail, critical elements:
· Target customers where profitable growth will occur
· Value propositions that lead customers to do more business and at higher margins with the company
· Innovations in products, services and processes
· Investments in people and systems to enhance processes and deliver differentiated value propositions for growth
Highly Recommended!.......2005-06-20
The fact that executives keep trying new strategic initiatives despite their abysmal rate of failure is, like second marriages, a triumph of hope over experience. Or, it may indicate just how much pressure top managers face to improve their profits. By one estimate, nine out of ten companies fail to execute their strategic visions. Yet, CEOs - who witness a world in constant flux - continue to introduce change initiatives. Are they trapped in the operational definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Or, are they just ready for this book? Authors Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton offer wise counsel to help executives break the cycle of strategic flops. They advise executives to transform their companies into "Strategy-Focused Organizations" using the "Balanced Scorecard" and "strategic mapping" tools. With these initiatives, CEOs can ensure that every employee pays attention to strategy implementation. Kaplan and Norton, the all-star co-author team who wrote "The Balanced Scorecard" and "Strategy Maps", have done it again, in this well-organized but somewhat dry volume. We strongly recommend this book to any manager who is responsible for designing or implementing a strategic change initiative.
Overblown and impractical.......2002-11-22
Having used the BSc a few times in my work, I expected this to be a hepful addition to my knowledge base in the area. I found that it added little to the author's other published tomes and to his articles in journals like HBR. Although the basic concept is sound, the implementation challenges are dealt with as you'd expect from an ivory tower-based profesoor and are several steps removed from the challenges that most of my real-world, and smaller company clients, need to address. I truly felt as though I didn't get my money's worth with this purchase and I should have stuck with the materials I already had by the author that was available in other forms. I would have saved time, money and a degree of frustration.
A must have tool for business improvement.......2002-05-23
If you're attempting to improve the way you do business, this book is a must have. It is a little dry so you have to be committed to using the concepts presented. If you can manage to stick with it, you will reap the benefits of the BSC. Good Luck!
Customer Reviews:
Thank you .......2007-02-01
This is my first time to order anything off of Amazon and it was a good experience.
Excellent Seller.......2006-03-20
I recommend this seller for more items. Seller was reliable and shipped product quickly. I would purchase more items from this seller. Plus, cost was low. :)
Book Description
This book provides the most current, thorough, and contemporary account of the factors affecting the organizational design process, making important organization theories accessible and interesting. It addresses the many issues and problems that are involved in managing the process of organizational change and transformation, providing direct and clear managerial implications.
Topics covered in this comprehensive book are the organization and its environment; organizational design; organizational change; and finally, interesting case studies that illustrate the concepts presented.
A useful book that is appropriate for managers in any organization.
Customer Reviews:
Thinking Strategically.......2007-09-27
This book was short and interesting. Not only does it give points on thinking startegically for business but also in your daily life.
GT Is In Everyday Life.......2007-07-19
"Thinking Strategically" is a helpful and likeable primer for those who want to dabble and/or learn about general everyday concepts of Game Theory. It's also for those who don't want to get too deep into the minutia of the mathematics, calculus, and statistical probability of Game Theory. The real-life examples and matrices used in this book are applied by the author and can be applied by anyone in many everyday-life scenarios: getting a cab, negotiating private contracting work, or general bargaining, for example. In Business, whether two competing magazines should both advertise, have only one advertise, or have both not advertise. (Better for both not to advertise.) Cartels are also examined.
Other matrices, examples, and anecdotes, are applied in this book in business, politics, and sports. E.g., the strategy of an NFL football team's offense and defense, Stalin's "Scorched Earth Defense," and how a pitcher rotates his pitching selection are explained quite well, as examples. It seems a good portion of human instincts and traits are involved in the aspects of Game Theory. We already intuitively know about these elements before reading this introductory book. But we can apply GT with more awareness after being exposed to the theory.
The renown concept of the "Prisoner's Dilemma:" If two suspects work together they can both mutually benefit themselves together and individually by cooperating. Obviously, this is partly why suspects are separated when they're questioned and interrogated. But they can still both cooperate, even if separated. But will one sell out the other, or will both sell out each other, leading to longer sentences and harsher penalties for both, because one or the two of them decided to use the most Dominate Strategy?
In Game Theory, it takes two to Tango. And most of the time it's not beneficial to play the "Dominant Strategy."
One of the many examples was the taxi driver who picked up two people (potential customers) in front of a hotel. After telling the driver where they wanted to go, the driver refused to turn on his meter and said he would charge a lower price than the meter because he liked the country where the passengers were from. The driver the stated the price he would charge. The passengers responded by asking the driver to turn on the meter, and at the end of the ride the driver could charge less than the meter. Ah-ha, but the driver didn't agree. And even grew grew angry and didn't take them. They later proved he was being disingenuous by taking a metered taxi to their destination which was the lower than than the "special discount" offered by the first guy.
One important point above: it's difficult to use Game Theory with a) irrational people and b) people who don't realize the win-win concept of mutual benefits. Unfortunately reality creeps in....when you deal with people who don't practice "Game Theory," who shoot themselves in the foot and waste your time and energy.
Internationally IMO, Game Theory is lacking and sorely needed in certain parts of the world. In Japan this book sold well. Unfortunately it didn't sell much in the surrounding nations.
One of the author's former students recommended this book to me. The author made an astute decision to change the spelling of his name. College undergrads can be puerile at times. :)
A good book. "Look ahead and reason back."
Good Introduction to game theory.........2006-12-31
Although this is a good introduction to game theory, I have to say that half of the book was interesting, the rest was a difficult reading (maybe it was just me but I couldn't focus in some chapters). The good thing about the book is that it change your way on dealing with situations and decisions, always rethinking on the steps to follow.
Changes your perspective.......2006-12-22
This is a good book if you want to pass your everyday decisions through a game theory lense. The reading is dense at times but it has enough memorable stories to draw on at a later time.
If you are looking for a solid introduction to strategic decisions that consider the competitive landscape, then this book is a good choice.
Intro to Game Theory.......2006-10-11
This book is an outstanding introduction to game theory -- free of jargon and mathematics. Concepts are illustrated through examples taken from business, politics, sports, and everyday life. If you'd like to anticipate what people/groups will do, and understand why, read this book.
Books:
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
- Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Marketing
- Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making a Difference
- How Doctors Think
- Human Relations In Organizations: Applications And Skill Building
- Information Technology Project Management, Fourth Edition
- Introduction to Management Science
- Introduction to Management Science
- Introduction to Management Science
- IP Fundamentals: What Everyone Needs to Know about Addressing & Routing
Books Index
Books Home
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General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
