Business Book Summaries

Seasoned travelers and travel newbies alike know that when it comes to refined service and exquisite hospitality, one name stands high above the rest: The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

Few other establishments, even those that compete with the Ritz-Carlton directly, have been as driven as it has been to anticipate the needs and wants of its extremely discerning customers, to go out of its way to ensure that they are being accommodated, and to focus on every luxurious detail to provide its customers with nothing but the best. And over the years the company has been nothing if not successful, proving that its focus has not at all been misplaced; it has continued to attract new customers and at the same time has managed to maintain excellent relationships with older ones.

Thanks to its ceaseless attention to every detail and at every level, the Ritz-Carlton has set the bar for creating memorable customer experiences in world-class settings.

Now, for the first time, the leadership secrets behind the company’s extraordinary success are revealed. “The New Gold Standard” by Joseph Michelli is a groundbreaking book that does for the Ritz-Carlton what Michelli’s earlier book “The Starbucks Experience” did for the Seattle-based coffee company. It distills the Ritz-Carlton’s working philosophies into a few key concepts for readers to absorb, learn from and adapt to their own companies or organizations.

Key to the book’s coverage is the unprecedented access Michelli was granted to the company’s executives, staff, and award-winning Leadership Center, in order to glean the detailed information he needed.

“The New Gold Standard” presents practical how-to advice, proven leadership tools, and the wisdom of experts to help its readers create and embed superior customer-service principles, processes, and practices in their own organizations, similar to what the staff and management at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company have done at theirs.

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Joseph P. Kennedy, American executive, businessman and father of John F. Kennedy once said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". These are words of inspiration for all of us as we face an economic environment that is unstable. As Americans, we have been through tough times before but with perseverance, hard work, attitude, and the love of the American Dream, we have endured as a nation. The cost of energy, the upcoming presidential election, the war, a volatile stock market, and a downturn in the housing market are all factors that are causing American businesses and consumers to operate in an environment of fear. But my challenge to all the readers of this newsletter, and there are thousands of you, is to seek the opportunities in all of these factors that, on the surface, can be perceived as negative operating conditions. Opportunities exist all around us if we only take the time to think creatively. As a market research firm, Market Viewpoint recently did a survey of consumers to find out what factors contribute to the decision to make a purchase. The top factor, constituting 20% of the responses, was price and value. This comes as no surprise as more of our income is being put into our gas tanks. Consumers are being more discriminating when it comes to spending and they want to be assured that they are getting the most for their dollar. Companies who take the time to point out the value added component of their products or services in their advertising and sales presentations will do well. Seventeen percent (17%) of those responding in our survey want variety and choice, with 13% craving convenience and access. The remaining 50% of the responses fall into the smaller categories of cleanliness, security, comfort, atmosphere, etc.

From this survey, we also came up with the top 7 best practices for challenging times:

7. Freebies – People love getting free "stuff" – Some of the things you give away may be things from your stock room that would not sell but customers might appreciate getting them for free. Don't forget to make use of coupons and discounts.

6. Consumer Pampering – Develop an entire campaign around the economy and let your customers know that you understand what they are going through with activities that pamper. One of our clients in the retail industry offered coffee and donuts in his store in the morning and chair massages in the afternoon on his weekly "Day of Pampering". Sales jump on the day he offers these little extras.

5. Exchange Service and Cooperative Advertising - Many companies are engaging in cooperative advertising to help cut marketing costs. Consider working with a firm that offers complimentary services and design a marketing campaign that benefits both organizations.

4. Mystery shop – Rapidly changing times call for constant monitoring. One client of ours increased the number of telephone mystery shops they do each month knowing that more customers will be making use of the phone to get information as a way to save on gas.

3. Go Green! – More and more customers are looking for ways to do business with and invest in companies that are environmentally aware. Develop a plan and communicate your approach to your target market. One of our clients uses a catchy little "green" tag line on all of their email signatures to let their customers know they are doing their part against global warming. 2. Be aggressive with your marketing - This is no time to cut back on the marketing budget. Studies have been conducted that show businesses that cut back on marketing during economic downturns make less revenue that businesses that don't.

1. Hire and maintain a staff that is knowledgeable with people skills – Consumers want to feel respected. If your staff rates low on product knowledge, you will lose consumer confidence. Hire creative, talented people who can connect with your customers one-on-one.

True leaders emerge from difficult situations. Be innovative and creative. Manage wisely what you can control and you will ride the wave to the next upswing!

About the Author: Angela V. Megasko is the President and founder of Market Viewpoint, LLC, a market research firm specializing in professional mystery shopping. Her organization has been helping clients see their operations through the eyes of the customer since 1996. Angela has helped clients in all industries increase their profitability through the power of customer retention. She believes so strongly in the idea that our clients can make us profitable that she recommends having a solid customer service plan as a part of your firm's overall Marketing Plan. To learn more about her services, go to http://www.marketviewpoint.com

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Some recent discussions have brought up a question on developing a good international mind-set.

In my experience empathy is more important than curiosity in productive cross-cultural relationships. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind. A person with more capacity to be empathic with others will create the strongest cross-cultural relationships.

But I stopped in my tracks when someone I respect said that she thought curiosity was the most important element in creating good cross-cultural communication.

Curiosity Opens The Door To Different Cultures Curiosity does get the ball rolling in many cases. But then so can many cultural definitions of politeness. In some cultures curiosity might be needed more than politeness.

Of course, lack of curiosity is a barrier to effective cross-cultural communication.

• Someone who has no interest and no curiosity can interact with a different culture and never connect.
• Someone with some interest but no real curiosity will connect with different cultures, to a certain extent.

Empathy Creates The Cross-Cultural Relationship I think empathy is what takes you further. Empathy is what helps you to create a real connection with different cultures.

When my natural empathy is stronger than the person I am communicating with, and this person is from a different culture, I feel it when I travel most of the distance to create more meaningful communication.

What is interesting is that I do not notice any extra "effort" on my part if I am communicating with someone from a similar culture. It is the difference in cultures that highlights the "effort".

The "effort" here is not an effort. It is the process of adjusting your own mind-set to meet the other culture outside of your own culture.

Danger In Over Empathizing When I first came to Europe almost 30 years ago, I did not know anything about this. I was a young adult happy to be in a foreign country, learning a foreign language, and eager to understand everything new around me. And I made the mistake of over empathizing.

*The reasons why over empathizing is dangerous is a scientific discussion. You need to read about this in scientific journals if you are interested. I am not qualified to give you details. I just personally lived through the consequences for a while and had to learn how to track back quickly out of there.

The lesson I learned within the first 3-4 years of living in a foreign culture was that you do need to keep your own core culture and identity safe within yourself.

Empathizing with other cultures does not mean changing any of your own personal culture and values. What I can say is that knowledge of my own identity has helped me to adapt to other cultures more easily.

Creating Good Communication Many years later, I learned that people have different capacities in empathizing with others. Your capacity to empathize with others is influenced through your upbringing and your environment.

When meeting other cultures, I find that having a solid identity and knowing my own limits helps me to stretch go as far as I can in meeting other cultures. Almost like an elastic band.

When other people are not as sure of their own identity, they are not able to meet me half way. This means I have to go a longer distance, if I want to create meaningful communication.

There is also another scenario.

When two people from different cultures connect with the same level of empathy, cross-cultural communication becomes a unique experience. It is a form of pure personal enrichment.

And this is when curiosity often kicks in again and takes the drivers seat. Curiosity then deepens the communication further.

*Empathy is a driving factor in all cross-cultural communication. *Curiosity is a driving factor at both ends of good cross-cultural communication and is influenced by culture.

In the end, both curiosity and empathy create good cross-cultural communication.

Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?

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About the Author: Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural eMarketer & International Sales Specialist, aligning businesses with different cultures. She has over 25 years field experience in international business development.

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Many management books – some people would say most management books – take the recommendatory approach. They pull up the noteworthy experiences of equally noteworthy companies, bring up these companies’ good practices, for instance, or whatever else they happen to be doing correctly, and explain why and (to a certain extent) how these companies can be emulated and their success duplicated, again to a particular extent.

Correspondingly, some other management books choose to take the opposite tack. They bring up examples of how not to go about managing companies and organizations, bring up particularly bad examples of the genre, and explain why and how such companies should not be emulated, while still making sure to derive lessons from those experiences that their readers can learn from. The end is the same as the former class of business books, but the way to which these latter books get to that end is quite different.

In “Mad, Sad and Bad Management”, author Adrian Furnham takes a look at what he determines are particularly bad management practices, managers and management science – a look that is at the same time both enthusiastic and cynical. He starts with the serious literature on management and moves onto the guru-inspired, magic-formula texts, while spicing things up by presenting real-life accounts of actual business failures and cock-ups to be found in the popular press and in the consultancy he owns and operates.

Adrian Furnham’s entertaining and instructive book contains some five dozen analyses on aspects of modern business and management, and looks at them from quite a different angle than “the usual” business books do. The theme is incompetence rather than competence, stupidity rather than wisdom and insanity rather than sanity.

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If you are trying to implement a business process management strategy, then you might have found that there can be difficulties involved. Getting the balance right between effective business management of people and using business process management software can be hard. If you don't get the balance right, then your daily business activities will remain inefficient and prevent your business from prospering. However, there are ways to get round these business process management difficulties. If you are looking to improve the efficiency and productivity of your business and its daily processes, then here is some advice about the difficulties of implementing business process management.

Hard to identify processes Identifying business processes and separating the exact processes in your daily business operations can be really tough. Some processes will not be ideal for business process management implementation, while others will certainly need some form of business process management to run smoothly. In general, processes that need the involvement of many people in a sequential order are the best candidates. If these processes involve approvals or paperwork movement, then business process management should help improve their efficiency. In particular, using automated software can be a real help, and will dramatically improve daily efficiency.

Getting top-down approval Although your department might know ways of improving business management, without top-down approval and overall cooperation, the plans are likely to fall through. Any good business management implementation requires a great deal of cooperation at all levels of the business. The higher executives need to have faith in the proposed implementations, and pass on this passion and faith to the lower staff that will make the increased efficiency possible each day. If you want your management plans to work, then make sure the whole company is on the same page and understands exactly what is needed.

Making implementations worthwhile Although business process management can dramatically improve business efficiency, it can also cost a lot of money to implement. It might seem sensible to pick the latest technology and most expensive items for implementation, but approach is likely to cost you more money than the improvements are worth. Make sure that any business management techniques you use cost less than the benefits in efficiency and cost saving that you get in return. This will help you to maximize efficiency whilst keeping costs down.

Choosing the right technology Choosing the right software can be difficult, especially with the range of items available. From simple multifunction hardcopy devices to fully-fledged business management software suites, there is something for every business. However, picking the right software for your needs will take time. You need to examine your business structure and size, and then identify the processes that you really need to improve. As long as you do this and only pay for what you really need, then your implementation will help to make your daily business run more efficiently. Not only will this save you costs and time, but will allow you to get work done more quickly and so make more money.

Implementing business process management can be difficult, but if you get it right then you will keep your competitive edge.

About the Author: Julie-Ann Amos is a freelance writer with http://www.exquisitewriting.com on business and property investment. She recommends http://www.singingpig.co.uk as one of the most effective sources of information for small businesses and property investment. Their property investment forum is a place to find information hard to locate elsewhere.

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Whether your organization spends millions on branding, or the concept of branding almost never crosses your mind, your organization has a brand that is influenced by an almost infinite number of factors. Obviously, you can't control all of them, but if you know what factors they are, you can go a long way toward having a brand that matches your desired brand. For the sake of this rambling essay, let's use the following definition: Your brand is your target audience's collective perception of your organization, products, or services in comparison to those of your competitors.

Put another way, your brand is what people think of when they hear your name.

Your brand is influenced by anything and everything about your organization, product, or service that a member of your target audience experiences or believes to be true.

Here is a non-inclusive list of factors that impact your brand (in no particular order):

-The quality of your product or service -Your price -Audience perceptions of your quality and price compared to those of your competitors -Your advertising -Your corporate personality -Your competitors and what they're saying about both themselves and you -Your employees, subcontractors, and vendors -How your product is packaged or how your people dress -The benefits of your products or services -How you answer the phone -Your logo, business cards, stationery package, etc. -Gossip -News stories -The satisfaction and engagement levels of your people -The philanthropic events or organizations you support -The words your people use to describe your organization, product, or service -The words others use to describe you -Your website -The appearance of your fleet vehicles -The decor and smell of your store or office -The location of your business -The music (if any) that plays in your lobby, office, or retail store -Where and how you advertise -The design of your invoices and other customer communications -The design and quality of your shopping bags

In reality this list could have hundreds of items on it. However, this list has only two real points. (1) If you are not consciously considering every aspect of your brand, you are not controlling your brand. (2) If you are not controlling your brand, someone else is. By not creating a consistent "elevator speech" and sharing it with your people, you are allowing every single employee to send out his or her own version of your brand.

If your advertisements don't match your corporate personality, your ad agency could be defining your brand in a way that might be contrary to who and what your organization is all about.

When you aren't delivering a clearly defined brand story to your audience – or you are deciding to not make your brand a priority – you are allowing your competitors to define you. By not considering the smell of your retail space, you could be allowing the smells of your neighbors to influence audience member's definition of your brand.

If you don't let people know that the quality of your products or services has improved, you are allowing people's memories of your former quality levels define part of your current brand.

By not having a clear definition of your own brand, your audience members will be forced to define a muddled and incomplete definition of your brand for you. When you don't bother letting people know what you stand for, people will use their limited knowledge of your organization to determine their own perception and definition of your brand.

If you one part of your organization has one definition of your brand and another part has a different definition, each member of your audience will have to define your brand on their own, based on their limited exposure to your organization, products, or services. By ignoring how all these factors (and more) impact your brand, you are letting others define your brand for you, and seldom will they define your brand the same way you would.

So, how do you make sure that you are the ones defining your brand?

First, make sure all of your internal stakeholders are on board with one consistent definition of your brand. Second, make sure that everyone in your organization understands your brand and how it impacts the way they do their jobs. And third, make sure that every moment of contact with your current or potential clients and customers exudes your brand essence and delivers your brand promise.

(To learn how to define your brand essence and brand promise, please refer to http://www.42thoughts.com/issue2/bigthought.html and http://www.42thoughts.com/issue6/bigthought.html)

About the Author: Brad Dresbach is the chief creative strategist at 42Fish, a creative solutions firm that specializes in marketing, advertising, and design. 42Fish works with a wide variety of clients to create desired reactions.

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Sharing knowledge leads to exchange of knowledge, which is beneficial to all involved employees and their organization.

Knowledge is an asset to any organization. The long-term success of any organization is based on effective knowledge is the biggest challenge in knowledge management. So, organizations are devising several ways to get their employees to share their knowledge. Sharing knowledge leads to exchange of knowledge, which is beneficial to all involved employees and their organization. But employees do not share their knowledge and there are several reasons for this. They have reservations for doing it and the organization must eradicate these to promote knowledge sharing. To do it the organizations must first change its culture and implement required technologies.

Changing the culture of an organization to promote knowledge sharing is a long term, multifaceted and intricate process. Several areas of the organizational set up must be considered to plan efficient strategy. There can be many obstacles implementing it. But this exercise is inevitable to ensure success. Bringing the change in phases is a good option to consider. Before devising a plan, an audit or survey must be conducted to understand the opinion of employees on knowledge sharing and to analyze their attitude. You can also get an insight idea of the ideal knowledge sharing environment and their expectations. It even gives you an idea of potential problems you could face to implement it. Now clearly define and communicate to them how you want it to implemented.

Enthuse people by educating them about the advantages of knowledge sharing. Make them value and respect the knowledge. Offer incentives and rewards to promote the practice. Make everyone in the organization involve in the practice. It should ideally start from top level of hierarchy. Dedicate a part of working hours to let the employee share their knowledge.

The next important step to promote knowledge sharing is healthy competition. When people compete they strive to do better. And the zeal to win makes them gain more knowledge. At the same time you must see the employees collaborate and learn from each other to win as a team. Set well-defined goals and metrics to gauge success to avoid detrimental competition. Reward winners and let everyone in the organization know about their success. Help others identify where they fell short and how they can improve. Share the information also with others without specifying the names, so that they will not commit similar mistakes.

Commitment is the next crucial factor for knowledge sharing environment. All the employees must commit themselves to the culture of knowledge sharing, transition to such environment, competition and collaboration. Knowledge sharing must be assimilated into every practice and policy of the organization. Ensure that the required technology and infrastructure are available. These attempts reflect the organization's commitment to knowledge sharing which in turn induces the same in employees.

About the Author: This article was written by Saif Chy. To get powerful and effective tips on workplace related problems visit http://workexpert.co.cc/, a website full of tips and advices from expert workplace managers, where you can learn about Enthusiastic Employee

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In his previous book, “Viral Change”, noted author Leandro Herrero describes how a small set of behaviors, spread by a small number of people, can have effects all out of proportion to their size; they can actually create sustainable change. In this follow-up book, “Disruptive Ideas”, Dr. Herrero goes further. He mentions 30 specific ideas that can be resorted to in order to bring about change: a menu of 10 'structures', 10 'processes' and 10 'behaviors' that have the power to transform an organization.

Organizations of today simultaneously run multiple corporate initiatives and large change programs in order to improve. Picking up from where “Viral Change” leaves off, “Disruptive Ideas” tells us that – contrary to the collective mindset that says that big problems always require big solutions – all you need is a small set of powerful rules to create big impact. The book then presents the actual rules for the readers’ benefit.

These 30 disruptive ideas can be implemented at any time, require almost no cost to put into play, and require the involvement of only a few people to be put into action. However, the cumulative effect of these 30 ideas – what Dr. Herrero refers to as “the 10+10+10 maths” – will be more powerful than vast corporate programs with dozens of objectives and efficiency targets.

“Disruptive Ideas” will appeal to people at different levels of management or leadership – those at any level who wish to reshape their organizational culture by enhancing working practices and in general aiming at greater organizational effectiveness. The book’s practical nature will appeal to all who want to implement key ideas that have the power to transform any organization, without needing to embark upon a massive change management program.

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Introduction In any organization, people are talking. They talk about life, work, careers, and their bosses. Yes, they are talking about you; count on it. Are these conversations helping or hurting your ability to get results?

What is Effective Communication? Leadership development efforts tend to focus on setting clear goals, hiring the right people, clearing obstacles, and communicating effectively. But the leader's ability to communicate is only part of the challenge. How can a leader influence the conversations taking place when he or she isn't there?

Effective communications in a business are not limited to the leader's ability to make good speeches, write effective emails and hold town hall meetings. All of these things are valuable, but only to the extent that they impact other conversations. After every speech or town hall meeting, people go off and talk among themselves. What are they saying about your agenda?

What if you could control all of those conversations?

Well, You Can't Face it, control is a bit too much to ask for. What you can have is the next best thing. You can have confidence that people are talking about the things you need them to be discussing, and doing it openly. To do that, you need to create a culture of dialogue.

Culture simply refers to behavioral norms, so a culture of dialogue is one in which everyone is comfortable and expected to be engaging in conversations about their work, their work processes, and their leadership. When the culture encourages open dialogue, it effectively shuts down destructive conversations, hidden agendas and other debilitating behaviors.

In a culture of dialogue, it is safe — and you are encouraged — to say what you think. People who tend toward silence are drawn in by peers who want to know what they're thinking. Key Opinion Leaders are identified and respected, and they make sure the leadership is getting honest, objective feedback on not only their leadership agenda, but on their behavior as well.

Leadership Behavior Your ability to create a culture of dialogue is dependent on your own behavior. What do you do when your plans are challenged? What do you do when you make a mistake?

Too many leaders have to be right. They shout down challengers. And let's be clear, when you're the leader "shout down" is not a literal term. You can use your position to dismiss a challenger, and even ignore them. It's the same as shouting them down.

To create a culture of dialogue, be willing to sacrifice your ego. Your goals and agenda are important, your pride is not. Be open to feedback. Acknowledging critical feedback will have a huge impact on the culture, even if you don't act on the criticism. And you should only act on the criticism if, after careful consideration, you believe it is warranted. You don't need to be a wimp to create a culture of dialogue!

For your part, make sure you criticize behavior first. Don't criticize or discipline people for anything other than bad behavior. To create a culture of dialogue, your number one job is to make it safe for people to have important conversations, out in the open. More than anything else, your behavior and the behavior of the other members of your leadership team will dictate whether or not people feel safe.

About the Author: The organization that isn't changing is probably dying. For more information about managing change and developing leaders, please visit http://www.thomasjodea.com

Tom O'Dea has more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in companies ranging from startups to multi billion dollar corporations.

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"From chaos and complexity to elegant simplicity…"[1]

Getting from the shell of a walnut to the kernel is an easy process; you just need a nutcracker. In essence you are getting into the nutritional matter of the nut by breaking the outer protective shell that keeps it healthy and edible inside.

Working systems also have layers over them, but let us think of the outer shell as complexity, and the kernel as the real issues to deal with. Now, we have to deal with the complexity — there's no getting around it. We have to break through and reconcile these issues if we're going to settle the main problem, just like we have to break through the shell to get to the kernel inside the nut in order to eat it.

Trying to break the shell and work with organisational systems — with people in them — is a different matter altogether. These are but a few problems:

• It is people that introduce complexity,
• It is in trying to satisfy people that we often create (and prolong) issues of complexity, and
• Some issues of complexity are necessary, whilst some are unnecessary; some are plain problematic whether necessary or not.

Complexity brings with it problems and issues to be solved. However, organisational systems, by design — to work effectively and efficiently — need to be as simplistic as possible. Simplicity is power.

When we achieve simplicity in a way that includes all the complex issues that must be taken into account we have achieved elegant simplicity — the result has elegance about it and anyone who's worked in any organisation can attest that this result is rare. Yet it need not be.

Two great quotes demonstrate the tension we must hold in finding elegant simplicity:

"I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but, I'd give my life for the simplicity on the far side of complexity." -Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.[2]

"Any idiot can simplify by ignoring the complications, but, it takes real genius to simplify by including the complications." -John E. Johnson.[3]

Again, keeping things simple by including complexity is very rare indeed. All sorts of organisations are grappling with this scourge of post post-modern existence. Common problems are people:

1) Resist thinking because it is hard work,

2) Get too detail-oriented and processes get bogged down, and

3) Perceive things differently and disagree too much. (I've been in meetings where all five people in attendance disagreed with each other! This shows how different people are.)

The following things are part of the answer toward elegant simplicity:

• Don't forget the big picture — every now and then (regularly) come back to the 'helicopter' viewpoint.
• For every problem, assign 'the simplistic view' to some people. Ask them to be deliberately simplistic and challenge any complexity they see. Give them license.
• Understand that people introduce and entertain complexity for all sorts of reasons — some of these are not genuine. Some are due to impure motives. This is the worst complexity.
• Don't be afraid to think laterally and innovatively (which is "implementing creative ideas"). Thinking will break down complexity every time.
• Believe in your heart that there is simplicity everywhere — because there is. We just need to be able to see it. This can only happen when we work hard on our thinking.

We ought to remember this truth-saying of Morton C. Blackwell's, "Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good."[4] In other words, perfection is not the goal in today's world — and it's never been the real goal — perfection is not necessary if we can deal with the 'people' element. If we can get people to accept this we're over halfway there.

When people finally accept…

• Things not going all their way,
• Solutions that are less than perfect, but all-the-same, acceptable, and
• Outcomes that even leave some level of (tolerable but nonetheless) residual discomfort,

… They're able to move on to the next revelation, and the greater good of the system can finally be achieved with simplicity, whilst bearing the essential complexity. Enter leadership, and the product of people leadership, teamwork.

People are the problem in achieving elegant simplicity outcomes to organisational quandaries. The real missing link in achieving organisational elegant simplicity is leadership. True leadership will get us there, negotiating the people issues as it goes. Most issues are people issues.

True leadership is about engendering teamwork and togetherness, whilst making courageous decisions, in achieving elegant simplicity; it's beginning (and continuing) with the end in mind.

Copyright © 2008, S.J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

[1] Stephen G. Haines, The Complete Guide to Systems Thinking and Learning, (Human Resource Development Press, 2000), pages: Introduction and Prologue. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] Morton C. Blackwell, Law in Politics (More available online: www.leadershipinstitute.org)

About the Author: Steve Wickham is a safety and health professional (BSc) and a qualified lay Christian minister (GradDipDiv). His key passion is work / life balance and re-creating value for living, and an exploration of the person within us.

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