Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 276 pages
- Published by: Harvard Business School Press
- Edition: 1st Edition March 1, 2006
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1591398622
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1591398622
-
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
- Weighs: 1.3 pounds
BusinessWeek
"…a rarity on the crowded management shelf…a useful reminder that the gut is often trumped by the facts."
Chicago Tribune, April 24, 2006
"The workplace version of Consumer Reports, it evaluates virtually every aspect of managing a business against old and new thinking"
Reader Reviews
This is an outstanding book written by two business and engineering Stanford professors. Analyzing modern management practices using surveys and studies, they debunk many of modern management practices. According to their studies, pay-for-performance does not work. Companies that had the widest range of pay scale between top and bottom performers also suffered the poorest financial results. So, pay-for-performance does not translate into superior stock performance. Similarly, forced ranking where employees performances are clustered in three different buckets (top 20%, middle 70%, and bottom 10%) where the weakest bucket is expectedly weeded out does not work either. Companies using this system have been plagued with an employee force with low morale, high turnover, and low productivity. The authors debunk tens of other well established managerial practices. These practices are often so well established that no one seemed to question them until these two academic types came along. By doing so, they have done a great service to the business community by opening our eyes using the scientific method. So, why have such practices that seemed to be part of corporate capitalism not work so well? According to the authors' analysis it is because they all foster a winner take all mentality. They reinforce an individual star system. That works well in individual sports like alpine skiing where it is one individual against the clock. The corporate business world is more like a team sport. Soccer comes to mind. One star within an otherwise demoralized team does not stand a chance against a motivated high performance team. In the corporate world it gets even more complicated than that because the team concept extends way beyond the walls of the corporation. Effective teamwork entails including suppliers and customers in product design and management decision. In such an environment, pushing internally a star system that is demoralizing to the 99% who come in distant seconds does not foster optimal team performance either internally or externally. This book has a wealth of information relevant to any corporate employee. The authors do an excellent job at analyzing existing managerial practices. Besides suggesting a stronger focus on teams, they don't offer any easy solutions. That's refreshing. You know these guys are not trying to market themselves as the new managerial gurus. This gives them much credibility in criticizing the existing ones.
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