Corporate-finance

Covers the basics such as cash flow, etc. Helps the nonprofit reader to get a glimpse into the world of the Donor-Investor who visits PhilanthropyNet.org and SocialCapital.net

This is the best strategy book that I have ever read (and I have read a few including Gary Hamel's books). This book clearly lays out the need for and process of developing a business innovation strategy. It does this without getting too preachy. Another reason that this book is so good is that it effectively builds on powerful concepts in organizational learning and new product development, thereby integrating some important concepts from these fields to build a strong, broad position for strategy and strategic thinking. If you are interested in innovation strategy, organizational learning and new product development, you need to read this book.

All the Right Moves

Markides provides a cohesive and comprehensive guide to crafting breakthrough strategy for ANY organization. The basic premise of his book is that "superior strategy is all about finding and exploiting a unique strategy in the company's business while at the same time searching for new strategic positions on a continuing basis." He organizes his materials as follows:

Part I How to Create a Unique Strategic Position

• How to decide what your business is

• How to decide who your customers and what to offer to them

• How to "play the game"

• How to identity and secure strategic assets and capabilities

• How to create the right organization environment

• How to develop a superior strategic position

Part II How to Prepare for Strategic Innovation

• How strategic positions develop

• How to evaluate and respond to strategic innovation

• How to take a dynamic view of strategy

In the final chapter, Markides concedes that "designing a successful strategy is a never-ending quest. Even the most successful companies must continually question the basis of their business and the assumptions underlying their 'formula for success.' (In fact, in one way or another, this is what most successful companies have done to get where they are.). New who/what/how positions are constantly popping up around the mass market, and established companies must be on the lookout for them. Like a modern-day Christopher Columbus, each company must set out to explore its industry's evolving terrain, searching for new and unexploited strategic positions."

In this brilliant book, Markides explains HOW.

Markides argues:

"The essence of strategy is to choose the one position that your company will claim as its own. A strategic position is simply the sum of a company's answers to these three questions: Who should I target as customers? What products or services should I offer them? How should I do this? ... Ultimately, strategy is all about making choices, [to achieve] a distinctive strategic position ... The most common source of strategic failure is the failure to make clear and explicit choices in each of these three dimensions."

In itself, the statement is simple, even obvious. But, as he points out, many companies fail to make these explicit choices.

The value of the book lies in how the author works through these propositions. The advice is good common sense, laced with valuable insights. The language is clear and simple. The approach is systemic - the author is as concerned with how all the elements fit together within a dynamic market as with the elements themselves. Each chapter ends with a good summary of the arguments.

Even highly complex and highly dynamic strategies rest on these simple foundations. The book therefore provides both an excellent guide for those new to wrestling with strategy and excellent 'mental furniture' with which to approach more complex formulations.

I loved this book. It richly describes the old 'General Store' days of my grandfather. Some may have been sitting in the sun playing checkers, but times were hard then, and most people worked from sun-up to sun-down.

This books lets you hear, feel, and smell those old places. It introduces you to some of the old pioneers of The NC area. You can almost feel their hard cracked hands, as if the author had you shake hands.

With this book you can actually drive and see some of the old stores still standing. But more fun, was visiting the ones that are STILL in business.

If walls can tell stories, then they surely bend MS Woodys ear! A very enjoyable read!

From the beginning you can see that Ms. Bick learned a lot at Microsoft. Half way through I began to see many common business practices that are usually more talked about than used in real practice. Then at the end the real value of the book came together. Since Microsoft is clearly a leader in business and these techniques are used there, you can't lose by incorporating them into your work world no matter where that is.

This book has many good ideas, but most people have probably thought, heard, or read them elsewhere. It is an enjoyable, humorous read, however. For those with limited business backgrounds it would make a great starting point.

This 160-page book is a very quick read, with a fun, pithy tone. All of the advice is 100 percent on the money, with insightful stories to further drive home the point. Packed with high-energy advice that can be applicable to any company.

Highly recommended.

There is an old syllogism of organizations. 1. We must do something. 2. This is something. 3. We must do this.

Many a budding institutional innovator, frustrated by the hidebound habits of her colleagues, has nonetheless stifled her creativity for fear of losing influence, job, or respect. Then there are those like Chris Turner, who resolutely turn their horse's head and take the road less traveled. In Turner's case, that means donning the proud mantle of change agent, leading corporate learning programs at Xerox Business Services. Since leaving XBS, Turner has turned consultant and speaker, using her irreverence, Texan argot, and impatience with untested convention to inspire revolution.

Turner wants change, and she wants it now. She wants to replace institutional fear with "love-based systems." She believes in "disturbing the system," doing something - anything - differently to provoke a reaction. Most of all she castigates "all hat and no cattle," a Lone Star State expression for all style and no substance. Pay for performance, obsessions with measurement, corporate welfare, bad PowerPoint slides: "all hat and no cattle," declares Turner, and she delights in taking the high and mighty down a notch or three.

Irreverence can be entertaining, even when it fulminates on a soapbox. But like another successful Texan who partied throughout college, Turner tends to assume that the people in charge are self-interested, greedy mediocrities who can't be trusted. Appealing though they may be, generalizations cut both ways: we mustn't assume that all managers are automatically right, but nor should we assume that they're automatically wrong. Turner is mad as hell and not going to take it any more: fair enough, but by condemning any activity that perpetuates the status quo, she often veers from passion to petulance. It's imprudent for a sans-culotte to show frustration at not being queen.

If you're a stymied OD professional, you may be inflamed by this call for revolution. You'll certainly welcome Chapter 6, in which Turner offers specific, detailed suggestions for revamping organizational meetings. And you can always add to your storehouse of quotations, as Turner strews aphorisms across her pages with Barlettian generosity - Emerson, Wilde, Einstein, Didley, all are grist to her mill. But in the end All Hat and No Cattle suffers from the same syndrome it so gleefully diagnoses: too much prate, not enough practice. Change agent, heal thyself.

A powerful critique of contemporary business culture. Exposing corporate hypocrisy for what it is, Turner makes a convincing case for mindful organizations that foster participation, enrich learning, and understand themselves as living systems in need of disturbance rather than as machines in need of oiling. This irreverent, thoughtful, and engrossing book is a must-read for business people and for anyone concerned with generating institutional change. All Hat & No Cattle suggests actions that each of us can take to create the world we want.

Chris Turner has done it. She has written a highly entertaining and insightful book based on lots of experience. Her stories illuminate the main threads of her argument effortlessly. If you want a few dozen ideas on how to create change and democratic environments at work, your time will be well spent with Turner's book.

James Shefter's work is compelling. He was priveledge to have access to the Corvette development program which afforded him a rare glimps into GM's politics and policies of the early 1990s. While any Corvette afficionado will readily enjoy this 300+ page dairy of life at GM during the development of the Fifth Generation Corvette (C5), those with an eagerness to understand a Motor Giant's mindset will gain the most in terms of sheer knowledge. As inconceivable as the thought may sound, GM almost killed the Corvette in the late decade of the 90's and only a handful of dedicated engineers and artists were able to rescue the program from the trash bin. Mr. Shefter details, in 70, small-sized chapters, the daily life of C5 development in cramped quarters. He chronicles the clay to fiberglass to full first production car in a way that gives the reader a sense of "being there." The only negative which may be said for the book is the length of time it takes to tell the story. But this is easily forgiven since each mini-chapter usually ends in a cliff-hanger! To Corvette enthusiasts and car-maker students alike, "All Corvettes Are Red" is a must read.

Anyone who loves Corvettes will buy this book but those who want an inside look at the auto industry and those who are interested in (business) case studies should buy it too. If you read (and liked) "The Reckoning" and/or if you saw and liked "Roger & Me", I think you will enjoy this book. "All Corvettes are Red" is the inside story of GM: beginning during the tough years (covered from the outside in "The Reconing") when it seemed that GM could do no right. It shows how a few people with a love for the Corvette and a vision of the Vettes real meaning (as an image marketing tool) pulled together and took chances to make it (a new Vette) happen, in turbulent times, in a turbulent industry. During the creation of the 97 Corvette, GM went through one reorganization after another. GM was grasping at straws trying to find an organizational model which would return it to profitability. All Corvettes are Red, is a story about GM's chaos and about how a few people focused on that which was important and got the job done, whatever it took. Finally, this is the story of a few great people who persevered to keep a dream (the Corvette) alive. Making it better (faster, more stable and stiffer) than ever

I given this book to guys of all ages who are interested iln cars. They really enjoy all the details, as only car buffs can.