Ruthless Execution: What Business Leaders Do When Their Companies Hit the Wall
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Preface Ruthless execution is the method and strategies that businessleaders employ to break through performance walls. My friend and formerpartner, John Sifonis, and I first employed this term in 1996 when wewere doing work for Hewlett-Packard (HP). Subsequently, the phraseappeared prominently in our book Net Ready (McGraw-Hill, 2000) as a wayto sum up the actions key to getting a company "Internet-ready." Duringthe research process for this book, and in searching for a way to"package" my findings, it became clear to me that the same term capturedthe essence of the strategies that business leaders execute to overcometough times. Few books exist on tough times and how to deal with them. Books onAmerican corporate life have tended to proffer advice on how to steer abusiness to success and glory. For the past two or three decades, as thestock market drove skyward, as the economy went from strength tostrength, as business theorists argued that growth was good, businessleaders craved roadmaps that assured them of the same success thatothers were enjoying. Authors of business books have focused on the strategies and thekinds of culture a business needs to do well. They have largely skippedover the topic of how to cope with business reversals. As long as theeconomy prospered, no one cared to write about--or read about--the morbidsubject of business reversals. That has all changed now. With the advent of a turbulent economy, with the increasingrealization that business resembles a roller coaster more than a rocketship, with more and more companies plummeting from their peaks, a new,painful fact of life in business has become clear: Companies no longercan assume a steadily upward pattern of growth. Invariably, companiesare going to get into trouble from time to time, enough trouble for theups and downs to become a consistent pattern. Accordingly, books onbusiness subjects must deal honestly and realistically with thesereversals and offer some practical ways to overcome these setbacks. Thatis precisely what Ruthless Execution: What Business Leaders Do WhenTheir Companies Hit the Wall does. To be clear, this book is not about fixing companies in crisis.Crises such as fraud or bankruptcy often require a slash-and-burnapproach and intense media management. This book is about gettingstalled companies performing again. Companies are going to get intotrouble for all sorts of reasons, scandal being just one of them. Theplain truth is that most large corporations--over 90 percent of allpublic companies--suffer rude awakenings from time to time; indeed,setbacks happen to these large enterprises frequently. Large,established companies can become compla-cent; they may become toobureaucratic to innovate; innovative enterprises may favor hyper-growthat the expense of discipline and rigor. When companies find themselvesstagnating, it becomes time for their leaders to engage in ruthlessexecution. What is meant by ruthless execution? It means the way leaders andtheir teams behave, or in other words, the strategies they must adopt tobreak through the wall. The strategies of ruthless execution are framed in three distinctcategories that are already part and parcel of every executive's dailylife: leadership, governance, and critical capabilities. Within each ofthese categories, a number of practices will be elaborated on throughoutthe book. There is no suggestion that engaging successfully in any oneof these strategies automatically allows you to break through a wall.The idea is to point out the common ingredients (or practices) thatbusiness leaders who have figured out how to break through the wallshare. Leadership frames the specific actions that drive strategicformulations, and to a degree, the characteristics that business leadersneed to overcome business reversals. The focus in the leadershipcategory is on strategic formulation. Governance spells out the rules of the game; it deals with issuessuch as the way decisions get made and the discipline that leadersimpose on their teams. Critical Capabilities are the specific actions that executives driveto break through the wall. Critical capabilities are veryaction-oriented. They are the critical skills and delivery capabilitieswith which business leaders need to be equipped. Throughout this book, case studies will be used to illustrate aparticular ruthless execution strategy. The introduction of each casestudy is framed around a moment of time when the subject company hassuffered a reversal. These studies show how the company in question usedone or more of the strategies to cope. You can benefit by employing onestrategy or another in your own efforts to emerge successfully from areversal. Lastly, in Chapter 12, I introduce a Ruthless Execution Index. Thisindex can serve as "sign posts" for business leaders who want tounderstand where they can improve their Ruthless Execution. I encourageyou to revisit these practices on a regular basis.
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"Ruthless Execution focuses on today's #1 business leadership challenge: managing adversity while preparing your company for a rebirth of success. Amir Hartman identifies the central ingredients that help companies get beyond the wall to thrive--and demonstrates exactly how to instill these ingredients in your organization.
You'll learn when and how to strategically recalibrate and balance performance and growth; new ways to promote accountability; how to use performance metrics without burying your people in trivia; and how to promote real discipline without creating bureaucracy. You'll also discover which critical capabilities are keys to performance breakthroughs.
Along the way, the author presents case studies of leading companies that have used these strategies to overcome stalled performance. Baxter, Novartis, Honeywell, IBM, Cisco, and more--all different, yet all unified by one common element: ruthless execution.
Using adversity to lay the groundwork for breakthrough success
What happens when yesterday's growth strategies and business models stop working?
Most companies that ""hit the wall"" never get past it. But a rare few have discovered the secrets of recharging growth and innovation. Ruthless Execution shows how to apply the lessons they've learned to engineer your own resurgence.
It's about taking stock of where you really stand, choosing the best strategy for renewal, and executing on that strategy with unprecedented clarity and tenacity.
It's about leadership, values, and governance. It's about cost control, productivity, and priorities. Above all, it's about doing what great companies like IBM, Novartis, Baxter and Cisco have already done or are in the midst of doing again: getting beyond adversity to breakthrough success."
--This text refers to the
Digital
edition.
Ruthless Execution: What Business Leaders Do When Their Companies Hit the Wall
Ruthless Execution: What Business Leaders Do When Their Companies Hit the Wall,Amir Hartman,Financial Times Prentice Hall,0131018841,Business & Economics,Business / Economics / Finance,Business/Economics,Corporate Planning,Corporate governance,Corporate turnarounds,Leadership,Leadership In Business,Management,Management - General,Management Science,Strategic Planning,Structural Adjustment,Business & Economics / Systems & Planning
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