Outlining the relationship between suppliers and vendors, the book describes how everyone in an organization can be part of customer service, by redefining who, in fact, customers are. Don Emery's Reference Software International, in San Francisco, has adopted as "theme of the year" the idea of viewing everyone the company deals with as part of the customer chain. "I don't think anyone finished the book," Emery admits, "but if you just read chapters 1 through 3, it will inspire ideas. It's made us think about how we communicate internally and how we need to consider even one another as customers."
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Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury (Houghton Mifflin, 1981)
Fisher is a Harvard law professor, Ury a lecturer on negotiation. Their collaboration is excellent for executives who find themselves dealing with lots of constituencies -- bankers, vendors, and so on -- says Cecil Ursprung of Reflexite, a manufacturer in New Britain, Conn. "I've tried about everything in the popular press and on tape about negotiation, and this is the best. It talks about how the best deals are when we all win. Not much on tactics, but great on the process."
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Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind; Marketing Warfare; and Bottom-Up Marketing; by Al Ries and Jack Trout (McGraw-Hill; 1981, 1985, and 1988)
Al Ries and Jack Trout have written several extremely popular books about marketing that are widely regarded as classics in the field. Their first, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, defines positioning and how it's a place you reach, not something you do. Marketing Warfare likens the marketplace to -- you guessed it -- a battlefield, and claims companies are in defensive, attacking, flanking, or guerrilla modes. And Bottom-Up Marketing argues that while most people devise a grand strategy and delegate tactics to execute it, smarter ones find tactics that work and derive strategies from them.
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Marketing Management, by Philip Kotler (Prentice-Hall, 1988)
A textbook on the elements of marketing and how to incorporate them into strategic planning. Reference Software International's Emery, who also teaches marketing at San Francisco State University, says it's the best of the 50 books on the topic he's read.
WHAT KIND OF COMPANY SHOULD THIS BE, ANYWAY?
The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox (North River Press, 1986)
A breezy, easy-to-read novel, The Goal is one of those books that whole companies read and seem to end up transformed by. It tells the story of a manufacturing plant where inventories are out of control and families are falling apart; a Boy Scout troop learns to find and break down the bottlenecks in its system that are inflicted by Herbie, a slow walker and a metaphor for points where problems occur. "Our company ended up going on 'Herbie hunts' after reading the book," says David Armstrong of Armstrong International, in Three Rivers, Mich. "We look to find the problems that cause excess inventory, in order to improve on our speedy delivery time."
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The Breakthrough Strategy, by Robert H. Schaffer (Ballinger, 1988)
The theme here is the need to define breakthroughs -- incremental goals that can be met in short periods of time -- to get companies to use more than the 40% to 60% of their potential they're likely using now. "The whole message is in the first 75 pages," says one chief executive. "It's an important book, though, because it can expand your idea of what is possible and what you can be."
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Deming Management at Work, by Mary Walton (Putnam Publishing, 1991)
W. Edwards Deming's theories on quality and management in Japanese and U.S. companies are well regarded; unfortunately, most executives say Deming's own writing is too turgid and dense to wade through. Mary Walton's book is a middle ground: a 14-page summary of Deming's doctrine, coupled with case histories of six companies that use his revolutionary techniques. Provocative for service as well as manufacturing companies.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship, by Peter F. Drucker (Harper & Row, 1985)
It's hard to pick one Drucker book from the 20-plus he's written; Drucker is considered by many to be among the most brilliant thinkers about management, and it seems as if most company founders have their own favorite Drucker book. This one, using catchphrases such as "hit them where they ain't" and "fustest with the mostest," focuses on innovation and how it differentiates entrepreneurs from small-business owners. Another oft-recommended Drucker work: Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (Harper & Row, 1974).
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The Strategist CEO, by Michel Robert (Greenwood, 1988)
Is your company product-driven or customer-driven? Your answer, Robert believes, should determine how you make strategies and allocate resources. Sue Marks of ProStaff, a Milwaukee-based temp agency, credits this book with helping her and her managers recommit to putting temp training ahead of searching for new business. "We already knew these things were important to us," she says, "but the book put it in a strategic-planning context." Her key chapters: 6, 11, 12, and 14.
