The Corporate over the National
584466
Morgan pains a picture of a future prior to Th1rte3n and Altered Carbon, though on a similar timeline, where corporations have gained ascendency through various government failures. I love this book because it showed a clear path from the current corporate patterns of behavior, internally and externally, to a future where the .0001% can commit random violence with some of that violence being part of their basic culture. Similar to other books, the "hero" is of questionable morals. Lots of twists and turns keep it interesting even if the violence does, at times, seem a bit over the top. Highly recommend.
4027709
This book is very well written.  Since it is true, and the author did extensive, in-depth, research, the story envelopes you.  It is so captivating to find out that these people actually did all these things that it was very difficult to put the book down.  An excellent read to understand the workings of corporate America and how it is intertwined with the government and other vital pieces of our economy.  I highly recommend it.
4415169
This book is really focused on a large national company with their own brand of physical products, most of them actually things you could buy at a supermarket.  The book does not deal very much specifically with a business that sells services or for a retailer that is selling other companies' products.  It's also not geared toward smaller businesses that have a more local scope.

Also, the author's experience is in the U.K., and that is where his examples are drawn from.  The principles are still valid, but as an American reader, many of the company examples did not come with the intuitive understanding that more familiar companies would have.

There was information of value to be gleaned from this book, but its more narrow in breadth of focus than the title implies.&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Good-to-Great/dp/0066620996/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Good to Great</a>&nbsp;was a book of much more value with a small (10-employee) business retailing others' products while selling our own services.
432704
Gives some excellent insight as to what was going on between Sega and Nintendo(and even Sony) around the release of the SNES. However, it's entirely written from the corporate level of both companies, from the point of view of the executives. If you're looking for something about the ground level (Software Engineers), look elsewhere. Still a fantastic read, though.
3337846
Just Do It digs under the skin of the Nike corporation and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the company that has grown to be the number one shoe marketer in the U.S. The author details every aspect from Nike's involvement in the Dream Team awards ceremony fiasco in the 1992 Olympic  Games in Barcelona to the sweat shops of Asia where the shoes are actually  produced. The author taps into the psyche behind what Nike is about and  what makes a typical Nike employee: love of sports combined with a  rebellious, headstrong nature to think outside the box. For example, one  prospective employee with a PhD and a law degree was dismissed by the  selection committee for not knowing who Deion Sanders was. The book opens  with the 1993 retirement of Michael Jordan and ends with some  "small" layoffs by Nike in September of the same year and the  effects that the layoffs have on chairman, Phil Knight. The prose is  well-chosen and the reader is shown the business side of superstars such as  Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan that you won't find in Sports  Illustrated. There are two minor weaknesses to Just Do It. There is  definitely an inevitable pro-Phil Knight slant to everthing written. Also,  an extraordinary amount of pages are devoted strictly to the quagmire that  is the Asian economy. The author may find this topic interesting, but the  average reader won't and it strayed from the central theme of Nike's  corporate culture.
2392717
Norman E. Hill writes from a wealth of corporate experience in "Winner and Final Chairman." Hill crafts a story about a variety of egos and agenda with a cast of characters that rival a Russian novel. Hill thoughtfully has a glossary of characters and organizations to help the reader keep track while following the thread of corporate greed and self-aggrandizement running through the book.

Hill's sectional headings sound like many organizations: "Stagnation, Frustration and Redirection" to "Domination -or Dominoes?"  Whether you are a casual reader or a business leader, you will enjoy and learn from "Winner and Final Chairman."

Barbara Hanson Dennis, business consultant and college administrator
355568
In this highly esteemed People's History, Howard Zinn analyzes (among other trends) the continuing growth of corporate power, showing the ruthless suppression of ordinary US citizens by the arrogant, intemperate corporations that own the US government.  In light of this, I find it rather interesting that one of the two Editorial Reviews on Amazon's webpage for this book is contributed by . . .  guess what? . . . a corporation: the firm called Reed Business Information.  So we turn to a corporation for critique of a book revealing the shameful role in our history of . . . corporations.  The review -- oddly enough -- turns out to be rather negative.  I wonder why.
662791
A great story, very exciting and interesting. Especially how the corporate world works. What power and money can do, how it can hurt the family but also be a benefit. Really a good read, enjoyed it very much.
4801489
Pretty good book for a glimpse into one of America's most respected companies.  I find it funny when they say they don't want to grow their business, but overall this has been a great read.
2457518
Without a doubt some of the best work by The National.  The expanded edition is a must for fans as it includes a few live tracks and variations of a few songs that are really good.  Highly recommended album.
1092437
As someone who lived through many of the events at Enron, and who also was subjected to one of Eichenwald's probing and seemingly endless interviews, all I can say is BRAVO. So much of what I have read about this company has been such a caricature, based on impressions and suppositions. This is the real story, and believe me, it is not a pretty one. Some of the revelations in this book horrified me. But, I now know from other former Enronites, all of whom seemed to have spoken to Eichenwald, that even the most shocking tale in here is true. And more that a few people are astonished that Eichenwald seems to have obtained records of their statements to the Feds.

This is a stunning book. The reviews are true: it does read like the best of corporate thrillers. More important to me, it is the real story about what happened. For the first time, at least every event I know about is recognizable, but more important, so is the company, in all of its twisted, psychotic and mismanaged ways.
4827141
The paper is a solid source for both national and regional news. The business section might be a little better than USA Today's. Coverage of professional sports is fine. However, I'd like to see more depth in college sports reporting outside the ACC and SEC. Atlanta draws constituents from all over the country (and all over the world). Current college coverage is too regional for such a cosmopolitan city.
2047825
I have not read this book, but I listened to an interview on Wall Street Journal This Week (podcast). It is sad that corporate and Wall Street has driven the "front line force/employees" to the ground and view employees as a commodity. However, this corporate greed, arrogance and uncaring attitude has promoted one thing - entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, entrepreneurship takes a good amount of capital, something that many employees do not have. Therefore we are stuck with the mercy of our corporate employers, while we pursue the American Dream - the welfare of our family. But that American Dream could also be that you part of, for example, the Google team.
1119505
In the golden age of the industrial era, the key resource was the means of production, best symbolized by Ford, which emerged and thrived because of its mastery of mass production techniques that allowed it to capitalize on vast economies of scale. Companies gained competitive advantage by making and selling more and better stuff. In other words, they dominated the upstream activities.

Today, as Dawar explains in this book, the center of gravity has shifted to downstream activities. Manufacturing and even new product development can easily be outsourced, so there is no longer any competitive advantage in controlling upstream activities. The key resource is now the customers mind. In this new world, companies compete on economies of scope: rather than asking how can we sell more of what we make to customers?, they are asking, what else does the customer need? A great example is Amazon, which doesnt sell better stuff, it sells stuff better.

To succeed in the new tilted landscape, CEOs and marketers (and may I add, salespeople) need to be asking themselves new questions.

 Why do customers buy from us?
 Why do potential customers not buy from us?
 What else does the customer need?
 How else can we slash the customers costs and risks?
 Are we criterion takers, or criterion makers?
 My own addition: how else can we help them grow revenues or serve their customers better?

How does a company compete for downstream competitive advantage? Although the book considers both B2B and B2C companies, Ill focus here on the former. In Part 2 of the book, Dawar explains how a company can use its perch, or higher and wider perspective of the market, to bring innovations and fresh insights to customers. Because they deal with large number and wide range of different customers, they can see the whole forest, and use their knowledge to relay and connect ideas, provide benchmarking information, and make predictions that add value.

The second section of the book dives deep into the scarce resource that we should all be competing for: the customers attention and cognitive effort. Dawar poses an interesting thought experiment. If Coca-Cola somehow lost all its physical assets, would they be able to raise funds to restart their business? The answer is clearly yes. But if somehow the entire world got partial amnesia and forgot about the Coca-Cola brand, would anyone invest billions of dollars in the business? Clearly not. The point is that a brand, or a customers perception of your company, is a critical asset because it lowers the customers costs and risks of making a decision to buy. They don't have to expend much attention or think very deeply about their decision.

Thats why downstream competitive advantage can be not just sustainable but accumulative. Through network effects, habit, and confirmation bias, the rich brands tend to get richer by gaining more and more mind share. One interesting insight the book provides is that what is important is not being first to market, but first to mind. Anyone remember the Erwise browser or Chux disposable diapers?

The incumbents have managed to define and dominate the customers purchase criteria, and the only ways for a challenger to overturn this dominance is to either provide an offering that is clearly superior in the important criteria, or change the criteria of purchase. You can either be a criterion taker, or a criterion maker.

Theres so much more I could write about this excellent book, but Ill let you take it from here. Let me just say that if you aim to be an intrapreneurial sales professional, you need to read this book soon, and you need to sit down and seriously reflect on the six questions above.
1497741
The Boss is like a cross between a novel and a case study, or rather, a series of case studies.  It describes the adventures of Lauren, a marketing professional, in the corporate world.  And what a scary world it turns out to be, full of vicious animals, scheming devils and dysfunctional human behaviour.

I met Andrew O'Keeffe a few years ago at a workshop he ran exploring the idea that much of human behaviour is instinctive, the result of our evolution.  The book is primarily a vehicle for the author to demonstrate how this hard-wired behaviour manifests itself in organisations in both positive and negative ways.  However, you don't need to be familiar with the theory to enjoy it.  It works well as a story, and anyone who works in an organisational environment will recognise the politics, the posturing and the Machiavellian mayhem that goes on within the company that Lauren works for.  We also follow Lauren's family life and the effect that her experiences at work have on her relationships with her husband and children - a timely reminder that work impacts on every aspect of our lives.

The Boss is easy to read, entertaining and engrossing.  It's not great literature and it's not particularly subtle, but it achieves its goals very effectively.  There are goodies and baddies, tragedy and triumph, and there's humour amid the horror.  If you manage people or aspire to a corporate leadership role, you should read it.
4341712
Schweizer has revealed the reality behind the perception regarding the self-interest of career politicians at the expense of the best interest of the "people", who elect and pay them.  This vindicates my belief that the problem in Washington is not so much partisan politics but more politics as a career across party lines.
2732511
My own experience includes some forty five years in the manufacturing business, including as a supplier to prime automotive companies, Ford included.  This book is about how leadership matters when trying to turn a company around. Ford, GM and Chrysler were all in trouble after the 2001 World Trade Center Terrorist attack and the hire of a new CEO for Ford eventually began to look like the best option for starting a recovery.  Boeing had already slugged its way to recovery when Bill Ford, Chairman and CEO, led the way to search and hire a new CEO.  Well, if you want to gain success then you go after people who have already done what you seek to accomplish. Alan Mullaly, who led the Boeing 777 design and build program and who was a likely replacement for Harry Stonecipher, the CEO at Boeing who was removed by their Board for certain behavior (described in the book) - this Alan Mulally was the first choice for new CEO.

How do you motivate a leader to leave an aircraft firm to which he is loyal and join a firm in the troubled automotive industry? To leave Seattle for Detroit? To leave a publicly held company with widespread ownership for one that is essentially family controlled? How do you get the Ford family members and key executives at Ford to believe that an "airplane guy" can be a great "car guy"? All this and much more insider information is provided regarding the recruitment effort and the start up for the new CEO. The history of Ford with its internal people and culture and hierarchy  issues is shared openly along with the difficulty of bringing in a guy who wears a blue blazer into a high priced suit organization; a guy who stands in line and eats in the company cafeteria rather than the executive dining room; a guy  who drives his Lexus to the plant because it is the better car?  Wow!  Interesting stuff!  Attempts are made to shoot down the new guy, to wait him out. There are unions to deal with and here Mulally's Midwestern working class roots pay off. Then comes the crash of 2008 and automobile sales go through the basement. What now?  Ford is doing better in Europe. How do you bring the best of the company together to produce better cars? How do you get people to agree to sell off some of the pet foreign brands and kill Mercury?  How do you fire a family member who will not get with the program?

Alan Mullaly succeeded in leading Ford from losses to profits. He had plenty of help once the staff believed they could actually disagree and not hurt their career - in fact, they could help their career by innovating and taking a new path like borrowing a ton of cash when the money was available. Some of the success was helped by luck as when Toyota concealed their sticky throttle problem until the number of deaths on the road made it an open book issue. Ford was ready with better cars. Stock is now trading at over $12 a share. At one time in Malally's  tenure, it was under $2 a share.  Having also been a supplier to Boeing, I knew how good a leader Alan is. Why oh why did I not buy the stock? Too bad the book was not out there then.  But the story had to be told first. Ford did it - Bill Ford with Alan Mulally and the talented staff of Ford. All they needed was a better coach for the team, a proven winner with a new way of doing the job.  A great business and human process read about a nuts and bolts industry that is an an important backbone in America. And the book is about the difference one person can make. Welcome back, Ford!  Think I'll look at the cars again.