Features

Business book review: Beyond Performance Management

4 Apr 2012 by BusinessTraveller
The subtitles of these books just get longer - "Why, when and how to use 40 tools and best practices for superior business performance" - though I suppose we ought to be thankful for no exclamation marks. Having read the front cover I was expecting yet another power-driven exhortation to try harder, work smarter and define yourself through doing the opposite of what the market expects. In fact, it’s far more useful than that. It’s a book which looks at 40 well-known business tools and practices and offers guidance on selecting the right ones and how to get the best out of them. It’s effectively 40 books in one, and the authors helpfully admit that: “We would be delighted if you were to read this book cover to cover and soak up the hundreds of insights and recommendations that we provide. However, we suspect that most people will use it as a reference guide to help them learn and improve their performance within their particular areas of interest. The reading lists and notes should help.” That gives a flavour of the tone - sure of their judgements, humorous, and practical when it comes to understanding what their readership want from a book like this (other than a more straightforward title). Why is the book necessary? Well, you know the answer to that one. Because despite all the management tools invented in the last 50 years, research shows that only 30 percent of change programmes succeed. Imagine how much money is wasted, how much management time thrown away. “Most tools and practices suffer from poor practice. And having absorbed huge amounts of management time and expense, companies abandon many tools as the consultants move out and internal champions move on.” The authors have tried to work out what works and what doesn’t, and their conclusion is that the best tools “engage and empower frontline teams... rather than command and control them". Amen to that. As for the 40 practices and tools, they are gathered together under five broad headings (the five parts of the book) – Strategic Planning, Shareholder and customer value, Lean cost management... and so on. And if you are like me, you read the ones you recognise first (Mission Statements, Benchmarking, and Sustainability) and then move onto ones I’ve never been sure about (Best practice reporting, Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and so on). It’s a cracking book to have on your desk, because when someone in the company starts waffling on about “Six Sigma or Lean Accounting", you can simply nod wisely, then the moment the meeting is over, rush back to your desk and find a definition of it, description, its performance potential, how to maximise its potential and key actions to take. This not only makes you look knowledgeable and pro-active, but also alerts you to possible problems with it, or even reasons why it might not be suitable. All of this is in much more detail than you could easily Google on the web, and written with intelligent verve including short case studies, clear diagrams, where appropriate, and even the history of the practice, allowing you to understand (or fake understanding of) how the tool or practice first came about. Taking Six Sigma as an example, under the question “What is this practice and how effective is it?” the description is “Six sigma is an extension of total quality management (it has been described as "TQM on steroids"). It takes its name from a statistical measure of near perfection which, equated to numerical terms, reaches a goal of 3.4 defects per million units produced.” Imagine being able to come up with that in a meeting! You could also add “Six sigma dates back to 1984, when Mikel Harry was an engineer trying to improve the quality of products in the government electronics groups of cell phone maker Motorola.” And still on the opening page, the authors caution “... it has a reputation for alienating workers because companies too often impose it from above, with bright young black belts telling seasoned managers how to do their jobs differently.” This is a really useful book, from two well-respected authors, and I was saddened to hear that one of them – Jeremy Hope, died last year as it was being developed. Along with his other work, it is a worthy legacy. Tom Otley
Loading comments...

Search Flight

See a whole year of Reward Seat Availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Be up-to-date
Magazine Subscription
To see our latest subscription offers for Business Traveller editions worldwide, click on the Subscribe & Save link below
Polls