Sep 20, 2006

Execution by Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy

Overall thought: If you have only enough money saved to buy only one book on business, whether you are a CEO or middle manager or even a management trainee selling soap, then buy this book.

It's one of the best business books that I have read in a long long time !

The book is targeted mainly at CEOs and divisional business leaders of large organizations that are global in nature, yet has enough learnings for everyone connected to organizations, so there are a lot of "a-ha!" moments.

The central premise of the book is that it is the CEOs job to make things happen in an organization and that only vision is useless without execution. Bossidy and Charan take you through what are the reasons why companies cannot execute and what they need to do.

Answer: The CEO has to link up the three functional areas and plans of strategy, people and operations.

The book also talks about the cultural aspects of a business that will help the above to happen. As the authors call it "robust dialogue" must take place without fear for the truth to emerge in each of these areas.

They also talk of the attibutes of a leader, and link "emotional fortitude" on the part of the leader to actually confront reality and take decisions that might be unpopular or heartbreaking.

So if you aspire to rise up the corporate ladder, go get yourself a copy of "Execution"

The TOC is available on this blog post

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