THE BUSINESS READER REVIEW, V.4.10

Welcome to The Business Reader Review, our e-letter offering capsule
reviews of the best new business books each month. Free subscriptions and back issues are available at http://home1.gte.net/bizbooks. Here's what's new and notable on the business bookshelf for April '02.

THE GE WORK-OUT:
How To Implement GE's Revolutionary Method For Busting Bureaucracy And
Attacking Organizational Problems - Fast! by Dave Ulrich, Steve Kerr & Ron Ashkenas (McGraw-Hill, 280 pp, $29.95, ISBN 0071384162). The authors were part of the team that created the now-famous Work-Out as a response to Jack Welch's desire to "get work out the system." In the best book of the month, they describe the methodology's history and underlying principles and detail a three-step program- plan, conduct, implement - for staging your own work-outs.

REINVENTING STRATEGY:
Using Strategic Learning To Create & Sustain Breakthrough Performance by Willie Pietersen (Wiley, 272 pp, $29.95). It takes strategy and the leadership to bring it to life to build a successful business, says Columbia B-school's Pietersen. He proposes Strategic Learning, a four-step process - learn, focus, align, and execute - as the mechanism through which executives can create, implement, and continuously renew their corporate strategy.

A STAKE IN THE OUTCOME:
Building A Culture Of Ownership For The Long-Term Success Of Your Business by Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham (Doubleday Currency, 272 pp, $24.95, ISBN 0385505078). Stack, CEO of SRC Holdings and open-book management guru, is back with a sequel to The Great Game of Business. Some of the earlier content is repeated (the SRC story, etc.), but this new book also includes a nuts-and-bolts look at equity sharing and practical guidelines for building a corporate culture based on ownership.

WHAT MANAGEMENT IS:
How It Works And Why It's Everyone's Business by Joan Magretta with Nan Stone (Free Press, 244 pp, $25, ISBN 0743203186). This refresher course in management offers a concise, clear overview of its topic. In a wide-ranging synthesis, Magretta explains the major building blocks of the organizational plan (value creation, business model, strategy, and structure) and the operational elements (mission, measurement, innovation, execution, and people management) that bring it to life.

CHANGING FORTUNES:
Remaking The Industrial Corporation by Nitin Nohria, Davis Dyer & Frederick Dalzell (Wiley, 320 pp, $27.95, ISBN 047138481X). This historical survey examines the fates of the Fortune 100 industrial companies in the last quarter century. The authors follow manufacturing giants, such as GE, Westinghouse, Kodak, Ford etc., through the changing economy and in the process, they uncover valuable lessons about the strategies, structures, and systems that enable industrial companies to survive and prosper in the Post-Industrial Era.

BE YOUR OWN BRAND:
A Breakthrough Formula For Standing Out From The Crowd by David McNally and Karl Speak (Berrett-Koehler, 148 pp, $22, ISBN 1576751414). Successful brands are the result of relationships, not marketing statements, say the authors, who suggest that we can enhance our lives by thinking of them as personal brands. Toward that end, they identify the dimensions of personal brands, show how the best personal brands flow from the inside out, and detail how to define, commit to, and strengthen "brand you."

ALIGNING THE STARS:
How to Succeed When Professionals Drive Results by Jay Lorsch and Thomas Tierney (Harvard Business School Press, 234 pp, $29.95, ISBN 1578515130). The secret to growing the professional service firm is by aligning the desires and development of talented individuals with the needs of the firm. You create that alignment, say the authors, who studied the best practices in eighteen successful firms, through the design of organizational strategy, structure and systems, culture, and leadership.

BUSINESSTHINK:
Rules For Getting It Right - Now, And No Matter What by Dave Marcum, Steve Smith & Mahan Khalsa (Wiley, 288 pg, $24.95, ISBN 0471219932). High quality thinking results in high quality decisions, builds other people's trust in our judgment, leverages our abilities, and creates value in our careers and our companies. This author team from FranklinCovey describes the basics of sound business thinking using a sequence of eight commonsense rules, such as Check your ego at the door, Create curiosity, Come off solutions, Get
evidence, etc.

VOICE POWER:
Using Your Voice To Captivate, Persuade and Command Attention by Renee
Grant-Williams (Amacom, 196 pp, $17.95, ISBN 0814471056). This voice coach to popular singers, politicians, and other celebs shows how to speak for success in this practical guide to getting the most from your voice. The four-part paperback covers voice production, delivery, care, and specific advice for situations such as sales, voice mail, speeches, etc.

WORKING AT WARP SPEED:
The New Rules For Project Success In A Sped-Up World by Barry Flicker
(Berrett-Koehler, 115 pp, $16.95, ISBN 1576751465). Consultant Flicker explores the human barriers to project success in this fast reading paperback based on his "Project Game" training seminar. He shows how to get everyone working together with a "Warp Speed Game Plan" consisting of four simple laws based on inclusion, pacing, in-the-zone performance, and fulfillment.

MARKETING MOVES:
A New Approach To Profits, Growth, And Renewal by Philip Kotler, Dipak Jain, & Suvit Maesincee (Harvard Business School Press, 191 pp, $29.95, ISBN 1578516005). Marketing maven Kotler and colleagues continue to extend the traditional boundaries of their discipline, suggesting that marketing is "the driver of corporate strategy in the digital economy." Their concept of holistic marketing, which integrates demand, resource, and network management, is executed on four platforms: market offerings, marketing activities, business architecture, and operational systems.

BRIDGING THE BOOMER XER GAP:
Creating Authentic Teams For High Performance At Work by Hank Karp, Connie Fuller & Danilo Sirias (Davies-Black, 182 pp, $27.95, ISBN 0891061592). The way to bridge the generation gap in work teams is to understand the differences between age groups and focus on the unique abilities of each team member, say the authors. The result is "authentic teams." This book offers a four-phase process for building them, advice for coaching them, and conflict avoidance and resolution techniques.

MARTHA INC:
The Incredible Story Of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia by Christopher
Byron (Wiley, 402 pp, $27.95, ISBN 0471123005). Journalist Byron uncovers everything you ever wanted to know about Martha in this comprehensive look at her life and career. He finds a driven, clever, and emotionally volatile entrepreneur who turned an idealized version of her own life into a brand name and in the process, became the first self-made female billionaire.