Ruthless Execution: What Business Leaders Do When Their Companies Hit the Wall (Financial Times (Prentice Hall))

Today's business leaders need a radically different skill from their recent predecessors: they must know how to know how to manage through adversity while preparing their companies for a new rebirth of success. In Ruthless Execution, Amir Hartman, author of the bestselling NETREADY, identifies the central ingredients that help certain companies to get beyond the wall and thrive--and show how to instill these ingredients in your organization. You will learn when and how to recalibrate the balance between performance and growth; how to define a coherent, tightly-drawn business philosophy that maps to specific actions; new ways to promote accountability and business alignment; and how to use performance metrics without burying people in meaningless trivia. Also discover how to promote real discipline: the ability to get the job done quickly, efficiently, and effortlessly--without bureaucracy. Next, you learn how to develop stronger "critical capabilities" for understanding and managing complexity. Along the way, the authors present case studies of world-class enterprises that have used these strategies to achieve breakthrough success. Watch John Chambers maneuver Cisco through the telecom collapse; Lou Gerstner impose powerful new discipline at IBM; Harry Kraemer realign Baxter with transformed markets; Dan Vasella transform Novartis through mergers; and many more...all unified by one central factor: ruthless execution.