Average Rating: 
Rating:  - What a Disappointment!
Let me start by saying that I really wanted to like this book. The subject matter is critically important and the quality of Larry Bossidy's career would give a reader every reason to believe that this book would be the real deal. The unfortunate reality, however, is that the writing is impenetrable and the book's organization is non-existent. One can only wonder about the extent of Bossidy's involvement; it's difficult to believe that it was more than cursory. I mean, how could someone so renowned for execution fail so spectacularly to execute the task of writing a coherent book?I won't catalog all of the book's faults since these reviews are limited to 1,000 words. A particularly irksome one, however, is the repeated, blatantly self-promotional references from and about the co-author that were bludgeoned into the manuscript. Almost as annoying is the abysmal quality of the writing. I've written a couple of business books myself, so I'm somewhat familiar with the process. It is amazing to me that this mush made it through any sort of editing process. Finally, let me just observe that it is unbelievable to me that anyone could be so humorless and/or clueless as to write a book titled "Execution" and not reference the classic quote on the subject from the late John McKay, former head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. (If you've never heard it, email me and I'd be happy to share it with you.) Business readers are usually confronted with their own unique version of Hobbes' choice: You can choose an author who is knowledgeable but boring, or you can pick a buffoon like Tom Peters who is engaging and entertaining but has no idea what he's talking about. There's no question that Bossidy knows what he's talking about. Unfortunately, you'd be hard pressed to wade through the morass of this book's dense and unfocussed prose to find out what he has to say.
Rating:  - Nothing new or original
I did not find anything new or original in this book. The authors start off talking about "The Gap Nobody Knows" (by Gap they mean Execution) and go on to say that "countless companies are less than they could be because of poor execution, and the gap between promises and results is widespread and clear ... as if no one has ever heard about the words strategy and implementation and execution before. I don't know of a single manager worth his/her salt who hasn't heard and doesn't know about the importance of execution. The authors try to grab attention by coining and explaining terms like asset velocity which is just another name for asset turnover ... a metric that has been in existence almost as long as accounting itself. They spend an inordinate amount of time explaining how and why Dell Computer Corporation has a low cost structure and efficient operations - as if we hadn't already heard this from numerous sources over all the decades that Dell has been in business. They pontificate that "unless you translate big thoughts into concrete steps for action, they're pointless," and use negativisms like "if you don't know how to execute, the whole of your effort as a leader will always be less than the sum of its parts." All these are age old ideas already beaten to death in business literature. I couldn't find anything new or original. This book might be worth spending your time on if you have never read another management book and don't know how to search for a really good one either.
Rating:  - Execution = success
Execution is a great book! It is a must read for anyone serious about business. The authors define execution as follows "Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing the hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through and ensuring accountability."Execution provides a systematic framework for making sure strategy and execution go hand in hand to get results. The authors describe the three core processes that make up execution as the people process, the strategy process, and the operations process. Unless there is alignment in these processes there will not be effective execution. The book goes into a great level of detail on each of these processes and Larry Bossidy provides some great examples of how these processes work at GE and Honeywell. To prove their case the authors show a couple of very high profile execution success and failures. In light of many high level business failures recently it seems clear that these companies did not have a culture of execution nor were their top executives involved in how the company actually ran. The bottom line is that execution is a great book with great advice on getting things done and establishing accountability for results. Buy this book!
|
