There's a Customer Born Every Minute: P.T. Barnum's Amazing 10 "Rings of Power" for Creating Fame, Fortune, and a Business Empire Today -- Guaranteed Review

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There's a Customer Born Every Minute: P.T. Barnum's Amazing 10 "Rings of Power" for Creating Fame, Fortune, and a Business Empire Today -- Guaranteed ReviewI've reviewed The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth (or Anything Else) from the Inside Out and Buying Trances: A New Psychology of Sales and Marketing on Amazon, and I stand behind what I wrote in each of those reviews. "There's A Customer Born Every Minute" is of a different stripe. This book is what you get when Joe Vitale sets aside his aggressive, non-stop self marketing campaign for a moment and delivers a rich thesis on one of the greatest salespeople to ever walk the earth. For the record, Barnum did not say "There's a sucker born every minute." The quote actually comes from one of his competitors...Google it and see for yourself.
This book is more substantive and less "carrot-dangling" than some of Joe's other work. Jeffrey Gitomer provides the Foreword, and Vitale's book...coupled with Gitomer's own recent Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching: 32.5 Strategies to Ring Your Own (Cash) Register in Business and Personal Success (Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Books) (itself a "revised and updated" version of his "Patterson Principles of Selling," based on the late-1800s sales creed of the president of the National Cash Register Company), would nicely complement any modern-era sales volumes on your bookshelf.
I'm going out on a limb here and say that Joe probably reads his Amazon reviews. So, Mr. Vitale, here's my direct message to you. You would provide greater value and a greater level of service to your loyal customers if you offered more stand-alone books such as this one and fewer items that are merely a conduit to purchasing your other products. Thank you for this book, and while your readers learn the lessons contained within, hopefully you will learn a lesson or two yourself.
The book also reprints Barnum's "The Art of Money Getting," a speech contained in his 1869 autobiography "Struggles and Triumphs," and "Barnum's Rules for Success," an article he wrote in 1852 which later appeared in the 1855 edition of his biography.
In closing, once again, I want to clearly state that this isn't an open invitation to begin accumulating the collective works of Joe Vitale. This book is an exception to the rule he's created himself. It's worth owning and I recommend it. Beyond this book, caveat emptor.There's a Customer Born Every Minute: P.T. Barnum's Amazing 10 "Rings of Power" for Creating Fame, Fortune, and a Business Empire Today -- Guaranteed Overview

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Southwest Airlines (Corporations That Changed the World) Review

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Southwest Airlines (Corporations That Changed the World) ReviewWow! Who knew Southwest Airlines has been around for so long? And what an interesting history of their innovative thinking in getting off the ground!
This book made me want to work at Southwest! But in the meantime, it inspired me to strive to become a better employee in my current job. My commitment to flying Southwest has strengthened as well.
What a great company, brought about by inspired leaders!Southwest Airlines (Corporations That Changed the World) Overview

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The Expert's Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn to Every Time Review

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The Expert's Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn to Every Time ReviewThere is an old expression that says that knowledge is power. Yet, if no one knows you have the knowledge, does it matter? Ken Lizotte, with his concept of being a thought leader, helps experts create market visibility that they could never achieve on their own. He also helps experts come out of the shadows and into the limelight. Having knowledge is one thing. Being recognized as an expert is another. The knowledgeable starve while the thoughtleaders thrive!
- Lee Salz, author of Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales ManagerThe Expert's Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn to Every Time Overview

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Lead With Your Customer: Transform Culture and Brand into World-Class Excellence Review

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Lead With Your Customer: Transform Culture and Brand into World-Class Excellence ReviewMany business leaders view their corporate culture and their brand image as two separate entities. To achieve "world-class excellence," executives should treat these as two sides of the same coin. Former Walt Disney Company executives Mark David Jones and J. Jeff Kober outline their "World-Class Excellence Model," which encompasses service concepts any organization can use to deliver exceptional customer service and engender employee loyalty. The authors offer case studies from successful companies, including Disney and Apple. These ideas aren't novel, but getAbstract finds that the book demonstrates how to apply them to your firm.Lead With Your Customer: Transform Culture and Brand into World-Class Excellence Overview

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The Hidden Power of Your Customers: 4 Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers Review

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The Hidden Power of Your Customers: 4 Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers ReviewIn the introduction to "The Hidden Power of Your Customers", Becky Carroll encourages readers to use a highlighter as they read. By the end of the book, I had more yellow highlighter throughout than untouched pages. The book is full of practical advice about unleashing the power of existing customers to: go from satisfied customers to ones with deep affinity, increase their LTV, spread word of mouth and drive referals. The book contains case studies, checklists, metrics and more. I particularly liked the core consept that brands spend the bulk of their marketing dollars on finding new customers and fail to unlock the value of existing customers. In this age when companies confuse followers or fans with true brand asdvocates, it is refreshing to read about a process that makes customers the focus. Not only do "Customers Rock" but so does this book.The Hidden Power of Your Customers: 4 Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers Overview

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America's Service Meltdown: Restoring Service Excellence in the Age of the Customer Review

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America's Service Meltdown: Restoring Service Excellence in the Age of the Customer ReviewWith the first decade of the XXI century behind us, it was to be expected for organizations to have already achieved excellence in regards to customer service, since it seemed to be a must toward the end of the last century.

Mr. Pupo's book shows with amazing clarity how far a lot of organizations still are from offering an excellent customer service (the reader will no doubt feel identified with some of the situations presented), highlighting the fact that in order to achieve excellence in this subject, a strong resolve to want to make it happen must be present in the highest levels of an organization. Additionally, this conviction to customer service must be present in the organization's mission statement, objectives and strategies, as well as its policies and operational and management processes, particularly in its human resources, with special emphasis on its frontline workers. NEVERTHELESS, what is most important is for high-level executives and managers to be genuinely convinced about the need to perfect customer orientation and to show it in their day-to-day activities and decision-making.
Mr. Pupo's book analyzes the behavior of organizations in terms of being or not customer centered. At the same time, it is warning for the future, in terms of Mr. Pupo, because in this age of the Internet and digital communication, each day that goes by the costumer role changes from being someone subdued to becoming a demanding client with higher power.
Organizations planning to remain in this global market will have to reconsider their real interest on zeroing in their focus on the customer and, for those organizations, Mr. Pupo's book will no doubt be an excellent starting point.
America's Service Meltdown: Restoring Service Excellence in the Age of the Customer Overview

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Discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success Review

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Discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success ReviewCorporate research has become quite popular towards the end of the 20th Century, and Professor Berry has dome a masterful job of centering his on present day champs of the service sector. Amidst surprising and inspirational stories of these 14 top service companies, Berry weaves a compelling study of nine capacities that, apparently, guarantee the success of a service business. Many of the lessons parallel current business management advice, but a few transcend simple processes and get at the emotional environment that keeps employees and the company motivated about and focused clearly on the long-term success of the enterprise. A great read, this volume is indispensible for managers and owners of service businesses that intend to sustain longevity.Discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success Overview

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Pay Attention: How to Listen, Respond, and Profit from Customer Feedback Review

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Pay Attention: How to Listen, Respond, and Profit from Customer Feedback ReviewPay Attention!: How to Listen, Respond, and Profit from Customer Feedback"Over the weekend I read the "Pay Attention" book. It is excellent. The overriding message that I heard is that there is a "new way to navigate" when it comes to providing customer service in today's rapidly changing marketplace, and we all need to pay serious attention to it. This is a must-read.Pay Attention: How to Listen, Respond, and Profit from Customer Feedback Overview

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Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter Review

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Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter Review
In this volume, John Fleming and Jim Asplund present and then examine with both rigor and eloquence what they characterize as "a new set of rules and a different way of thinking about managing [a] company's complex human systems, which we believe can serve as an antidote to Terminator Management. It's about a model and an approach that we call HumanSigma."
Many of those who read this brief commentary have seen the second Arnold Schwarzenegger film in which the Terminator acknowledges to John O'Connor (portrayed by Edward Furlong) that he has been programmed not to think. Fleming and Asplund suggest that is also true of a common management style, "an institutional mind-set that views people - customers and employees - as a necessary evil, a nuisance, or in extreme cases, as adversaries in doing business. Rather than viewing people as the reason a business exists, the Terminator School of Management views them as impediments to business that breed inefficiency, cost, and errors."
They offer HumanSigma as an alternative, indeed an antidote to that mind-set. They characterize it as a "map of the terrain" within which employee-customer encounters occur. They recommend five "new rules" that are best revealed within the narrative, in context. These rules have been validated by studies of 10 million customers and 10 million customers around the globe. They note that a recent Gallup study of 89 companies showed that the companies that built a critical mass of engaged employees grew earnings per share at 2.6 times the rate of low-engagement companies. Fleming and Asplund's conclude their book with the assertion that people who own their improvement makes them "more innovative, productive, and confident. Are there a better set of characteristics for companies facing an unknown future? We think not, and millions of employees and customers agree." As do I.
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Paul Spiegelman's Why Is Everyone Smiling? The Secret Behind Passion, Productivity, and Profit.Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter Overview

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Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services Review

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Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services ReviewService Innovation is a powerful and very practical book. Unlike most books or training on innovation, Bettencourt's book does NOT start with an existing product concept that needs to be improved or a process for brainstorming ideas for radical innovations. Instead, he offers the basic but profound notion that the innovation process needs to start with a clear understanding of the job (or jobs) that the customer is trying to get done, including specific aspects ("outcomes") of performing that job. Only by starting with the customer job as the unit of analysis -- which reveals the reasons why the customer would prefer to hire one solution over another -- can the innovator fundamentally change the hit-or-miss, low probability nature of innovation that starts with a solution in mind.
This idea -- the customer job as the unit of analysis -- is consistent with Clayton Christensen's perspective that customers "hire" products and services to get jobs done. What gives Bettencourt's book its power is that it walks the reader through a very systematic process for uncovering all aspects of the customer job (using a "job map"), along with a process for determining which aspects are important to customers and, of those important aspects, which are currently well-satisfied by current solutions and which offer high opportunity as a focus for innovation. So rather than innovating a service (which usually means incremental tweaking), the firm can innovate improved solutions for doing customer jobs. Rather than hoping the new solution might be valued by customers, the firm can demonstrate how the new solution addresses important, yet currently unmet needs.
Although the book is focused on service innovation, filling a gap in the market, its insights are equally applicable to product innovation.
All in all, an excellent book.Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services Overview

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The Amazement Revolution: Seven Customer Service Strategies to Create an Amazing Customer (and Employee) Experience Review

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The Amazement Revolution: Seven Customer Service Strategies to Create an Amazing Customer (and Employee) Experience ReviewReally didn't like the book. It's easy to say do all these great things, it's another matter to know how to implement the strategies. The author focused on the results (which are obvious) rather than the process (much harder). Also, the style of the book was really hard to follow. Overall, to me this was a waste of my money compared to other books I've read on the subject of delivering "Amazing" to the customer.The Amazement Revolution: Seven Customer Service Strategies to Create an Amazing Customer (and Employee) Experience Overview

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Brand Against the Machine: How to Build Your Brand, Cut Through the Marketing Noise, and Stand Out from the Competition Review

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Brand Against the Machine: How to Build Your Brand, Cut Through the Marketing Noise, and Stand Out from the Competition ReviewMy thoughts on this bookBrand Against the Machine: How to Build Your Brand, Cut Through the Marketing Noise, and Stand Out from the Competition Overview

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Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic: Inside One of the World's Most Admired Service Organizations Review

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Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic: Inside One of the World's Most Admired Service Organizations ReviewMayo Clinic is part of the American vernacular, and synonymous with excellence in health care. Did you ever wonder how the organization achieved such remarkable level of awareness inarguable brand associations? In Berry and Seltman's book, you'll learn that it had little to do with promotion, and everything to do with values. Preservation of the values of the Drs. Mayo is baked into the "product" of Mayo Clinic, which, of course, is a service.
If you are in the service industry, then you know that product features are defined by the service experience, and the benefits are determined by customer satisfaction. Both are intangibles.
Mayo Clinic has applied manufacturing process improvement (Six Sigma, LEAN, et al) to healthcare systems to improve the patient experience. For in the end, Mayo's management understands that the patient outcomes define product quality, and patient satisfaction is the promotion.
With all the hoopla today surrounding social media and marketing, an interesting sidebar to this book is the realization that Mayo's brand was built entirely through social networks; patients travel around the world for treatment at the clinic, and return home to tell the tale to friends and family. Quite obviously, the majority of the stories told have been positive. This book helps us to understand why.Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic: Inside One of the World's Most Admired Service Organizations Overview

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The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social Review

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The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social ReviewIn case you've been living in a cave, Jay Baer and Amber Naslund have teamed up and published The NOW Revolution - 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social.
Their new book has been receiving rave reviews and I received a copy with the understanding that I would share my thoughts after reading it...
There is a high probability that this book will frustrate you.
Yes... frustrate you, but follow me here. Jay and Amber have decided to tackle the challenge businesses are facing to adjust to being social and not just doing social. For those of us in or around the "social" industry, we completely grasp this concept.
The NOW Revolution is organized into seven sections - the 7 shifts mentioned in the title. Each shift walks us through the process of becoming social, scalable and sustainable. There are action items, questions, summaries and plenty of additional documents linked via Microsoft Tag technology.
But, you're wondering why this book may frustrate you.
Most companies are not social.
Even the companies that do social.
Most companies have processes and organizational hierarchies that inhibit being social.
If you have a finger on the pulse of where you work... there is a good chance that reading an actionable guide of what you should or can do to infuse social into your business will lead you to the conclusion How the *$&^ am I going to make this happen?
Being a social company is not a fluffy thing. It isn't a trendy thing. It isn't creating cool content that is sharable. It is changing the entire culture of your organization and embracing the fact that there are TONS of things out of your control.
If this was an easy thing to do, we wouldn't need a book, guide, agency or consultant to help.
What will you get out of The NOW Revolution?
- Lots of ideas for things to do within the workplace
- A better understanding of scaling social
- What to look for and cultivate in employees to become more social
- How to handle real-time crises
- A more in-depth knowledge of what listening and monitoring really means
- Potentially frustrated, depressed or overwhelmed trying to make this happen
Again, I'd like to reinforce the fact that if this was easy... every company would be social. This book when read, understood and placed in the correct hands can be a catalyst to help you start the process of becoming social.
Who should read this?
- Ambitious, social savvy folks that don't mind overcoming adversity
- Executives who don't want to be years behind the curve (hint: you're already a few behind)
- Agencies and consultants that are tasked with improving or creating social strategies and business units
This book isn't a get rich quick scheme. It isn't a guide to monetize your blog. It isn't a direct aide to your personal brand. It isn't something one person can read and do themselves. However, this book is one that can be passed around to a few key folks and used as a guide to restructure, revamp, create or destroy business practices and processes.
The NOW Revolution is one of the better books I've seen to tackle the business and organizational challenges of social media and give you a roadmap to improve things.The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social Overview

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Unleashing Excellence: The Complete Guide to Ultimate Customer Service Review

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Unleashing Excellence: The Complete Guide to Ultimate Customer Service ReviewCustomer service is similar to Motherhood and Apple Pie. Organizations that deliver outstanding customer service as an integral part of their business operation build customer loyalty and bottom line strength. Those that don't...well, we all know that bad customer service can destroy a company, or at least severely limit its potential.
This knowledge is legendary. Techniques for delivering good customer service are well-known. This is not brain surgery. Why another book on the ubiquitous topic?
First, note the title. The book title doesn't talk about Excellent Customer Service or You Will Be Fired if You Aren't Nice to Our Customers. The Unleashing Excellence title-and theme of the book-is directed toward senior executives. Customer service is a corporate strategy that needs to be led from the top. This book needs to be read by senior executives that allege that they don't have time to read it. The downside of mediocre customer service can be career-limiting to executives who don't pay attention to this critical component of their company's business.
The authors, both formerly part of the Walt Disney leadership development programs, are now in private practice. They are active consultants-to a wide range of employers-on customer service issues. In their work, they apply what they learned at Disney and other employment experiences to deliver an executive-targeted message. Toward this end, the book is easy to read, includes shaded call-out boxes, Action Steps and Pitfalls to Avoid at the end of each chapter. The book's concluding chapter presents nine leadership actions to guide readers in strengthening their customer service delivery. A comprehensive index makes the book even more reader-friendly.
Readers will benefit from a continual flow of best practice stories from many employment settings. Many of the examples of good work come from the authors' clients. These illustrations serve to enhance and illuminate the content to bring the traditional concepts to life in ways that leaders can read the book and initiate appropriate actions for individual and organizational improvement. Several sections of the book stand out in my mind, but all chapters are filled with ideas, thought-provoking discussions, and anecdotes to bring the concepts to life.
Yes (sigh), this is ANOTHER customer service book. Do we need more books on this topic? Some of us are beginning to feel overstuffed with this topic---like the bloated feeling we get after a huge Thanksgiving dinner. Thankfully, this book serves a specific purpose of providing how-to advice and insights for executives and managers to consider and implement. Use it as a tool to stimulate customer service conversations in your organization as you inspire increasingly high attention to incredible customer service as a part of your corporate DNA.Unleashing Excellence: The Complete Guide to Ultimate Customer Service Overview

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How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market Review

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How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market ReviewFew would have any argument with the central thesis of this book. Most new products fail rapidly in unexpected ways, suggesting that a misunderstanding of what is required by customers is part of the problem. Professor Zaltman goes on to suggest that his patented approach to considering more aspects of customer thinking (especially emotion, associations and context) can help improve matters.
The book argues successfully that most marketing research methods are misused (usually by being applied to solve the wrong class of problem). He also does a fine job of explaining how marketers' attitudes and opinions create myopia that prevents them from learning what they need to know.
There is extensive material in the book about how the brain works in the context of purchasing decisions. For those who are familiar with brain research, there is little new here.
As someone who has worked in marketing research for over 30 years, I found the explanation of how to do better to be abstract and often counter to my own experience with extensive one-on-one open-ended interviews. Let me share a few examples. First, he states that consensus maps (a graphic expression of the universal considerations and order that consumers go through to make a purchasing decision) of how consumers think almost always emerge after 10 interviews . . . far short of statistical norms. That finding made me wonder if the maps are done too abstractly to capture the richness of customer thinking. Second, all of the examples of specific brands seemed to relate to an adult making a decision with the item in front of her or him. Yet, many consumers arrive at the grocery store (for example, since much of the book is about food products) with a shopping list in hand. Are consensus maps the same for self purchase as for purchase for others? The book doesn't seem to address that point. If the items are to be purchased for another family member, how do the different consensus maps overlap and affect one another? Third, the book doesn't do much to address how misimplementation of new products and marketing strategies causes failure. In my experience, that problem is greater than a lack of understanding of how customers think. Fourth, the incentives in most marketing organizations favor using marketing research to locate reasons to justify a marketer's decisions. Professor Zaltman acknowledges this, but doesn't really address how to institutionally change the culture. His suggestions presume that everyone is more interested in promoting company results than protecting individual careers while the opposite is often the case. Fifth, the real weakness in most organizations is that the head of marketing research has an insufficient background in the subject to make the right suggestions and to persuade management to follow those suggestions. That problem isn't addressed at all. Sixth, the best applications for this kind of research are for services . . . yet there were few examples of services compared to food items. In services, you have more things you can change and the potential for improvement is greater. The strength of the book mostly comes in the service examples (which are often overly disguised).
The book also has a tone that I did not like. It seems to suggest that no one had ever developed thinking process maps or used depth one-on-one interviews before this patented process was developed. Many aspects of the concepts described here were in broad scale application in companies that I have worked with over 30 years ago. Many of these companies belonged to the Marketing Science Institute, with which Harvard (where Professor Zaltman practices) has long had a close association. In addition, those who have employed these concepts are universally praised. That was strange, because many of them have pulled some of the biggest errors that violate these principles. For example, the research on new Coke was flawed by not telling consumers that the existing Coca-Cola would be removed from the market. Yet Coca-Cola is cited universally as an example of advanced marketing research.
The book also comes across as a sales pitch far too often. That is almost unprecedented in my experience in reading a book from a professor. The same marketing research organizations are used as examples over and over again. You are also told that one way to get these good results is to hire a "wizard," which is presumably one of these firms. Wouldn't it make more sense to develop a proprietary skill in this area so that competitors would have less chance to learn what you find out?
Finally, the reports of success seem unconvincing. They are based on self-reported satisfaction with short-term results. Now, if you've hired someone to help you and spent a lot of money to do so, even the most inexperienced market researcher knows that there will be a bias towards reporting positive results. Also, paid market researchers will share their "best" results, rather than their average or below average results. I was left wondering what the long term benefits are, and what the average expectation can be.

Despite these reservations, I think most marketing executives will benefit from the book's discussions of what types of marketing research to use for what types of issues. But the total of that information could have been captured in a magazine article.
Both marketing executives and researchers will benefit from chapter 12.
Those who purchase or use marketing research would do well to become familiar with this book.
I hope that Professor Zaltman will write another book in the future that will be more helpful to marketing research professionals. It has always been the case that 99% of the profession is engaged in doing repetitive tracking research. With few looking into creative research to better develop new products, improve brands and enhance the lives of customers, we need to develop a larger cadre of well-trained individuals interested in these challenges if we are to ultimately improve on the dismal record of failure in making improvements.How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market Overview

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Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top Review

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Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top Review
In the Introduction to this book, Quint Studer makes the following assertion: "Standardize the right leadership practices and you will find that organizational performance improves across the board...and stays improved." More specifically, results-driven leadership at all levels and in all areas will achieve and then sustain outstanding performance throughout the given enterprise. That's obvious. Here's the challenge: To get the right goals, the right behavior, and the right processes in proper alignment. More specifically:

1. Have stretch goals that everyone understands and supports, then measure performance in terms of progress toward achievement of those goals. At all times, know what is most important and focus on doing it.
2. View behavior from two separate but related perspectives: values and productivity. At companies such as GE and Southwest Airlines, for example, there is zero tolerance of inappropriate behavior no matter how productive the given offender may be. At the same time, people are expected to produce results (Jack Welch calls it "hitting the numbers") or seek career opportunities elsewhere.
Note: I agree with Studer that the behavior of all supervisors must be "standardized," at least to the extent that they have impeccable character, know their stuff, provide constructive criticism whenever it is needed, earn and remain worthy of trust, and do everything humanly possible and appropriate in the best interests of those entrusted to their care. That said, allowances must be made for differences in personality, lifestyle decisions, avocations, etc.
3. Make all processes as simple as possible...but no simpler. Many processes streets that remain essentially unchanged (except for occasional repairs) even as residents of homes, merchants and their customers, and students enrolled in schools come and go. This is especially true of the process by which an organization such as the U.S. Marines develops leadership. "Many are called, a few are chosen" and then all receive rigorous formal training with hands-on daily supervision as they are absorbed by the culture and identify with its values, meanwhile strengthening individual skills, enriching personal knowledge, and - over time - adding increasing value to the organization.
According to Studer, "Evidence-based leadership (EBL) enables us to create results that last. What is EBL? It's a strategy centered on using the current `best practices' in leadership - practices that are proven to redsult in the best possible outcomes. The `evidence,' in this context, is the reams of data collected from study after study that aim to determine what people really want and need from their leaders. When leaders apply these tried-and-true tactics to every corner of our organizations, we achieve consistent excellence. Our organization's success is no longer dependent on individuals. It's hardwired. No matter who leaves, the excellence remains."
Throughout his narrative, Studer explains how EBL enables those who practice it to identify and deal with "High, Middle, and Low Performers," recognize the five critical elements employees want from managers, "manage up" to improve the performance of those they supervise, measure performance fairly and consistently, improve employee selection and retention, "harvest" intellectual capital, take a customer-centric approach, and build a culture around service, and serve as a role model for effective communication, cooperation, and collaboration.
Well-done!
Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check out Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management co-authored by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton as well as their earlier book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action as well as Edward Lawler's Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage, Robert Mittelstaedt's Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?: Avoiding the Chain of Mistakes Which Can Destroy Your Company, Michael Levine's Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards, George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker's Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company, and Sydney Finkelstein's Why Smart Executives Fail and What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes.Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top Overview

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The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Review

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The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Review"New Gold Standard" is a super, if slightly older, book on a really important subject: The Ritz-Carlton is one of the organizations whose methodology has truly transformed our understanding of what customer service quality and consistency can be.
I recommend "The New Gold Standard, especially if you're in the hotel business; Michelli, who also wrote The Starbucks Experience, is a consultant who did a great job writing it. I don't agree with the catty comments on this page that its writing style is sleep-inducing, etc. -- I guess they're complaining because it's written in an academic style and is maybe overly deferential to the owners of the Ritz (hey, it is an "official" history). Nonetheless, in my opinion it is still full of many well organized details and a helpful book for anyone in hospitality. Some of the strong points in particular are the historical overview and the interviews Michelli includes.
(One note to be aware of: There's now also a newer book on practical applications of Ritz-Carlton customer service and management techniques that's just come out this May; I really enjoyed it a lot. I got a lot out of this newer book ("Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit"); it's by the founder of the Ritz Carlton Leadership Center along with Horst Schulze, the Founding President of The Ritz. They collaborate with an entrepreneur/systems expert from *outside* of the hospitality industry; this allows them to cover management issues in a lot of depth and in fields that are often far removed from just hotel-industry topics. Here's the link: Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization.
The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Overview

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