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Breakthrough!: How Great Companies Set Outrageous Objectives - And Achieve Them

Breakthrough!: How Great Companies Set Outrageous Objectives - And Achieve Them

by Bill Davidson (Author)

  • New

    Hardcover 2003

    $32.00
Synopsis

Breakthrough will help executives lead their teams to peerless, unsurpassed performance by helping them define a grand goal and engage the organization to pursue and achieve that goal, no matter how difficult the challenge seems. Based on a ten-year landmark study of more than seventy bold, breakthrough companies such as IBM, Dayton-Hudson, Progressive Insurance, EMC, American Standard, Charles Schwab, and Dell Computer, the book shows how these remarkable companies adopted outrageous objectives and then did what it takes to achieve remarkable results.

$32.00

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 244
 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 25 Nov 2003
ISBN 10: 0471454400
ISBN 13: 9780471454403

Media Reviews
Walking in the footsteps of Jim Collins's business bestseller Good to Great, Davidson (The Amazing Race) offers a prescription for corporate greatness based on his study of more than 7 high-performing companies. But while Good to Great focused on lesser-known firms, this volume looks to blue chips like IBM, Dell, Schwab, Caterpillar and ADS. Davidson's premise is that breakthrough companies achieve what they do by setting outrageous objectives and pursuing them with single-minded intensity. The go-for-broke, swing-for-the-bleachers approach that he favors means that there are plenty of intriguing innovations on display. For example, Progressive Insurance vowed to deliver the fastest claim resolution to auto policyholders and-taking that idea to its outrageous conclusion - broke the industry mold by putting claims agents in vans, ready to go at a moment's notice to meet a customer at the scene of an accident. However, the emphasis here is not on storytelling but on building a case for the breakthrough approach that can apply to the reader's own business. What's most impressive is that the companies cited are by and large established players who've radically transformed their operations, rather than startups that begin with a clean slate. Overall, Davidson's argument is credible and logical; the trouble is, it's a little too familiar. So much has been written about corporate transformations through technology or re-engineering during and after the Internet bubble that it's hard to muster a sense of excitement or discovery. In the end, this is a worthy title, but one that lacks the breakthrough spark of visionary thinking to take it to the next level. (Nov.) ( Publishers Weekly, November 3, 2003)
Author Bio
BILL DAVIDSON was a tenured professor of management at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California from 1985 to 1998. He is the author of several other books on management, including The Amazing Race and 2020 Vision (with Stan Davis), which was selected as Best Business Book of the Year by Fortune magazine in 1992. He is Chairman of MESA Research (www.mesaresearchgroup.com), a strategy and leadership services group.