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eCustomerServiceWorld.com recommended reads
(NB Check out our Top Ten and our New Books as well!)Browse through and click on a title for a review. 
 | | Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness, A Philosophy for Leaders
Author: Peter Koestenbaum
UK Publisher: Jossey Bass Inc Publishers
ISBN: 0787959561
Quick Review:
In this thoroughly revised edition of his classic book he shares his wisdom about the fundamental nature of leadership and shows what it takes to become an exceptional and passionate leader in today's complex world. At the very heart of the book is his Leadership Diamond model-- a paradigm that challenges managers to transform their thinking and approach everything with fresh effectiveness in order to reap richer results and become great leaders.
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| | Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations
Author: Ken Blanchard
UK Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0132347725
Phil Dourado: There is some familiar material in Ken Blanchard’s newest book on leadership – from his ‘one minute praising’ from the One Minute Manager to his Decide, Discover, Deliver framework for coming up with a customer-centred vision and delivering it, from his other co-written classic, Raving Fans. Blanchard and his co-writers on this new book pull together the best of his past work and apply it to how to lead at a higher level. Blanchard is the doyen of servant-leadership, which is increasingly seen as THE way to lead a customer-centred organization. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Leading Change
Author: John Kotter
UK Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
ISBN: 0875847471
Amazon Book Description: This work provides advice for those confronting the challenge of leading organizational change. It examines the efforts of over 100 companies to improve their competitiveness. The most common mistakes made in attempting to create change are identified, and a process outlined to overcome obstacles.
What will it take to bring your organisation successfully into the twenty-first century? The world's foremost expert on business leadership distills twenty-five years of experience and wisdom based on lessons he has learned from scores of organisations and businesses to write this visionary guide.
The result is a very personal book that is at once inspiring, clear-headed, and filled with important implications for the future.
The pressures on organisations to change will only increase over the next decades. Yet the methods managers have used in the attempt to transform their companies into stronger competitors - total quality management, reengineering, right sizing, restructing, cultural change and turnarounds - routinely fall short, says Kotter, because they fail to alter behaviour.
Emphasising again and again, the critical need for leadership to make change happen, Leading Change provides the vicarious experience and positive role models for leaders to emulate. The book identifies an eight-step process that every company must go through to achieve its goal, and shows where and how people - good people - often derail.
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| | Leading for Growth: How Umpqua Bank became cool and created a culture of greatness
Author: Ray Davis, with Alan Schrader
UK Publisher: Jossey Bass
ISBN: 0787986070
From the book jacket: "When Ray Davis took over the local 40-person South Umpqua Bank in 1994, many people in the industry poked fun at his insistence that employees answer the phone with a cheery "World's Greatest Bank."
Eleven years, $7 billion in assets, and 128 branches (or " bank stores" in Umpqua lingo) later, the moniker seems quite apt. Other banks scratched their heads when Davis sent his tellers to Ritz-Carlton to learn customer service and were intrigued when he hired a cutting-edge design firm to completely re-think retail layout.
Now, with a top design award under their belt, a name change (there never was a North Umpqua bank), and a completely new definition of the banking business, Umpqua has become the darling of the entrepreneurial press and a growth powerhouse."
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| | Leading in a Culture of Change
Author: Michael Fullan
UK Publisher: Jossey Bass Wiley
ISBN: 0787953954
US Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0787953954
Quick Review: Good leadership is not innate-one must learn to lead by mastering five core competencies.
Business, nonprofit, and public sector leaders are facing new and daunting challenges-rapid-paced developments in technology, sudden shifts in the marketplace, and crisis and contention in the public arena. This book provides insights into the dynamics of change and the role of leadership in managing and coping with the change process. Leadership today requires the ability to mobilize constituents to do important but difficult work under conditions of constant change, overload, and fragmentation.
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| | Leading Teams
Author: J. Richard Hackman
UK Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
ISBN: 1578513332
Quick Review: Teams have more talent and experience, more diverse resources, and greater operating flexibility than individual performers. So why do so many teams either struggle unpleasantly toward an unsatisfactory conclusion-or, worse, crash and burn shortly after launch?
J. Richard Hackman, argues that the answer to this puzzle is rooted in flawed thinking about team leadership. It is not a leader's management style that determines how well a team performs, but how well a leader designs and supports a team so that members can manage themselves.
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| | Leading the Revolution
Author: Gary Hamel
UK Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
ISBN: 1578511895
Quick Review: Leading the Revolution begins by taking us through what Hamel describes as the End of Progress, whereby the evolution of industrial society is seen to be replaced by the revolution of the new economy. This change is underpinned by the rising expectations of the stakeholder economy: it is not enough to beat your last annual earnings, or be better than your competitor--the revolutionary company will be best of breed by every benchmark, nothing less. Failure to do so will leave you vulnerable to the other revolutionaries. Amazon.co.uk Review buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Leading the Way
Author: Robert Gandossy, Marc Effron
UK Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ISBN: 047148301X
Quick Review: Going far beyond a simplistic best-practices approach, Leading the Way shows how growing great leaders begins with understanding the type of leaders your business strategy demands. Gandossy and Effron offer stories, examples, and tactics that provide tangible, practical tools for leaders everywhere. They also highlight the secrets that allow the top companies to sustain their success. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Lean Solutions
Author: James Womack and Dan Jones
UK Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 0743277783
Amazon reviewer Robert Morris: “The focus is on "five simple principles" which can guide and inform any organization's efforts to achieve "process brilliance" in its product development, supplier management, customer support, and production processes. The principles are:
1. Provide the value actually desired by customers.
2. Identify the value stream for each product or service.
3. Get and keep each step of the value stream in proper alignment.
4. Enable the customer to "pull" rather than "push" maximum value from what you offer.
5. Once the value, value stream, flow, and pull are established, "start over from the beginning in an endless search for perfection, the happy situation of perfect value provided with zero waste."
In this context, I am reminded of Albert Einstein's emphasis on making everything as simple as possible...but no simpler. Lean initiatives should eliminate "fat" but not "muscle." Decision-makers in many organizations confuse rightsizing with downsizing.
In Lean Solutions, Womack and Jones identify what they characterize as "the emerging challenges of consumption" despite the availability of better, cheaper products." And this seems very strange when we stop to consider that satisfying consumption - not just making brilliant products - is the whole point of lean production." In response to challenges such as complicated purchase decisions because "consumers are often drowning in a sea of choices," they explain how to combine truly lean provision with truly lean consumption.
In process, Womack and Jones examine dozens of real-world examples of how various organizations have done so. When emerges is a new definition of value for today's consumer who insists that problems are solved completely, conveniently and without any waste of time. Moreover, today's consumer expects to receive exactly what she or he or wants, with value delivered where and when specified, with a substantial reduction of decisions which must be made to solve the given problem or fill the given need.
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| | Learning Paths: How to Increase Profits by Dramatically Reducing the Time It Takes for Employees to Get Up to Speed
Author: Steve Rosenbaum & Jim Williams
UK Publisher: 0787974447
ISBN: Pfeiffer
Quick Review: Learning Paths is a down-to-earth practical resource that is filled with illustrative examples, methods, techniques, strategies, processes, and tools for making company-wide, real-time training possible. Created to be flexible, the Learning Path approach can be customized to fit your organization no matter what its type or size. Learning Paths is divided into three sections:
The Learning Path Methodology: Walks the reader through the major steps and strategies needed for building Learning Paths.
Doing the Right Training: Offers a wide-range of strategies, methods and techniques that can be targeted to the training within a Learning Path and tied to an organization's particular business needs.
Do the Training Right: Shows how to ensure the training within a Learning Path is delivered in the most cost-effective manner and introduces methods for structuring training so that it transfers to the job easily and effectively.
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