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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. 
 | | Pop: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company
Author: Constance L. Hays
UK Publisher: Hutchinson
ISBN: 0091799686
US Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0375505628
Quick Review: New York Times reporter Constance L. Hays examines the 116-year history of Coke by describing the charismatic, driven men who, generation after generation, made Coke the world's best-known brand: the Cuban exile who worked his way up the company to become chief executive is just one of the senior managers whose grip on the company led it down extraordinary paths. Starting with its creation after the Civil War and continuing with its dominion of the domestic and world-wide soft drink business, the story of Coke is one of opportunity, hope, teamwork and love as well as salesmanship, hubris, ambition and greed.
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| | Positively Outrageous Service
Author: T. Scott Gross
UK Publisher: Warner Books
ISBN: 0446394688
Quick Review: Just ‘good’ service is no longer enough. You need to shoot for POS (‘Positively…’ you get the picture) buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time
Author: Howard Schultz
UK Publisher: Hyperion Books
ISBN: 0786883561
Quick Review: The original chairman and CEO of Starbucks relates how he and his team built a small Seattle company into a nationwide business phenomenon. Since 1987, Starbucks' star has been on the rise, growing from 11 Seattle, WA-based stores to more than 1,000 worldwide. Its goals grew, too, from the more modest, albeit fundamental one of offering high-quality coffee beans roasted to perfection to, more recently, opening a new store somewhere every day. An exemplary success story, Starbucks is identified with innovative marketing strategies, employee-ownership programs, and a product that's become a subculture. Links:
Take a sip of the Starbucks’ story by reading Tony Mosely’s article on them in our eArticles store. Then, having sampled, quench your thirst by clicking through to buy Howie’s book buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Power of Ultimate Six Sigma(r), The: Keki Bhote's Proven System for Moving Beyond Quality Excellence to Total
Author: Keki R. Bhote
UK Publisher: AMACOM
ISBN: 0814407595
Quick Review:
Developed by Motorola and popularized by Jack Welch and GE, Six Sigma remains today's hottest program for "zero defect" quality excellence. Now, Keki Bhote, member of the original Motorola team, presents an undiluted approach, applying his trademarked "Ultimate Six Sigma(r)" method to every business process -- from manufacturing and customer retention to supply chain management and leadership.
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| | Power Thinking
Author: John Mangieri, Cathy Collins Block
UK Publisher: Jossey Bass Wiley
ISBN: 078796882X
Quick Review: Power Thinking offers the information you need to evaluate your current thinking proficiencies, determine areas for improvement, and enhance your thinking skills. The book includes the Yale Assessment of Thinking, a standardized assessment measure that enables you to determine your abilities in the cognitive domains found to be crucial to being an outstanding leader. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Practical Benchmarking
Author: Sarah Cook
UK Publisher: Kogan
ISBN: 0749422270
Quick ReviewBenchmarking, the process of identifying, understanding and adapting outstanding business practices, is rapidly proving itself to be an essential management tool. Whether it is being used as part of a formal quality management system, a convenient measure of business performance or as a well-structured means to improving competitiveness, benchmarking now affects many departments in a broad variety of companies. The tThis step-by-step guide to implementing a benchmarking system within an organization explains in details the practicalities of benchmarking and assesses the value of and differences between the four main types of benchmarking: internal benchmarking; competitive benchmarking; non-competitive benchmarking; and best practice/world class benchmarking. It includes detailed cases examples of benchmarking in practice and an action checklist that managers can apply to their own organizations. Links:
Read Sarah’s articles within the ‘People Management’ and ‘Strategic
Customer Service’ section of our eArticles Store.
For further information visit Sarah’s company – The Stairway
Consultancy – within the eProducts and Services Store. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Practice What You Preach : What Managers Must Do to Create a High-Achievement Culture
Author: David H. Maister
UK Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 0743211871
Quick Review:In Practice what You Preach the author is able to show that in many companies it truly is "attitudes that drive financial results, and not (predominantly) the other way round." On a pragmatic level, this allows him to demonstrate how a energized workforce will provide top-quality client service--the key component in any service-oriented business. Overall, Maister recommends managers instill trust and respect, develop a high morale, and serve as "coaches" rather than "most valuable players." He offers detailed case studies of survey respondents, and amalgamates their replies into an explicit Path to Performance as well as four chapters with specific lessons that should be transferable to other enterprises (i.e., effective managers allow others to get deserved credit, ensure workers believe management is not only out to make a lot of money for itself, and understand employees are looking for help in growing their careers). Practical and accessible, it also includes survey specifics for those who care to analyze them on their own. --Howard Rothman buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Practice What You Preach!
Author: David Maister
UK Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 0743211871
Quick Review: David H Maister, a specialist in the management of professional service firms, surveyed 29 in 15 countries to determine whether positive employee attitudes really correlate to corporate success. He offers detailed case studies as well as four chapters with specific lessons that should be transferable to other enterprises (i.e., effective managers allow others to get deserved credit, ensure workers believe management is not only out to make a lot of money for itself and understand employees are looking for help in growing their careers). Practical and accessible, it also includes survey specifics for those who care to analyse them on their own. --Howard Rothman buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Precision Marketing: the New Rules for Attracting, Retaining and Leveraging Profitable Customers
Author: Philip Kotler (Foreword), Zabin
UK Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ISBN: 0471467618
Quick Review: Based on extensive research and their own experience working with some of the world's largest and most progressive marketing organizations, Jeff Zabin and co-author Gresh Brebach show how precision marketing can yield enormous business value. Writing in an engaging style that touches on everything from Renaissance thinking to Minority Report, they provide a definitive roadmap for combining precision marketing with mass marketing to cut costs, grow revenues, and create an overall competitive advantage. buy UK() buy US($)
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| | Presence
Author: Peter Senge et al
UK Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1857883551
Phil Dourado: I must admit that this book is on my desk waiting to be read. But, I have heard great reports on it from people whose opinion I respect, such as Johnnie Moore ( who comments on it in his blog, www.johnniemoore.com/blog )
Here are Johnnie’s comments on the book:
“The chapter on presence as a form of leadership is one of the strongest for me. It articulates a non-heroic idea of leadership that I really agree with. Here's the nub of the argument, as articulated by co-author Betty Sue Flowers:
One of the roadblocks for groups moving forward now is thinking that they have to wait for a leader to emerge - someone who embodies the future path. But I think what we've been learning... is that the future can emerge within the group itself, not embodied in a 'hero' or traditional 'leader.' ... we have to nurture a new form of leadership that doesn't depend on extraordinary individuals.
I found her quite eloquent on behalf of on older wisdom of leadership that emphasised the cultivation of awareness:
The old idea that those in positions to influence such organizations' power must be committed to cultivation or moral development has all but completely disappeared... the ancient Greeks and Chinese believed such cultivation required a lifetime of dedicated work... But many people seem to think these old ideas don't speak to the realities of today's technology-driven world... our leaders are more likely to be technologists than philosophers, focused on gaining and using power, driving change, influencing people and maintaining an appearance of control.
I'm not big on poetry myself, but I enjoyed this, quoted in the book:
Why are you so unhappy?
Because ninety-nine percent of what you think,
And everything you do,
Is for your self,
And there isn't one.”
Johnnie Moore, www.johnniemoore.com/blog
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