Books

by Adrian J. Slywotzky

Strategic risk is the major business challenge today. Yet conventional wisdom offers no solution. Risk is considered a fact of life, like the weather, and everyone knows you can have high returns or low risk - not both. But what "everyone knows" is not always true.

by David A. Nadler, Beverly A. Behan, and Mark B. Nadler
Building Better Boards is a practical and provocative blueprint for helping CEOs and boards create real value by striking the right balance between contention and collaboration. It's an approach to corporate governance that goes far beyond minimum compliance with legal requirements; this is about enabling the board, for the first time, to perform as a team in a way that significantly improves the quality of management's decisions without interfering with management's prerogatives.

by David L. Dotlich, Peter C. Cairo, Stephen H. Rhinesmith

Head, Heart & Guts contends that the old leadership paradigm which focused on brains and strong analytic skills is no longer enough to achieve long-term organizational success. The authors argue that today's businesses need whole leaders, people who possess a range of qualities in three major areas: head (analytical abilities), heart (emotional intelligence) and - what is too frequently absent - guts (the willingness to take risks, based on strong beliefs and values).

by David L. Dotlich, James L. Noel, and Norman Walker
Based on interviews with more than 75 managers, including leaders from Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, GE, Bank of America, and Arthur Andersen, Leadership Passages identifies 13 common passages in the life of a leader and provides the inspiration, understanding, and navigation skills to make life's passages the groundwork for greater leadership.

by David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo
Dotlich and Cairo identify 11 personality traits that can become pressure points for any manager. Often these are the very strengths that got the individual promoted - but if they're taken to an extreme or put to use in the wrong situation, they can sabotage instead of enable. The authors argue that learning how to manage our vulnerabilities is the key to success, a message that many CEOs and senior leaders don't hear until it is too late.

by Stephen H. Rhinesmith
A Manager’s Guide to Globalization offers insights into developing new skills for management success in an increasingly challenging international market. Dr. Rhinesmith’s book can help leaders prepare their company for the changes the 21st century will bring by addressing the following points: understanding driving forces, managing conflict, aligning corporate cultures, and developing a 12-step program for developing managers with global mindsets.

by Adrian J. Slywotzky and Richard Wise

Double-digit growth has become increasingly tough to achieve. How to Grow When Markets Don't addresses today's economic challenges by providing powerful and practical strategies to generate new growth.

by David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo
Unnatural Leadership debunks the common notion of the natural leader as a flawless heroic figure. The book describes the truth about being a "real" leader in a business environment turned upside down by e-commerce, diversity, security concerns, globalization, and matrix structures. Drawing on personal experience working with successful leaders in top-tier companies throughout the world, Dotlich and Cairo identify a style of leadership used by those who succeed in complicated business and people situations - a style that maximizes a leader's strengths and acknowledges weaknesses.

by Ron A. Carucci and William A. Pasmore
Whether you are in an advisory role or an executive looking for value from your advisors, it's important to understand the complex nature of the advisor/leader relationship in order to maximize its value.

by Adrian J. Slywotzky

The Art of Profitability is to strategy what The Goal is to operations: an enjoyable new way to access Mercer's unique ideas on designing businesses that create value.

by Robert Stringer
Effective leaders create and direct the motivational energy that compels people to action; as they move through an organization they leave behind a normally unseen but very real influence on people's feelings, motivations, and behavior.

by Adrian J. Slywotzky and David J. Morrison
Going digital is the last thing you should do. Based on research into digital innovators, the authors argue that to prosper in the new economy, start with a winning business model then harness digital technology to make it more unique and profitable.

by David Bovet and Joseph Martha

Value Nets introduces a new form of business design in which customers' choices set in motion an agile, fast, and digital supply chain - delivering superior customer satisfaction and breakthrough financial results.

by David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo
If you're a manager in almost any organization today, you probably realize that your ability to coach others is fast becoming a key component of your job. In Action Coaching, authors Dotlich and Cairo teach people at the executive, managerial, and group levels how to become extraordinary coaches. The strategic and organizational advantage it offers far surpasses ordinary coaching approaches.

by Adrian J. Slywotzky, David J. Morrison, Ted Moser, Kevin A. Mundt, and James A Quella
Profit Patterns argues that seeing the meaning beneath the surface chaos of today's dynamic business landscape, while not easy, is achievable... and essential.

by David A. Nadler and Janet L. Spencer
Examples from top companies demonstrate what executive teams are all about and detail the proficiencies CEOs must master to ensure their success. A set of insights and strategies can help both CEOs and senior team members build and maintain teams that live up to their full potential.

by David A. Nadler
In Champions of Change, David Nadler and his co-author/brother, Mark Nadler, describe how business leaders of major companies such as Corning Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc. and Xerox Corp. have dealt with the challenge of radical change.

by David L. Dotlich and James L. Noel
Leaders in today's marketplace can no longer be successful if they are using yesterday's strategies for business development. Action Learning immerses executives in a transformative encounter that boldly addresses the immediate needs of the organization. The methods discussed in this book have helped dozens of Fortune 500 companies to successfully develop their next generation of leaders to achieve any number of tactical business objectives.

by Adrian J. Slywotzky and David J. Morrison

The Profit Zone, named one of the ten best business books of 1998 by Business Week, shows how to redesign your business around your industry's profit zone - the place where customers will allow you to earn a return above the cost of capital.

by David A. Nadler and Michael L. Tushman
Total integration of corporate structure, workplace culture, and employee motivation can help companies achieve a competitive advantage. Bringing all such processes together into one unified organization is as important to a company's future as the architectural unity of the building that houses it.

by Adrian J. Slywotzky
Value Migration, the 1996 business bestseller, describes how the growth of venture capital, the increasing democratization of information, the convergence of technologies, the globalization of markets, and the industrialization of distribution channels has created a new and dynamic strategic landscape.

by David A. Nadler
The practical lessons learned from internationally renowned companies seeking to bring about lasting and fundamental organizational transformation provide a useful set of field-tested concepts and techniques for anyone seeking to promote change and firsthand advice on the roles CEOs and leadership teams can play.

by Dwight L. Gertz and João P. A. Baptista
No company ever shrank to greatness. With this simple premise, Grow to Be Great was the first book to challenge the dominant orthodoxy of downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering.

by David A. Nadler, Marc S. Gerstein, and Robert B. Shaw
A proven model for understanding organizations can be used to make positive changes for both formal and informal organizational systems. Tools and techniques will help leaders restructure the organization of their companies in order to improve quality, create long-range strategies, tighten operations, and inspire team performance.