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Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right
 
 
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Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Larry Bossidy (Author), Ram Charan (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)


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Book Description

October 19, 2004
Confronting Reality will change the way you think about and run your business. It is the first book that shows how to connect the big picture of the new era of business with the nitty-gritty of what to do about it. Through a completely new way to understand and use the business model as the primary tool for confronting reality—a breakthrough that will become the management innovation of this decade—you’ll know sooner rather than later whether your fundamental business premise is under assault, where your best opportunities lie, what you should change and what you should leave alone, and how to realistically plan the future of your business.

The fundamentals of how a business makes money are being rapidly and permanently altered by sweeping structural changes. With their extraordinary depth and breadth of experience, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan are the ideal guides for everyone—entrepreneur, mid-level manager, or CEO—about what is to be done so you can get things right in this challenging, radically changed world. They start by showing you how to understand the most fundamental element of any business: whether you can realistically make the money you hope to in the game you’re playing.

Bossidy and Charan show how to use the business model to develop a robust, reality-based process for thinking about the speci?cs of your business in a holistic way. They show how to tie together the financial targets you must meet, the external realities you face, and internal activities such as strategy development, operating tactics, and selection and development of people.

Through the lens of the business model, as well as the skillful use of initiatives and development of people with the right leadership characteristics, you’ll see how Robert Nardelli at Home Depot, Jim McNerney at 3M, Dick Harrington at the Thomson Corporation, Michael Wisbrun at KLM, Joseph Tucci at EMC, and John Chambers at Cisco confronted reality. Whether they faced crisis or opportunity, all made the right kinds of changes through a combination of business savvy (the art of understanding the fundamentals driving a business) and business model thinking.


From the Hardcover edition.


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In their 2002 bestseller, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan identify why people don’t get results: they don’t execute. Bossidy and Charan are back with another stellar study on organizational behavior that shows how companies can succeed if they return to reality and examine every part of their business. Confronting Reality is based on a simple concept, but many companies approach strategy and execution in a surprisingly unreal manner and even the simplest of measurement methods, like the business model, are not applied correctly.

Cisco, 3M, KLM, Home Depot, and the Thomson Corporation are just a few of the companies that Bossidy and Charan examine. To demonstrate how to examine a business using the business model, Bossidy and Charan map out external variables, financial targets, internal activities, and an iteration stage (defined as a time to "make tradeoffs, apply and develop business savvy") to prove how a dynamically evolving business model will help improve performance.

"The version of the business model we have developed is a robust, reality-based process for thinking about the specifics of your business in a holistic way. It shows you how to tie together the financial targets you must meet, the external realities of your business and internal activities such as strategy development, operating tactics, and selection and development of people."

Larry Bossidy, retired chairman and CEO of Honeywell International and Ram Charan, author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business, have once again shed industrial-strength light on how to run a successful business. --E. Brooke Gilbert

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Amazon.com Interview: Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan


Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan are back with Confronting Reality to show how companies can succeed if they get back to reality and examine every part of their business. Amazon.com senior editor E. Brooke Gilbert interviewed Bossidy and Charan to discuss the current business climate, their new book, and future projections.
Read the interview.



Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan Discuss the Airline Industry

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan discuss the airline industry's failure to confront reality based on a recent Wall Sreet Journal article and their new book as a backdrop.
Read their comments.



--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

On the heels of their business bestseller Execution, retired Honeywell chairman and CEO Bossidy and corporate guru Charan take a step back and focus on the more fundamental issue of figuring out what to execute in the first place. The message is simple ("relentless realism"), and their solution is a return to the "ancient analytical tool" of a three-part business model that includes external realities (such as customer demand and industry conditions), financial targets (such as cash flow and revenue growth) and internal realities (such as operational and workforce capabilities). Bossidy and Charan use that model to analyze how companies such as EMC, Cisco and Sun reacted to the meltdown of the high-tech sector, and how Home Depot built efficiency, 3M reignited growth through innovation and Thomson Corp. restructured its focus. The book loses steam in the final quarter, getting repetitious but still managing to make a few familiar points feel fresh, some as simple as developing one's own "business savvy" and "need to know." The authors use the same winning formula as in their first book. The concepts are basic, the tone is conversational and the content is not unique, but sales of the previous book (600,000 in the U.S.; 1.5 million worldwide) and the authors' personal platforms virtually guarantee widespread attention in the business media and corporate sales.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

  • Audio CD
  • Publisher: Random House Audio Assets; Unabridged edition (October 19, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0739313282
  • ISBN-13: 978-0739313282
  • Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.9 x 6.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,435,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Larry Bossidy is chairman and former CEO of Honeywell International, a Fortune 100 diversified technology and manufacturing leader. Earlier in his career he was chairman and CEO of AlliedSignal, chief operating officer of General Electric Credit (now GE Capital Corporation), executive vice president and president of GE's Services and Materials Sector, and vice chairman of GE. Ram Charan is a highly sought advisor to CEOs and senior executives in companies ranging from start-ups to the Fortune 500, including GE, DuPont, EDS, and Colgate-Palmolive. He is the author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Boards That Work and the coauthor of Every Business Is a Growth Business. Dr. Charan has taught at both the Harvard Business School and the Kellogg School of Northwestern University. Charles Burck is a writer and editor who collaborated with Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. Earlier in his career he was an editor at Fortune magazine.

 

Customer Reviews

28 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (7)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (5)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 115 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Buy their bestseller EXECUTION instead, November 10, 2004
There are many good and new things in this book. Unfortunately, the good things aren't new, and the new things aren't good.

I have reviewed Charan and Bossidy's book on EXECUTION as well as Charan's book on PROFITABLE GROWTH. Both were great readings that asked us to confront reality in order to do what matters to get things right.

I've just read CONFRONTING REALITY. And I cannot help asking myself, why it was published at all? It doesn't add any new material compared to their marvellous bestseller; Execution. Instead this book spends most of its time telling case stories on the subject. I find too many of them too long and too boring.

The authors' new focus on the vague concept of the business model is still a mystery to me. Why not build on strong concepts such as McKinsey's business system or Porter's value chain with proven track records. Please, confront reality!

My advice is that you buy Execution instead. It's much better. It has a clear concept, a stronger structure - and exactly the same highly important messages.

If you're a hardcore fan - like I am - of Charan and Bossidy's execution concept, you may just want to have this as an audio book for a long highway trip... that's how I managed to get through it.

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business
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45 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Wrong, wrong, wrong ..., April 21, 2005
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Larry & Ram lost me, and I hope most of you, with their very first example. The new CFO, with no knowledge of the company or plant other than reading a few spreadsheets, with about 3 comments convinces the General manager to close the plant, fire everyone, desimate the town and move to China. The coatings company described was high end, high service, specialty-focused and anything but commodity. The workers were unusually dedicated. They had some time. For the GM to do anything other than allow THE WORKERS to confront reality and give them a shot at reengineering the place is a complete travesty. I've seen it work many times and I am no bleading-heart union man. Bossidy & Charam set this up as a great example, but it is a pure, short-term, initial price analysis with NO consideration for total cost and total value. The GM might have been able to save a business, save a town and actually win customers -- or yeah, move to China afterall. But no one will ever know. Larry and Ram sure don't. Get real, guys.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Confront and optimize reality., April 14, 2005
This book is excellent for entrepreneurs and junior managers who have bought into the myth that optimism is a foundation for success. Bossidy has a wealth of corporate management experience and offers some compelling case studies (although sometimes I wish he would have gone into more detail). Bossidy does not explain the flaws of positive thinking, [...] but he does write a practical perspective on the power of confronting reality. I recommend this book [...] to rise above mediocrity and create optimum results.
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