Customer Reviews

Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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

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.

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.

In Confronting Reality, Larry Bossidy states the obvious: wishful thinking is dangerous and businesses must carefully assess reality. Bossidy describes various airlines who did not heed warning signals in sufficient time to avert serious consequences. [...]

I got this book because of their previous book, "Execution". The core idea in "Confronting Reality" is the Business Model, which is, simply put, looking at three factors: External Forces, Internal Capabilities, and Financial Goals, before deciding on how to solve problems and set direction.

The issue is that the book is full of case studies (too many from ex-GE execs - I wonder how wide these guys travel outside their "GE Club") but one idea. The illustrations at the end of every case study are always the same - they don't even go to the trouble of customizing the three factor model to show how Sun is different then Cisco for example - and the point is always the same. This should not have been a book, but instead limited to an HBR article or something like that.

The best part is Bossidy's style of how he interacts with teams and asks good questions....but "Execution" is much better at this.

The title was catchy and Bossidy is a pro at this topic of facing reality and turning around businesses...but he should have either invested more to fill it out or skipped it all together.

Larry Bossidy was legendary at General Electric, Honeywell, and Allied Signal. He and consultant, Ram Charan, have written two books based on his experience and his effectiveness. The first book was Execution: The Art of Getting Things Done. I believe that for most folks, especially in small to mid-size businesses, Confronting Reality is a more effective book. As a consultant and a leadership trainer, I found that confronting reality is one of the things that is very hard to get people to do. As human beings, we seem to be programmed to see the world the way we want it, rather than the way it is. The result is that we need to have some kind of a method for determining what reality is.

That's worth doing, because the most effective executives that I have known are those who start with a clear idea of the situation they're facing. They are relentless in pursuing a clear picture of the reality they face, so that they can develop plans for dealing with it and changing it.

In fact, that's the basis for almost all effective strategic planning programs. You start by determining your current situation, the current state of affairs. From there you look at the end state, the place you want to go, and you develop plans for getting from here to there. That, essentially, is what confronting reality is about.

The book begins with three excellent chapters. "When Reality Bites" lays out the case for a systematic way of confronting reality and taking action. It uses two examples. One of those, the positive one, is the example of Lou Gerstner when he was the CEO of IBM. In fact, Gerstner's own book, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, is an excellent companion to this book.

Chapter Two gives a description of why the world is changing. It's a clear and cogent look at many of the forces at work in the world. This will be especially valuable for you if you are in a large company. Many smaller company folks will find this fun to read, but not all that helpful.

Chapter Three is about re-defining the basics of management. In this chapter, the authors walk through a quick tour of changing management and leadership thinking and fads.

From Chapter Four on, the book is built around the description that Bossidy and Charan give of the business model. Now, if you've been reading anything since the start of the Doc Com boom, you've come across that term before. This is the only place I've ever seen where it is defined in a way that is usable

In my experience, when most folks talk about a business model, what they really mean is a business plan. Bossidy and Charan talk about a business model in the classic sense of a model, a small-scale or thought version of reality that you can actually see work.

Their business model structure has three parts. Part one is internal factors. Another part is external factors, the marketplace, if you will. And the third part is financial factors.

That alone might be worth the price of admission, because it is an excellent quick way to get a handle on how a business works and what kinds of things might need to be changed. But there's another point buried here that my work as a consultant tells me is critically important.

When I was a young man, just starting out in management, I had taken a lot of courses in Business Planning and Strategic Planning. What I learned was that you gathered the information, drew up the plan, and then executed it -- three big, discreet steps. Reality was very different.

I found, first of all, that most of the time planning was not quite that cut and dried. We started with
some ideas, we picked up more information, and those caused us to change some ideas and so on and so on.

What Bossidy and Charan talk about that is critical is the iterative process of looking at the three parts of the business model and how they interact. They outline, rightly, a process that is iterative and messy, rather than step by step and neat. In other words, they lay out a process the way it is likely to work in your business.

In my judgment, the business model and the description of how to use it, are worth the price of the book. That's a good thing, because examples of the model, and so forth, make up the bulk of the text.

There is also material about looking around corners and making predictions and conditioning the culture for reality. Personally, I didn't find those that helpful.

In part, that's because I think the Predictions Chapter is fairly weak, and the Culture Chapter is far more attuned to big companies than to the smaller ones that I work with.

I think this book is worth buying and reading if you want an overview of how the business environment has changed in the last several years, and a simple and adaptable method for thinking about your business. If you want a working idea of what a business model is, this book is good for that, as well.

I really wanted to pan this book about half way through it as Bossidy and Charan have followed up their strong book Execution, with something less than expected. The last few chapters however pulled me back to neutral. The difference is that this book seems more self referential and self serving that the other work. However there are some good things in this book.

First the good stuff, then if you want to read the other stuff.

1) The concept of the business model is a good one and one that the book does spend some time with. Unforutunately the case study treatements are a bit shallow and superficial. This is a shame as the book could be longer.

2) The points about how to "look around the corners" and look beyond traditional competitors is insightful and helpful

3) The commentary about enterprise change and leadership augment much of what has already been written about this subject. Value added however.

These are the good points and by themselves make this book worth reading, but not worth putting high in your reading priorities.

Now to the less satisfying parts, which by themseleves are not knockout critera, but are the reason why this is a three (really 2.5 star)rather than five star review.

The book basically uses "go to China/India" as the answer to every cost/competitive question which is a real dissapointment in terms what is says about competitivieness and the future. Sure I am a realist, but "Go east" is sublimially placed throughout the book as the answer to all cost issues. Seems a little too basic.

The book contains a recurring homage to General Electric and people from GE. Many of the cases are former GE people as if to imply that only people from GE are good managers/executives. While Bossidy and Charan do include cases from outside GE the majority of examples re-enforce the GE mistique. Not really practical advice for the rest of us who did not go to Crotonville.

The book is too short by far and too light. Confronting Reality is currently 260 some small pages in a larger than normal font. Given that there is some fluff in here, the contents of the book are really more like a 40 page white paper than a book length treatment of a concept. This strikes me a little like an extended offer for consulting services, than a tool for executives.

Execution did not have these issues and represents a better book. I know that many corporations bought Execution as an official corporate read for all of their executives. I would not recommend doing the same for Confronting Reality.

Ex-General Electric (and Allied Signal / Honeywell) executive Larry Bossidy and Harvard Business School professor Ram Charan have given themselves quite a significant challenge in their latest collaborative book, "Confronting Reality". The global business environment has gone through numerous upheavals over the past five years, with the bursting of the technology / Internet bubble, outsourcing, and the growing dominance of mega-retailers, and the pace of change has never appeared greater. In "Confronting Reality", Bossidy and Charan attempt to offer new rules for succeeding in this changed environment. For the most part, their prescriptions appear very reasonable, although the book lacks detail in both its guidelines and the supporting evidence for them.

The main thesis of "Confronting Reality" is that business leaders should thoroughly examine their company's business model, focus on making money, and change the business model (perhaps radically) if conditions in the external environment demand it. Without claiming that particular businesses have implemented their framework (after all, how could that be, since they are describing the framework for the first time in this book), they present a number of success cases and make the claim that the leaders of these companies have adhered to their guidelines. This, of course, is more than a bit subjective, and would fail the standards of mathematical proof and the scientific method. Furthermore, the description of the framework lacks detail, so it is not possible to know if a given company is adhering to it or not.

However, the recommendations Bossidy and Charan make seem beneficial. Looking outside the company at how the external environment is changing should prevent companies from becoming too insular and from missing major market moves. It is usually the case that when a once-successful business fails, it is due to some environmental change that becomes obvious to outside observers well before the company's leaders finally realize it and act upon it. Bossidy and Charan present Sun Microsystems as a case of a company that missed a structural change in the environment, but even they aren't quite ready to write Sun off yet. They heap praise on the job Jeffrey Immelt has done so far at GE (as well as Bob Nardelli at Home Depot), and strongly claim that those leaders are adhering to their guidelines, so if GE and Home Depot do well in the years ahead, it will be the best proof that their recommendations have value.

"Confronting Reality" can be read in a single cross-country plane flight. The vocabulary is none too challenging, and the footnotes are so sparse as to cause me to wonder why the authors bothered including any at all. Anecdotal stories are sprinkled throughout the book, and they hold the reader's attention. "Confronting Reality" is a decent high-level overview of the changes roiling businesses and industries in the early 21st century, and can be a good book to start a discussion of these topics within a company. But if you are looking for detailed answers and guidance, you will have to continue your search.

I had looked forward to reading this book due to the authors previous book "Execution". That book had solid, detailed information on how to create the kinds of processes you need to build a strong business. I still pull it down for a refresher on strategic plans. Unfortunately, Confronting Reality came nowhere close to being as useful.

Most of this book reads like a high school report where the student was told to fill a certain number of pages and writes fluff to do it. It repeats itself by using various ways to say the same thing ... It's important to face reality in today's world ... The importance of facing reality in today's world cannot be overstated ... Reality, which is important in today's world, must be faced.

The book has some interesting ideas and examples, but they are hidden among repetitive cliches and a weak writing style. This book needed a strong editor -- but then it would have been 50% shorter.

Bossidy and Charan share a concept they call "The Business Model". This turned out to simply be the idea that you need to align external realities and internal capabilities with your financial business goals. This is Business Planning 101 and it adds little value to an executive business reader.

Of course, if everyone understands the idea of this model why do so many companies seem to ignore it? Bossidy and Charan name several factors that keep companies from creating realistic business models, but they don't discuss the knobs you turn and bells you clang to get an organization to change. Simply saying, "You must understand your customer" is not the same as describing a reward system that creates this ethic in a company.

They do discuss one powerful CEO tool -- the initiative (Six Sigma, ERP, etc.) This is the first book I've read that showed how a CEO could use the initiative as an organizational growth tool. I wish that they had gone into more detail on this topic and given several examples of success and failure.

I felt that the authors had been told that they should write a sequel, so they did a quick job of it. They visited their GE alum buddies, wrote a few business cases, and used the "Business Model" concept to hold them together. But there is no passion in this book.

The book seems ill-researched. For example, it talks about how Dell used its realistic business model to defeat Apple Computer. Defeat Apple? This book was written in 2003. The authors should have known better than to use this example. Steve Jobs had already done one of the best jobs in history of bringing reality into a severely dysfunctional organization and turning it around. I would have loved a detailed analysis of how he did this. Was he a micromanager? Did he need to fire many people? How hard was it to decide to kill the Newton? What things did he do that related to the book Execution? Now THAT would have been a great book.

To be fair, Charan and Bossidy had interesting case discussions on 3M and Home Depot. They touched upon the question of how you recognize the deficiencies in an organization and bring it to the next level. But again, the details were missing.

In the end, I walked away feeling that Bossidy and Charan didn't take their own advice in publishing this book. I don't think they understood the needs of their customers (executives, not publishers), and I don't they faced the reality of what they were publishing. To paraphrase one of their vague, cliche-filled sentences, "Such behavior can do a lot of damage, (writers) have to keep an eye out for it, and take whatever remedial action is necessary."

I find it rather humorous that Mr. Bossidy would write a book with this title.

It was Mr. Bossidy's decision to hire Ray Gimlartin as Chairman of Merck, a decision which most analysts seriously questioned. The disastrous outcomes of that decision are still being played out.

It took years for Mr. Bossidy to confront reality and do the right thing by finally acknowledging his mistake and replacing Gilmartin. Even then, as the company was sinking fast, he kept Gilmartin in an advisory capacity with a salary most people can only dream of. Now he intends to share with others his wisdom regarding "confronting reality"???

If anything, Mr. Bossidy's latest work is a classic case of "do as I say, not as I do".