Customer Reviews

The Enemy Within: Actions That Self-Destruct Companies, Customer Service and Jobs

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The author has pioneered a new thought process about what undermines organizations today. This review is based on firsthand experience in American industrial, government, and related organizations. It can be threatening for an active employee to discuss the contents, so as a retiree, I can relate freely the following discussion.

The Enemy Within most accurately portrays customer service as the key factor in what wins or loses for any organization. Today, the great majority of telemarketers and organizations realize that dedication to quality control and customer service ratings results in a big payoff. The author's iterative anecdotes emphasize the many opportunities for organizations to "screw up" during their daily operations. These "screw ups" invariably affect customer service. In fact, most successful organizations review customer service regularly.

It would be easy for any individual who has not had any experience in industrial or government situation to easily dismiss "The Enemy Within" as a simplistic, theoretical, "nice-to-have" procedural way of conducting business. To the contrary, Dr. Buchanan is right on target, and his many examples remind this reviewer of the countless opportunities to "screw up" in everyday life.

I highly recommend this book to all X-generation and Y-generation managers who want to drive their organizations to competitive excellence. I rate the book at five stars for the hands-on individual.

A reader from Pennsylvania

Dr. Buchanan has strong opinions about the nature of what motivates people, and he can't seem to contain himself in getting this message across. You'll encounter this right from the first chapter, and some might find this style initially abrasive, but if you can get past his agressive, preacher-style approach, there's a very real and valuable message in this book.

The author appears to have written this following the Harvard Business Review (HBR) formula for airport books, leveraging a simple concept, which could easily fit into a 10-page article, into a 250+ page, easy to read package that fits easily into the most fully packed briefcase or carry-on bag. The end-of chapter summaries are particulary useful if all you want is an overview, but the text is littered with examples to hammer home the context of his message. The book is definitely written in a simple style, which makes it accessible to readers at all levels, and more advanced readers will likely find themselves skimming through the text in only a few hours.

You'll certainly come away from this read with a new perspective on the basis for marketing and what motivates people. Some will take offence to the author's claim that all people are essentially selfish, but as a general basis for approaching marketing and customer service, the author presents a good case that it will hold you in good stead.

I found this book to be a useful guide to the critical examination of all aspects of our organization. By way of background, I direct a hospital diagnostic laboratory in a socialized medical care system, and my educational background is in medicine (ie. no formal business or marketing education). Buchanan's book offers a clear and self-contained approach to identification of barriers that interfere with effective delivery of service. Although our hospital has the usual mission statememts about patient centered care etc., I lacked concrete examples of how we fail to deliver optimal care and what can be done about it. This book sets forth a simple, non-gimmicky way of looking at any organization and how it may be failing to succeed (ie. providing suboptimal service, in the case of our lab) that I found immensely valuable. I would particularly recommend this book to individuals like myself who are not business oriented (although my recent very frustrating attempts to buy a > $10,000 piece of equipment from major multinational corporations - the money is in the account, we know what we want, and at least three companies advertise a product that, on paper, would meet our needs - suggests that those in the for-profit sector would also find useful information in this book).