Less Is More [Mass Market Paperback]

Jason Jennings (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2003

In an age when every business needs to achieve more with fewer resources, Jason Jennings offers the key to ramping up productivity. In this BusinessWeek bestseller, he identifies the world’s most productive companies and reveals their secrets—none of which, surprisingly, include layoffs. The companies he features are truly astonishing, from Ryanair, which generates three times more profit per employee than the legendary Southwest Airlines, to Nucor, a steel firm with annual growth of seventeen percent for the past thirty-one years and the highest paid workers in the industry.

Drawing on these and other amazing companies, Jennings presents his readers with solid advice on how to streamline businesses, eliminate waste, and inspire greatness within a workforce.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Think of [this book] as the In Search of Excellence for cynical times.” (Fast Company) “This plea for sanity in the post-Enron era will be a boon to managers struggling with inefficiency in their organizations... The author has assembled a lively and intelligent reminder of how businesses can cut out waste from top to bottom.” (Publishers Weekly) “Jennings is a good writer. He’s funny, provocative, accessible, and knowledgeable. But most importantly, he’s passionate about his subject and conveys that passion with every word.” (Business Book Review)

About the Author

Jason Jennings, consultant and author of the bestselling It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small... It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow, has been named one of the world’s top twenty-five keynote speakers. Visit his website at www.jennings-solutions.com.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Trade (December 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591840309
• ISBN-13: 978-1591840305
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,671,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Productivity -- what definition should we use now?, June 13, 2004

By 

J. Jensen (Fort Collins, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Less Is More (Mass Market Paperback)

This little book provides a different prospective on productivity than one typically learns in MBA school or management grooming programs. Without going through the diatribes that many other reviews have opted to write (all very good mind you), his book can be summarized in one statement: "cut out the fat (everywhere) in order to become efficient".

Jennings spends time cutting the fat with regard to the management team, communications, organizational structure, decision making, internal processes, analytics/measurements, education/training, and finance (to name but a few). His recipe is to build a vision, get people on board with that vision, document processes, improve them, focus on the customer, and count those things which matter. Definitely not rocket science on the surface, but his analysis of the 10 most productive companies really shows how many of them implemented unorthodox approaches towards recreating their organization. Further, he provides commonalities between these seemingly unrelated companies (different industries, sizes, customer focuses, etc) which he believes elevates these companies above the rest. According to the financial analysis he provides in the second edition, it is hard to dispute his findings. Time will tell if his methodologies is the silver bullet to eliminate waste and drive MEANINGFUL productivity.