Customer Reviews

Managing for the Short Term: The New Rules for Running a Business in a Day-to-Day World

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Chuck Martin is focused on the real and now. This book is not about pondering philosophical truths or strange occurrences in business. It is about statistics observed in major companies and shows how executives deal with the things that make businesses run, grow, and fail. Managing for the short term helps executives and managers align themselves in a practical way through viewing the organization and oneself. To me, it is a business guide and reality check. I can use the book as a "consultant in print" to modify the way I work and direct my company.

Chuck may be the Sun Tzu of practical business management for 2002. The book's chapter 7 fortifies the value proposition in my company's strategic plan for supporting corporate communications services. Well done. Read it and do something to make your organization more effective today.

I once had the pleasure of being seated next to one of the nation's best known pollsters on a long flight. It was a wonderful conversation, like talking to "America." Reading Chuck Martin's new book is like that too. He has surveyed and visited with so many senior executives while researching this book, and presents the results with a killer reporter's writing skills. You feel like you are talking directly to the global C-suite, getting their very personal perspectives on managing for the short term.

The outcome is a book that is perceptive and practical, and completely real-world. I found the communications chapters alone worth the price of the book. The same could be said about the section on self-management, and other sections as well.

What is this book really all about? You'll know when you get to Martin's Law of Expanding Immediacy. If you're feeling busier today than you were yesterday, this is why.

I almost didn't read this book because of the title, but being a big fan of Martin's previous books, I gave it a try anyway. Good move, as it turns out. The title can be deceiving because the book is REALLY about tying the short and the long term together. It shows how to make what sometimes seem to some of us like meaningless day-to-day activities at the office fit within an organization's strategy.

It really brings home for me the major disconnect inside organizations, from what executives pronounce vs. what managers hear. It shows how to close those gaps by getting execs to spend more time inside the company, with the managers!

You can't get more practical than this. There must be a hundred managers quoted about how they run their departments and their companies (as well as themselves).

It's great to get a book that rather than being filled with ponderous theories, is filled with practical insight from executives and managers on the front lines - these are the guys who are really doing it and makes it a great read.

What is the good of a long term business strategy if you are not executing each and every day? Chuck Martin's pragmatic lessons are refreshing and essential to ROI-focused managers. I especially enjoyed the comprehensive discussion about the communications gap between management and the rest of the organization, as well as the success stories in bridging this gap for immediate gains in productivity and profit. I like the research, which gives the stories and lessons real teeth. In a time of mediocre business books, I believe that this is a must read.

For all of us wading through the post-bubble, post-9/11 business world, Chuck Martin has some seriously helpful advice to impart: how to harness day-to-day communications, events, information, and relationships in order to gain strategic competitive advantage. Make no mistake: this book is not about theory; it's about execution. Martin's practices are supported every step of the way by primary research, case studies, and a bevy of interviews with business executives and managers at all levels of organizations. This empirical and qualitative support not only lends Martin's advice a certain degree of credibility, but also makes the book an engaging and enjoyable read. Highly recommended!

I didn't think someone as skeptical about corporate America as I am could get much out of this book, but it's changed my thinking about how to handle office politics. I've been very frustrated by people making decisions just to cover their own behinds, but this book has shown me that the best way to beat these guys is to make a good business case. Politics is one thing, but if you can find the right person and prove that what you want to do will bring in more money or keep it from going out, you can win, even against people who play dirty.

This book shows you how to beat the jerks at their own game.

As a business executive traveling abroad, my days often seem to run into each other...often I'm not sure what day of the week it is. Martin's book seems to be custom-designed for the modern buinessperson - he takes into account many the factors that contribute to my daily stress and attempts to sort them out, largely succeeding. While surely no one can solve all the problems related to the complexity and fast pace of business today, this book has already provided me with new ways to manage. A couple of the chapters on communication and meetings are alone worth the price of admission!

Got this because the title seemed to recognize the problem that's been driving me crazy. When any kind of certainty seems like a thing of the past and things can change at any minute (and usually do), I feel like I'm on a treadmill. How do you make any kind of progress when the ground underneath you is shifting all the time?

This book has changed the way I think about how I have to operate. First of all, as the author points out, conditions aren't going to suddenly get better any time soon. Like it or not, we're all going to have to find ways to deal with the way the world works now. And knowing that everyone else is is the same boat in terms of never having enough time, constantly changing priorities, etc. makes you stop and think.

It's clear that some people are going to learn how to perform under these conditions and the rest of us are going to just whine about how bad they are. What I like about Martin's book is that it doesn't just ramble on about the way things are. It gives practical tips from real people on how to think, act and cope.

Just acknowledging that focusing on short-term successes is a more useful way to get things done now than going for the big bang has changed the way I approach everything, both at work and at home. I'm ordering copies for everyone in my department so we're all on the same page about how to break down major projects into smaller pieces that can be executed well and provide both immediate benefits and longer-range success.

Buy it--it will change the way you tackle your days...

Chuck Martin's book is a "must read" for experienced managers
as well as those who have just gotten their first managerial
position. This book truly lives up to its title and presents
a very cohesive set of guidelines for achieving long term
goals and success by focusing on the "short term" .. The formula
and recipe for leadership and winning in business presented by the author is well documented. Creativity is exhibited throughout. I strongly recommend that anyone in a large or small
organization who wants to make a difference read this book and
that's why I have given it the highest rating 5 stars! Buy
your copy today and change your business success patern
exponentially!!!

This guy has obviously been there and done what he's talking about. Which is a refreshing change to so many books written by authors who can write but don't do it. (Like being a marriage consellor without having ever actually been married - if you get my drift) Chuck Martin has experinced what it's like out there, managing in the current marketplace and what must be done to succeed. Read it and follow. You might get accused of having an attidude problem by your less action oriented colleagues as you cut though the clutter and focus on results - but who wants to hang out with those guys anyway. They're part of a bygone era of corporate politics.