5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I think I've caught the rhythm!, April 1, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies (Paperback)
I loved this book! I've read it twice already and know I will read it again. I have made my career in helping people be successful in business, but after reading The Rhythm of Business I have completely changed the way I think about business.
This book presents a very different way of thinking about business than is usually taught. The book describes business as a process that evolves as customer needs and wants change. When my clients' businesses failed, I always believed it was because they didn't really have a marketable idea, or that they made fatal mistakes in bringing the idea to fruition. Had I understood The Rhythm of Business, I would have known we were wrong to think they could or should get it right the first time. I would have been able to better advise them in how to get it right eventually and thus succeed in business.
But don't get me wrong! This isn't an academic book. It is so readable, there were times when I thought it was singing to me. I think I've caught the rhythm. I eagerly await the next book by the authors.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very useful book for entrepreneurs, September 7, 2003
This review is from: The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies (Paperback)
Description of book
To be successful in your business you should have to have rhythm. The rhythm of business is attempting to develop a product or service that fulfills a group of customers¡¦ wants and needs, testing the product or service in the marketplace, refining the product and service to more accurately fulfill the customers¡¦ wants and needs. Successful businessmen are both born and made. But, there is a difference between two types just as there is a difference between someone we would describe as having ¡§natural, inborn¡¨ athletic and someone who practice a lot and plays hard.
Developing the rhythm of business
Six basic requirements to developing the rhythm of business:
1. You need some natural skills
2. You need to work hard and practice
3. You need a basic understanding of the mechanics of the business you are in
4. You need to gather information about your business
5. You need to constantly think about your business
6. You need to love your business with a passion
Comments for the book
New idea: The key component of the rhythm of business is failure.
When you develop a product, you should allow for ¡§failure¡¨ in your business plan. When you suffer from ¡§failure¡¨, you can find out the wrong aspect, you should have an improvement on the product and make a correct decision that continue to develop a product, bring it to market, listen to the customers¡¦ wants and needs and refine the product until it become success.
Easy to understand
The author explains the nature of rhythm and the requirement of rhythm of business by using real life examples and successful stories in the real world. For examples, the successful story of Bill Gate and the concept he applied we can find it is the same in the book: developing, testing, refining a product or service until it was right.
Practical
The theory is very useful for the entrepreneurs who want to start their business and it motivates them to start their business and try and improve. For example, you should have interest in the industry which you want to start your business, it is because if you don¡¦t have interest in that industry, you won¡¦t love it, you won¡¦t have passion to do what you are doing. You will not upset by doing business and can¡¦t invest all your time and concentration to the business, finally, the result is you will suffer from the losses including money and time from your own business.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Expertise and Process in Harmony, August 28, 2002
This review is from: The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies (Paperback)
With Rottenberg, Shuman has written a book which supports this basic assertion: that each business has a rhythm: "how all businesses develop and it is the beat to which all business flows." What does this mean? At first, I did not understand and suspected gobbledygook so I re-read the Introduction and then I got it: each business has a way of taking on a life and pace of its own, more often than not different from what its founder(s) originally had in mind. This "life" is shaped by several different influences, many of which could not have been anticipated. Changes in the competitive marketplace, for example, or new regulatory legislation or the loss of a key executive or ofa major account. As with humans, no two companies have the same "life." More to the point, children seldom develop into adolescence and then adulthood precisely the way their parents expected or at least hoped.
So, what to do? Good question. In the Introduction, Shuman provides three brief quotations of Peter Drucker, Leo Kahn, and Barry Diller. Collectively, their remarks suggest that decision-makers in any organization (regardless of nature or size) should lead and manage to the best of their ability, of course, but understrand -- and accept -- the fact that the process of business can be influenced and directed but not kept under total control. Imagine taking an 800-pound domesticated tiger out for a walk in the neighborhood. You have him on a leash. Who's taking whom for a walk? If I understand Shuman correctly, this analogy is apt.
He organizes his material within three Parts: The Rhythm of Business, Learning to Feel the Rhythm, and Let the Dance Begin. At the end of each of the ten chapters, he provides a list of Key Points. The repetition of key points throughout the book is somewhat irritating but probably achieves Shuman's objective. Those who have read the book can easily review the lists of Key Points later as well as Shuman's definition of "the rhythm of business" on page 5. With regard to what is needed, Shuman identifies these six requirements:
1. You need, at least, some natural skills.
2. You need to work hard and practice.
3. You need a basic understanding of the mechanics of the business you are in.
4. You need to gather informnation about your business.
6. You need to love your business with a passion.
Obviously, there is nothing original about these "requirements." What differentiates this book from most other books I have read on the same general subject (i.e. building an organization which sustains its success) is Shuman's concept of "rhythm." Recall the metaphor I presumed to share earlier. Like a tiger, an organization will not always "follow directions," "go where you want it to go," "submit itself totally to your will," etc. The challenge is to understand the beast, to trust its instincts, to nourish as well as manage its strength, and channel its energy while allowing it to fulfill its own destiny, whatever that proves to be. I know all this may sound corny but I really do not know how else to explain my "take" on Shuman's concept.
Shuman repeatedly stresses the importance of business being customer-driven and I agree. (I think business should also be employee- or associate-driven. If you don't take good care of your people, you will lose the best and the brightest, be left with the donkeys and hamsters, and your customers will by then have gone away.) The term "rhythm of business" should not be applied too narrowly. In fact, what Shuman is really talking about involves a multiple of entities (employees, customers, vendors, service providers, etc.) each of which has its own "rhythm." Moreover, the combination of these entities generates its own "rhythm." Imagine giving a bubble bath to ten 900-pound tigers at the same time. That is not exactly what George Gershwin had in mind when he composed "I Got Rhythm."
Also with Rottenberg's assistance, Shuman later co-authored two other books with Janice Twombley which develop this idea in much greater depth: Collaborative Communities and then more recently, Everyone Is a Customer. Those who share my high regard for this book are strongly urged to read the other two. Who could ask for anything more?
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