STRAIGHT FROM THE CEO: WORLD'S TOP BUS LEADERS REV: The World's Top Business Leaders Reveal Ideas That Every Manager Can Use [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Richard Poe (Reader), G. William Dauphinais (Narrator), Colin Price (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1998

Working closely with the Price Waterhouse management team, CEOs who are successfully managing today's rapid pace of economic change present their ideas about motivating people, unleashing innovation and creativity and revitalizing the corporation. These are insights of leaders who every day must find ways to test and validate new ideas, implement change to improve the bottom line, and ultimately focus on the core ideas that will truly reshape the corporation. Simultaneous hardcover release from Simon & Schuster. 2 cassettes. .

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Straight from the CEO: The World's Top Business Leaders Reveal Ideas That Every Manager Can Use, by William Dauphinais and Colin Price of the management consulting firm Price Waterhouse, is an accessible nuts-and-bolts examination of the way in which heads of some three dozen major corporations from around the globe look at critical matters such as motivation, creativity, customer service and revitalization. Individual chapters devoted to the reflections of top executives from powerhouses including British Airways, OshKosh B'Gosh, Pitney Bowes, and Swisscom are interspersed with sidebars that add analysis along with an overall perspective. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The idea is as intriguing as it is simple: Why not have CEOs speak directly about the major issues that they face? The result is this uneven book, edited by the Price Waterhouse coauthors of The Paradox Principles and Better Change. When the book works, it works well. We hear a droll Colin Marshall, head of British Airways, explaining how he learned the value of customer service while serving as a cadet purser in the 1950s. Michael Z. Kay, CEO of LSG/SKY Chefs (an airline food service company), offers advice about turning around a losing venture in the form of a memo to a mythical peer. Many of the CEOs' comments, however, can be self-serving. Quips like "Monsanto is a textbook example of the courage, drive and energy it takes to create change in an organization" would have more credibility if not being made by the respective company CEOs, in this case Robert B. Shapiro. Nevertheless, from CEO reports on Siemens's experience in "Turning Supertankers into Speedboats" to Chase Manhattan's "Art of the Inclusive Merger" and Young and Rubicam's use of creative marketing as a "Core Strategy," a lot of capital ground gets covered.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Sound Ideas (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671872273
• ISBN-13: 978-0671872274
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,454,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BRAINPOWER, March 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Straight from the CEO: The World's Top Leaders Reveal Ideas That Every Manager Can Use (Hardcover)

Based on a collection of essays by global corporate leaders, the book is structured around 6 themes: globalisation, radical change, leadership, culture, innovation, and customer relationship. Percy Barnevik of ABB, explains how to balance global resources and local autonomy, Richard Evans of British Aerospace shows why radical changes required CEOs to get out of their ivory towers. The book is well illustred and easy to read. It doesn't contain academic theory or consultancy methods. It is a step by step guide explained by experienced CEO who can help solve your company's problems. Franck Renand, Prof. of Strategic Management, ISLA, Oporto, Portugal.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Straight from the CEO, June 12, 2000

By 

Omar Cumberbatch (Ft Lauderdale) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Straight from the CEO: The World's Top Leaders Reveal Ideas That Every Manager Can Use (Hardcover)

Very persuasive book, with new and bright ideas for the future. It has motivated me to become a more people oriented person. I will take closer looks and my employees needs and wants, taking care of the customer has become one of my greatest concerns. Thank you for the edge on life. Omar Cumberbatch, CEO Royal Family Pro.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Each piece is too short to provide any satisfying insight, November 30, 1999

By 

Azlan Adnan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Straight from the CEO: The World's Top Business Leaders Reveal Ideas That Every Manager Can Use (Paperback)

Straight from over thirty of today's most innovative CEOs come the ideas that are reshaping and reinvigorating the modern corporation-written exclusively for this book. Straight from the CEO is a major work, because the world rarely hears directly from the great contemporary business leaders-the chief movers and shakers of major corporations. Working closely with the Price Waterhouse management team, a wide variety of chief executives who are successfully managing today's rapid pace of economic change present their ideas about leading and motivating people, unleashing innovation and creativity, and learning from customers to revitalize their businesses. Among the CEOs represented in the book are the heads of British Airways, Compaq Computer, Monsanto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Enron, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Warner-Lambert. The scope is worldwide: from Bangkok to Jakarta, from Dusseldorf to Dallas. No ivory tower theorizing, no speeches, no "consultant speak," these are the practical insights of leaders who every day must find ways to test and validate new ideas, implement change to improve the bottom line, and ultimately focus on the core ideas that will truly reshape their corporation.

Straight from the CEO is an important tool for managers at every level, focusing on such issues as creating loyalty to customers, organizing globally, fostering individual employee motivation, and leveraging corporate values to enhance performance. These are the pressing issues that face every manager who strives to sort out valuable contributions from impractical ideas, the gold from the dross, and then take action that gets results. As intellectually stimulating as it is practical, Straight from the CEO is an invaluable report from the executive trenches.

By necessity brief, the many pieces (I hesitate to call them chapters or even articles) lack depth, assume much and as a result are quite unstatisfying; but they do leave the reader hungry for more!

William Dauphinais is Vice Chairman, Human Capital for PricewaterhouseCoopers. He co-authored with Colin Price two previous books, The Paradox Principles and Better Change. He has 25 years of business experience covering a broad range of organizational change, business reengineering, financial planning, and information technology issues. He received both his undergraduate degree and his MBA from the University of Michigan. Colin Price was previously a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he oversaw a Strategic Change Consulting, a practice of 3,000 consultants working with global clients in managing large-scale corporate transformations. He has a BA in Economics and graduate degrees in Organizational Psychology. Married with one child, he lives outside London.

Reviewed by Azlan Adnan. Formerly Business Development Manager with KPMG, Azlan Adnan is currently Managing Partner of Azlan & Koh Knowledge and Professional Management Group, an education and management consulting practice based in Kota Kinabalu. He holds a Master's degree in International Business and Management from the Westminster Business School, London.