Less Is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: simple big objective, highly productive companies, most productive companies, World Savings, The Warehouse, Bill Zollars (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One might imagine that with this title, Jennings (It's Not the Big That Eat the Small, It's the Fast That Eat the Slow) is setting out to proclaim the joys of downsizing and outsourcing. Fortunately, that's far from the case, as the author has instead assembled a lively and intelligent reminder of how businesses can cut out waste from the top to the bottom (e.g., if companies don't pay executives $80 million a year, they might not have to lay off 1,000 workers to improve the bottom line). Along with his research team of recent Princeton and Stanford grads, Jennings, who founded the media consulting firm Jennings-McGlothlin & Co., writes about a handful of organizations-e.g., Ryanair, IKEA, Lantech, Nucor-that seem to defy reality with their unbelievably impressive profits, productivity and employee loyalty. The book is written as efficiently as its subject companies operate, and Jennings conclusively proves a number of truisms: nothing improves worker loyalty and productivity like telling them the truth; don't hire people you'll have to lay off in a year; and don't lose focus. This plea for sanity in the post-Enron era will be a boon to managers struggling with inefficiency in their organizations.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Jennings, author of the popular It's Not the Big That Eat the Small: It's the Fast That Eat the Slow and founder of the media consultancy firm Jennings-McGlothin & Co., has undertaken to teach companies how to increase their productivity. He draws upon the experiences of successful programs for enhancing productivity and explains how businesses can emulate these programs to improve their own profitability. Thousands of companies were investigated by Jennings's research team, and those selected were scrupulously examined to weed out overexposed companies or potential Enrons. Each research-based chapter highlights what is special about these companies-whether it be vision, commitment, communication, customer relations, efficiency, or organizational culture. The book is readable and entertaining as well as informative, and the current economic climate is sure to make it a welcome addition to the popular management literature. Recommended for public libraries with a business clientele as well as academic libraries with programs in business management.
Rona Ostrow, Lehman Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (November 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591840015
• ISBN-13: 978-1591840015
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #257,285 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Less is less, June 4, 2003

By	Peter Lorenzi (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Perhaps because of, or even in spite of, positive reviews aplenty from other Amazon reviewers, I found this book disappointing and confusing. A comment in the Introduction caught my attention. Jennings writes "we were eager to avoid Tom Peters' embarrassment when a number of excellent companies sagged badly soon after publication..." Quick Google searches on three (there were more companies; I just did three) Jennings-commended companies (The Warehouse, Ryanair, and Nucor) read more like embarrassments as well.

To be specific:

The June 4, 2003 New Zealand Herald reported that "The Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall has stepped back into the company's day-to-day operations, leading a scheme dubbed Project Urgency to fix its Australian problems. ... Tindall is leading Project Urgency. Its aim, as the name suggests, is to give the Australian operation a rapid makeover."

At the same time, Ryanair had its own problems. Per the web report: "Europe's fast-growing low-fare airline, dropped as much as 14.7 percent Tuesday after the low-fare airline said it expects lower fares and yields this year will pressure its profit margin." The book may provide an explanation: Jennings lauds attention to customer service and satisfaction and chastises those who fail to respond to customers. As Jennings ironically notes: "Other than cheap airfares, customer service at Ryanair is nonexistent." Queried by Times of London reporter as to the paper receiving "more complaints concerning Ryanair's customer service than any other airline," Ryanair's CEO response: "We don't screw them every time we fly them." Nice attitude.

A third featured company, Nucor, also turned south about the time Jennings went to press: Nucor's stock price dropped by half between mid 2002 and early 2003.

There is more I found unsettling: Jennings repeats canards about "eggs and ham" (the chicken's involvement and the pig's commitment), about showing prospects a heavenly version of product yet delivering hell, and about decentralizing fireworks production (avoiding one big explosion). He mimics Jim Collins's "Get the right people on the bus." He follows Peter Drucker's ideas to produce the anagram, WTGBRFDT ("What's the good business reason for doing this?"). And Edwards Deming must be spinning in his grave when he reads Jennings: "The objective is to perform the task with zero variation." (p.129)

The all-too-flattering biographies and profiles remind me of Fast Company or Inc. pieces. The book concludes with a self-congratulatory chapter recommending of Jennings' previous work, an epilogue featuring Jennings' personal trainer, and a lengthy section of acknowledgements that consists of name dropping more than links to research help. He commends his research team of recent graduates of Stanford, Princeton, and Berkeley yet he offers no systematic research, data, tables, graphs, analyses or standards. Jennings has a lot of ideas and inspiration, but little is substantiated. And, in another twist, the book is about more (productivity, profits, revenue per employee), not less. The final product is a watered down amalgam of "In search of excellence" and several other popular business authors and books.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GFagen, November 11, 2002

By	gfagen (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews

A great study of how business should be run. Stay true to yourself, your employees and your customers and success will be yours. This book highlights companies from widely ranging industries and shows that "common sense" always trumps complicated process. If you read Jennings's first book, you will thoroughly enjoy this one. An easy and entertaining read. This book does what most don't.....get you thinking and start applying paradigm shifting practice right away.
In the age of ENRON, MCI, Arthur Anderson and the DOTCOM bust, this book proves that the true maxums of successful and long lasting business have always applied. Truth, Honesty, and Integrity.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Paradox of Productivity, January 28, 2003

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is the second of two books by Jennings which I have recently read, the other being It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow. His focus in this volume is on eight companies which "use productivity as a competitive tool in business." He set out to learn how they got that way and which lessons can be learned from them which "any company could follow." He and his research associates examined more than 4,000 companies, settled on a short list of 100, and then reduced it to the top eight outstanding performers. The criteria for evaluation and selection included revenue per employee, return on equity, return on assets, and operating income per employee. Next, questions were posed such as "Has the company been overexposed?" and "Might this company pull an Enron?"

Prior to the final selection, several pit bulls (cleverly disguised as CPAs) sank their teeth into the companies' public data with the admonition to "take it apart, put it back together again, and provide as much assurance as possible that each of the companies was strong and likely to endure." Here are the eight: IKEA, Lantech, Nucor, Ryanair, SRC Holdings, World Savings, Yellow Freight, and The Warehouse. When discussing them, Jennings focuses with meticulous on issues such as these:

* Tactics which are most effective when selling "the BIG idea" (strategy) to an organization (pages 23-35)

* Action steps which will "drive a stake through the heart of bureaucracy" (pages 66-68)

* The undesirable consequences of balancing the books by resorting to layoffs (pages 84-86)

* The meaning of WTGBRFDT and why effective use of it is essential to the success of any organization (pages 106-113)

* The proper role of the accounting and financial reporting functions (pages 115-121)

* How to "systematize everything" (pages 127-132

NOTE: While being interviewed by Mike Litman, Michael Gerber (author of various "E-Myth" books) observes that Ray Kroc and other entrepreneurs such as Fred Smith created "an absolutely impeccable turnkey system that would replicate the results [he and they] wanted no matter how many stores he opened up. No matter how many trucks Federal Express has got out there in the street...The real work is to create a system through which your company can absolutely differentiate itself from every other company in the world because it's able to do what it does impeccably, infallibly, every time."

* Principles which highly productive companies employ to achieve continuous improvement (pages 147-153)

* "Ruthless and strict" criteria by which to evaluate technological initiatives (pages 182-184)

* Sequential initiatives which to permanently motivate a workforce (pages 200-204)

* Traits required for a leader of a highly productive enterprise (pages 215-227)

* "Twelve Rules for Doing More with Less" (pages 234-235)

These are not checklists. On the contrary, each of these passages consists of a probing and eloquent analysis. By this process Jennings reveals the "lessons" to which I referred earlier. All of these lessons are directly relevant to all organizations (regardless of size and nature) and can effectively applied IF (huge "if") those who read this book select an appropriate course of action from among the four options Jennings identifies on page 232. If nothing else, each reader can model herself or himself after the principles and traits of the most productive companies and their leaders.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to Jennings' previously published book as well as Bossidy and Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina's Follow This Path, and Kaplan and Norton's The Strategy-Focused Organization.