May 1997, Volume 14, No. 5 Manufacturer's Library

This book does not propose the best way to manage successfully — because the author does not believe one single best way exists. Instead, the book draws on current contemporary management thinking and practices to present an "uncommon" approach that will help guide a manufacturer to immediate benefits and long-term success.

Discarding esoteric theories, this book demonstrates the fallacy of pursuing "silver bullet" solutions that sacrifice ongoing, broad-based achievements for the quick fix of immediate short-term improvements. The solutions presented here are founded on systems thinking, a holistic approach to integrating a variety of improvement techniques into a platform for ongoing success.

The improvement techniques are based on the author's analysis of such world-class manufacturers as Honeywell, Marlow Industries, Granite Rock, and Wainwright Industries. All of these companies — finalists for or winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award — demonstrate certain "basics of business excellence" that have led them to impressive success in production, revenue, profits and market share (see accompanying box). These basics represent a vision of how leading experts view management and how world-class organizations are doing business.

The book includes "Strategies to Improve" sections that help the reader translate ideas into action. Divided into three levels — jump start, tune up and pull away — these strategies are intended to stimulate thinking and offer options to consider as a comprehensive action plan is developed.

The author is an independent quality consultant.

Heads, You Win! How the Best Companies Think, by Quinn Spitzer and Ron Evans, Simon & Schuster, 301 pages, $23, ISBN 0-684-80431-X

This book argues that problem-solving and decision-making are no longer just individual tasks, but rather have become collective activities. The question then becomes: How confident are you in the collective brainpower of your company? And how do you weave proficiency in critical thinking into the very fabric of an enterprise?

The authors cite the experiences and share the advice of the presidents and CEOs of some the world's most successful manufacturing companies who have learned how to create thinking organizations, such as Robert Lutz of Chrysler, Roger Ackerman of Corning, Richard Teerlink of Harley-Davidson and Ralph Larsen of Johnson & Johnson. The authors also describe how some of the most innova-tive companies are winning by capitalizing on the brainpower of every employee.

The book also examines those issues that have the most significant impact, in the current business environment, on problem-solving and decision-making processes:

• \data overload vs. information sufficiency,
• the teaming of the workplace,
• business organizations viewed as a system,
• the roles of intuition and rationality,
• leadership quality and core values.

The authors are with Kepner-Tregoe, a management consulting firm.