bookreviews
by Theodore B. Kinni
A Complaint Is a Gift
by Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller
Most businesspeople dread customer complaints. And anyone who has ever been
an unsatisfied customer knows that the odds of getting an acceptable resolution
to their problems are equivalent to their chances of winning the state lottery.
Barlow and Moller would like to change this game-they think companies should
be grateful for customer complaints. In fact, they would like companies
to encourage more complaints.
Why encourage complaints? Complaints are an effective form of market research,
according to the authors. They also give companies the chance to earn customer
loyalty. Unfortunately, most people don't complain when they are unsatisfied
with a service or product; thus, the companies they do business with lose
the opportunity to put customer feedback to work.
The solution is to create a complaint-friendly corporate culture. From policy
statements, to employee training, to easy-access complaint vehicles, such
as 800 numbers, the authors offer a lion's share of suggestions and real-life
examples of how businesses encourage and utilize complaints. There is even
a short section on the importance and uses of internal customer complaints.
The well-organized text includes discussion questions at the end of each
chapter and presents major techniques in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step
format. A Complaint Is a Gift (Berrett-Koehler, $16.95) is a high-value
book. The presentation is clear and concise, and it's packed with useful
ideas.
VROOM! Turbo-Charged Team Building
by Michael Shandler and Michael Egan
VROOM! is a rare bird in American business-book publishing-it's a text on
team building presented as a comic book. The comic book, or "manga,"
form is common among Japanese business books; but for serious American readers,
many of whom still think of comics as less-than-respectable entertainment,
there may be some built-in barriers to wide-scale acceptance. Hopefully,
those barriers can be overcome because, in this case, the format is effective.
Shandler and Egan tell the story of Harry Black, the president of a start-up
funded by a large corporation. Harry's division's results are far from stellar,
and his directionless R&D management team members are operating at odds
with each other and the good of the company. Harry's boss, the corporate
CEO, gives him and his R&D management team one year to get on the success
track.
Determined to get his business up and running smoothly, Harry undertakes
a three-day process the authors have termed "turbo-charged team building."
This process includes the usual teamwork tenets: the development of a common
vision, individual responsibility and accountability, trust, etc. It also
illustrates rules of conduct and meeting management skills. Overall, the
book is a good study of team building in action.
My only reservation is that VROOM! (Amacom, $14.95) features an executive-level
team. Executives, who comprise the largest business-book readership, will
probably resist the comic book format most. Conversely, the user-friendly
presentation make this a book that may appeal to those in lower-level positions.
ISO 14000
by Tom Tibor, with Ira Feldman
If ISO 9000 was any indication, business bookshelves will soon be bursting
with ISO 14000 texts. Happily, the nation's publishers were more alert this
time around, and an introduction to the new environmental management standards
appeared much sooner than ISO 9000 texts. This guide by Tibor and Feldman,
members of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to ISO TC 207 (the 14000 series
developers), came first out of the gate.
The authors waste no time in clearly explaining usual ISO 14000 misconceptions
and setting ground rules for defining terms. For those who haven't had the
pleasure of working with ISO, they include a full description of the organization
and its structure and workings. They also explore the development of the
environmental management discipline.
The book is based mainly on the final draft of ISO 14001-the standard to
which companies will be registered. In a clause-by-clause, sometimes word-by-word
reading, the authors
describe the standards and offer some clearly marked interpretation.
Tibor and Feldman also offer preliminary reports on some of the working
subcommittees within TC 207-there are, they explain, more than two-dozen
additional standards under development. Chapters are devoted to the upcoming
standards in life-cycle assessment, labeling and the electronics industry's
product standards.
For those anxious to get a jump on the new standards, ISO 14000 (Irwin,
$35) is a good place to start. A few hours of reading now may pay huge dividends
when it's time to start a registration run.
The Power of Open-Book Management
by John Schuster and Jill Carpenter, with M. Patricia Kane
The popularity of the open-book management concept has been growing steadily
since its wide-scale introduction to the business community by CEO Jack
Stack and Springfield Remanufacturing Corp. as "the Great Game of Business."
Their game is based on a simple, yet powerful idea: If the hard accounting
figures, once reserved for management, are understood by and shared with
the entire work force, everyone will be able to act in ways that positively
affect a company's bottom line.
Schuster and Carpenter take a comprehensive approach to open-book management.
They spend the first five chapters exploring its benefits, describing the
practices that make it work. Four competencies characterize open-book management:
financial literacy, a communication network called "the huddle system,"
employee ownership, and leadership. The authors' assertion that open-book
management is a system rather than a program should be familiar to total
quality practitioners. To make the process work, it needs to be part of
a company's operating fabric.
Part II of the book presents a generic six-phase implementation model. Open-book
management, readers soon understand, is a long-term commitment of time and
resources. The authors' time frame allows three years for a work force to
obtain expert-level competence. The final section of the book provides strategies
for keeping the open-book management effort vital as it matures.
The Power of Open-Book Management (Wiley, $24.95) is as comprehensive a
guide to the subject as currently exists. If there were only room for one
open-book management book on your shelf, this would be a strong contender
for the spot.
booknotes
High Performance Benchmarking
by H. James Harrington and James S. Harrington
(McGraw-Hill, 173 pages, $12.95)
The Harringtons pack a good deal of information into this concise, economic
summary of benchmarking. It includes an overview of measurement techniques,
a process model, applications, data collection and analysis information,
and more.
Team Talk
by Anne Donnellon
(Harvard Business School Press, 297 pages, $24.95)
Effective communication is critical for effective teamwork, and this book
explores how the talk between team members reflects and affects their work.
Understanding such conversations is a valuable tool for improving performance,
according to Donnellon.
Demystifying ISO 9000
by Gerald W. Paradis and Fen Small
(Addison-Wesley, 153 pages, $24.69)
This reference book covers the same ground as many other introductions to
ISO 9000-but with a twist. The text is a detailed outline serving up the
need-to-know facts, but with no extraneous chatter. Originally published
in 1993, this new edition covers the 1994 ISO 9000 updates.
The Ten Commandments of the Workplace and How to Break Them Everyday
by Perry Pascarella
(Zondervan, 144 pages, $15.99)
From "Thou shalt hang up thy beliefs at the plant gate" to "Thou
shalt look for grand solutions," Pascarella takes on the workplace
"gospels" and proves why they only hinder good business. He offers
an alternative Christian perspective to which even non-Christian readers
shouldn't take exception.
The Connective Edge
by Jean Lipman-Blumen
(Jossey-Bass, 379 pages, $27.50)
Lipman-Blumen thinks successful businesses are moving beyond traditional,
competitive boundaries and looking for the connections between groups that
lead to new partnerships and profits. Creating these new organizations requires
a new kind of "connective leader," whose characteristics are described
in the book.
Design and Management of Service Processes
by Rohit Ramaswamy
(Addison-Wesley, 424 pages, $29.25)
Ramaswamy applies the tenets of total quality development and process engineering
to customer service in this encyclopedic and largely technical presentation.
Aimed at service delivery in a wide variety of industries, the tools and
techniques are illustrated with plenty of case studies.
