Lessons from the Top: The 50 Most Successful Business Leaders in America--and What You Can Learn From Them - Softcover

Neff, Thomas J.; Citrin, James M.

3.3

44 ratings by Goodreads

9780385493444: Lessons from the Top: The 50 Most Successful Business Leaders in America--and What You Can Learn From Them

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385493444 ISBN 13: 9780385493444

Publisher: Crown Business, 2001

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In the bestselling tradition of In Search of Excellence, fascinating and revealing profiles of the most successful business leaders in America and the strategies, methods, and motivational techniques they use to help make their companies great.

What makes a great business leader? What qualities do the men and women at the top of the world's best-run companies have in common? What lessons can they teach other managers and CEOs?

Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin provide the answers to these vital questions in Lessons from the Top. Using the most exacting standards imaginable, and employing the research expertise of the Gallup Organization and the analytical tools of investment advisers Lazard Freres, they selected the fifty best executives in business today and interviewed them about their long-term strategies, career milestones, key accomplishments, and guiding beliefs. The result is an unparalleled course in what it takes to create a successful, well-organized company in any industry.

Lessons from the Top profiles such well-known people as Jack Welch, Bill Gates, Lou Gerstner, and Andy Grove, as well as less familiar figures like Bill Steere of Pfizer, Shelly Lazarus of Ogilvy & Mather, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco International, and Frank Raines of Fannie Mae. In the final section of the book, the authors distill the qualities these accomplished individuals share, as well as delineate six essential principles of business leadership.

A winning combination of entertaining stories about life at the top (and how to get there) and rigorous business insights, Lessons from the Top received high praise when it was published in hardcover and went back to press six times. With a new Introduction, the paperback edition will bring its important lessons to an even wider audience

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Review:

What does it really take to run a successful company today? Thomas Neff and James Citrin, U.S. chairman and managing director, respectively, of the Spencer Stuart executive-search firm, offer revealing answers in Lessons from the Top: The Search for America's Best Business Leaders. In 50 short but perceptive profiles, they identify and analyze the men and women who drive today's most successful corporations. As might be expected, the authors lean heavily on well-known CEOs such as Steve Case of America Online, Michael Dell of Dell Computer, and Howard Schultz of Starbucks. But they also look at a number who don't get the same publicity, including Fannie Mae's Frank Raines, the Gap's Don Fisher, and Autodesk's Carol Bartz. The result is a broad but surprisingly consistent palette of personalities and philosophies that in a concluding section Neff and Citrin highlight by synthesizing into 10 common traits (passion, intelligence, communication skill, high energy, controlled ego, inner peace, a defining background, strong family life, positive attitude, and a focus on "doing the right things right") and six core principles (live with integrity, develop a winning strategy, build a great management team, inspire employees, create a flexible organization, and implement relevant systems). This book is for managers and anyone else looking for the patterns of success, both in and out of business. --Howard Rothman

From the Back Cover:

Inside Lessons from the Top:

"I think you've got to continuously make sure [employees] understand how important they are. As a CEO, you need people more than they need you. My job is to keep our people interested in staying, and working, and growing and prospering with this company."
--Larry Bossidy, Chairman & CEO, AlliedSignal

"When I look at potential products or services, I see them through the eyes of the customer, because that is what I am, a customer. I am like a chef. I like to taste the food. If it tastes bad, I don't serve it."
--Charles Schwab, Chairman & Co-CEO, Charles Schwab

"We reward failure. I remember some guys came up with a lamp that didn't work, and we gave them all television sets. You have to do it, because otherwise people will be afraid to try things."
--Jack Welch, Chairman & CEO, General Electric

"The real trick to marketing is finding a core idea which the world can use. You find the universal, and then you make it the core of what you do."
--Shelly Lazarus, Chairman & CEO, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide

"Customer satisfaction is the most important issue to me, and if you really believe that, then you've got to tie it to your reward system, to your management practices, and we do...We measure customer satisfaction in every way imaginable."
--John Chambers, President & CEO, Cisco Systems

"The key to building an enduring new medium is passion, people, perseverance, perspective and paranoia."
--Steve Case, Chairman & CEO, America Online

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