Less Is More: How Great Companies Improve Productivity Without Layoffs

Rating:
Summary: Productivity -- what definition should we use now?
Review: This little book provides a different prospective on productivity than one typically learns in MBA school or management grooming programs. Without going through the diatribes that many other reviews have opted to write (all very good mind you), his book can be summarized in one statement: "cut out the fat (everywhere) in order to become efficient".
Jennings spends time cutting the fat with regard to the management team, communications, organizational structure, decision making, internal processes, analytics/measurements, education/training, and finance (to name but a few). His recipe is to build a vision, get people on board with that vision, document processes, improve them, focus on the customer, and count those things which matter. Definitely not rocket science on the surface, but his analysis of the 10 most productive companies really shows how many of them implemented unorthodox approaches towards recreating their organization. Further, he provides commonalities between these seemingly unrelated companies (different industries, sizes, customer focuses, etc) which he believes elevates these companies above the rest. According to the financial analysis he provides in the second edition, it is hard to dispute his findings. Time will tell if his methodologies is the silver bullet to eliminate waste and drive MEANINGFUL productivity.