Rating: 
Summary: A must read for those who lead!
Review: Hartman has an obvious grasp on what it takes for business leaders to succeed in today's marketplace. The book clearly defines what it takes to surmount obstacles, redefine culture, and regain focus.Hartman has the ability to share success stories and give examples in a very succinct and poignant manner. The reader sees what great business leaders have done (in this economy) to gain success through leadership, governance, and managing talent. He very clearly defines how NOT to hit "the wall" and how to lead your orgnization to ascendance. In today's economy executives are getting hit from every angle. This book explains in very plain english how and when to execute the right methodologies to obtain success within an organization. The stories in RUTHLESS EXECUTION are well written and offer both inspiration and direction. Definitely a book to have if you are in a leadership position. As the President of an INC. 500 firm, I find the book extremely useful and inspirational.
Rating:
Summary: Not just "Me-too" advice
Review: Hartman presents trenchant analysis and documentation of an endemic problem in business: hitting the wall can happen to an enterprise anywhere, anytime. Discussions of the case studies are compelling. More importantly, the revealing of the many dimensions of what needs to be done to turn things around and how to do that are the core contributions of the book. Highly recommended read for senior and top managers...especially for those who think they are enjoying success.
Rating:
Summary: Sound Advice for ChallengingTimes
Review: In today's world, constant change is the status quo. Companies are "hitting the wall" right and left amidst the headwinds of these turbulent times. In such times, leadership is the key to thriving. And rutheless execution is how the great leaders roll up their sleaves and get the job done. In his book, "Ruthless Execution", Amir Hartman cuts through the fog and gets to what really matters. He offers sound advice for how to both recognize that you're business is in trouble, and what to do about it. His book is filled with compelling interviews with great business leaders that have demonstrated an ability to lead change. And having worked directly with one of these great leaders, Larry Bossidy, during very difficult economic times, I can definitely concur with Mr. Hartman's conclusions and recomendations. It's worth the read!
Rating:
Summary: Sound Advice for ChallengingTimes
Review: In today's world, constant change is the status quo. Companies are "hitting the wall" right and left amidst the headwinds of these turbulent times. In such times, leadership is the key to thriving. And rutheless execution is how the great leaders roll up their sleaves and get the job done. In his book, "Ruthless Execution", Amir Hartman cuts through the fog and gets to what really matters. He offers sound advice for how to both recognize that you're business is in trouble, and what to do about it. His book is filled with compelling interviews with great business leaders that have demonstrated an ability to lead change. And having worked directly with one of these great leaders, Larry Bossidy, during very difficult economic times, I can definitely concur with Mr. Hartman's conclusions and recomendations. It's worth the read!
Rating:
Summary: Sound Advice for ChallengingTimes
Review: In today's world, constant change is the status quo. Companies are "hitting the wall" right and left amidst the headwinds of these turbulent times. In such times, leadership is the key to thriving. And rutheless execution is how the great leaders roll up their sleaves and get the job done. In his book, "Ruthless Execution", Amir Hartman cuts through the fog and gets to what really matters. He offers sound advice for how to both recognize that you're business is in trouble, and what to do about it. His book is filled with compelling interviews with great business leaders that have demonstrated an ability to lead change. And having worked directly with one of these great leaders, Larry Bossidy, during very difficult economic times, I can definitely concur with Mr. Hartman's conclusions and recomendations. It's worth the read!
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of money!
Review: Ruthless Execution is a simplistic view of leadership 101 topics. If your company needs this to break through the wall, you have much deeper problems. It seems that Mr Hartman is trying to write to the uneducated or non-professional. Don't waste your money!
Rating:
Summary: Waste of money!
Review: Ruthless Execution is a simplistic view of leadership 101 topics. If your company needs this to break through the wall, you have much deeper problems. It seems that Mr Hartman is trying to write to the uneducated or non-professional. Don't waste your money!
Rating:
Summary: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall....
Review: Ruthless Execution Ignore this book's somewhat overheated title and concentrate on Hartman's core concepts which he develops with meticulous care. He suggests a number of strategies and tactics by which business leaders can respond effectively when they encounter what Hartman calls the "rude awakening that occurs when a company has enjoyed consistently high-level performance, but comes up against some new factor: a downward turn in the economy, a lack of product innovation, growth that occurs too rapidly, a missed market opportunity, or as is most often the case, ineffective execution." Hartman organizes his material within five Parts which consist of a total of 12 individual chapters: Managing Through Tough Times, Leadership: Dealing with Rude Awakenings, How to Play the Game, Breaking Through the Wall, and What It All Means. The focus of Hartman's book is on "business reversals and the need to shepherd business leaders through those reversals because, quite frankly, corporations are passing through a new, more complex, more worrying age. The long and short of it is that it's far more difficult to be a successful business leader today than ever before." The statistics support Hartman's last observation. In 2001, for example, 257 public companies (with a total of $258 billion in assets) declared bankruptcy. In 2002, another 67 did so. Go back even further to the 43 companies which Peters and Waterman quite properly praised in In Search of Excellence (1982). Most no longer qualify according to the criteria by which they were selected...and several do not exist at all. Scary? You bet. In Chapter 8, Hartman offers a "Ruthless Execution Checklist" which can be of substantial value to all organizations, regardless of size or nature: 1. Do you have a cost and working capital management program that is driven through the business? [NOTE: For small companies, the more appropriate question is "Is there a sound reason for the expenditure of each hour and each dollar?"] 2. Do you have a proactive and disciplined approach to identifying and assessing potential acquisitions and divestitures? [NOTE: For small companies, the more appropriate question is "What should you add to what you now offer? What should you eliminate?"] 3. Do you regularly assess whether the corporate center is adding distinctive value to each business unit? [NOTE: For small companies, the more appropriate question is "Does everything you do add value to each customer relationship?"] 4. Do you effectively and swiftly manage out non-performers? [NOTE: Extensive research indicates that, on average, each mishire costs 24 times her or his annual salary. Hire slowly but fire FAST.] Most organizations now face serious challenges. Many of those organizations will not survive. For their decision-makers, what to do? To his credit, Hartman does not propose a series of specific (one size fits all) answers to that question. Rather, in the final chapter, he includes a "Ruthless Execution Index" with instructions as to how to use it. It remains for each reader to provide correct responses to the 54 statements which comprise the "Index." Once this exercise has been completed, the far greater challenge -- obviously -- is to take appropriate action. Hartman can assist with that process. I also recommend a careful reading of Bossidy and Charan's Execution, Hammer's The Agenda, Collins' Good to Great, and Kaplan and Norton's The Strategy-Focused Organization.
Rating:
Summary: Practical and Insightful, a Must for Business Execs
Review: Too often business books fall into one of two categories: 1) the kind that provides practical information but is lacking any kind of new insight, or, 2) the kind that's packed with new ideas but is painfully short on actionable info you can really put to use. Ruthless Execution by Amir Hartman is that rarest of business books that delivers the best of both worlds: It's loaded with new ideas and fresh insights, yet throughout the author firmly grounds his working philosophy in practical tools and proven methodologies for getting the job done. Let's face it: Even the best-managed companies hit a wall at some point. Ruthless Execution spells out a proven framework for swiftly analyzing your strategic options in a rigorous and thorough manner. As any veteran of the business world knows, strategic recalibration is a challenge that's easier said than done. This book explains how it's done. Great stuff. Hugely helpful to any company that needs to take a good, hard analytical look at which initiatives they should nurture, and which they should kill in order to get back on track.
Rating:
Summary: Great BOOK and a Great INTERVIEW
Review: We all experience times of adversity and stress, especially when we are exerting ourselves toward a goal. Just as all athletes learn to keep on going when they run up against the wall of pain of fatigue, and they catch their second wind and experience the joy of their sport, so too each business owner must learn the strategies necessary to keep on going after his or her company has hit the proverbial wall and has become fatigued financially. Dr. Amir Hartma is an expert in business strategies and he says adversity never needs to be the end of the road, nor should it spell disaster. Instead of giving in to slash and burn methods or giving up, he can help your business get beyond the "endurance" wall it will inevitably hit. If you are a business owner, no matter how big or small, you will experience "the wall" but, you can be ready and survive and thrive in tough times by reading this book. I interviewed Amir Hartman on "The Inside Success Show" and was very impressed with his firm grasp of business leadership strategies that will help business overcome the stress and strain of hard times. Here's some other things I learned from Amir Hartman: ** How Amir Hartman mastered business strategies
** Why you should prepare for business financial stress before they show up
** What are 3 core strategies you need to know to be ruthless
** How to keep from being reactionary and firing people when hard times hit
** What are the right kind of kinds of information to gather to make good decisions
** How you can recruit, hire, and keep top-notch people
** And much, much more .. Amir Hartman makes corporate endurance easier to develop and I recommend reading his book. Randy (Dr. Proactive) Gilbert, best-selling author of "Success Bound"
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