Corporate MVPs: Managing Your Company's Most Valuable Performers

Rating:
Summary: A very important way to think about my best people
Review: A business friend told me of this book and suggested it to me when one of my most important employees was thinking of leaving.

I run a decent sized company (1200 people) and I know that a precious few employees make up the heart of my business. If these 3 or 4 people left I would be up the creek. We have a good program to manage our talented people but have not felt that we really had a handle on how to manage these "MVP"s. Corporate MVPs really helped me to think about these people and what makes them tick. I now appreciate them more than ever, and now I am pretty comfortable that I know how to manage them. I am less on edge about my MVPs leaving.

Corporate MVPs is a good companion to one of my favorite business books "Good to Great". Good to Great looks at how organizations can move from good to great. Corporate MVPs looks at how individuals can move from good to MVP status.


I found the Chapter on "Managing the MVP" to be especially helpful. I have followed its advice and I have seen great results with my 5 MVPs. I also really liked the anecdotes and ideas from many successful business people that are scattered throughout the book. It adds a real life business feel to the research.

I have given the book to a number of my promising people so they could read "How to Become an MVP". It has created some very interesting discussions in my staff meetings on how we can all find ways to improve.

I have also found the chapters on recruiting MVPs and on managing difficult MVPs to be timely and extremely useful.

I have bought copies for my HR Director and for all my direct reports. Once read it becomes a good reference book as the needs arise.


Rating:
Summary: Good to Great ... Only Better
Review: The authors tell a tale of business success that has been recently repopularized by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great: hire good people and nurture them to success. In corporate MVPs, the entire thesis is to find and support your biggest assets. I found the authors' perspective refreshing and bold. I thought their tips on how to ID and exalt your corp MVPs to be common sensical, yet not obvious. This is a very good how to book for managers who have accepted the fact that recruiting talent is a wise career move. This is not to be confused with the presidential situation where the DUMB are hiring loyal DUMBERs, so as not to be threatened.

Rating:
Summary: This research really hits home!
Review: There are just so many business books, and most of them are one-dimensional--taking a single theory and stretching it into a cure-all. Butterris and Roiter offer something different and refreshing here...a framework for how to think about the people around you, and how to build strong individuals and teams. The specific stories are great... I highly recommend this for one's senior staff.

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: This book offers great insight into these valuable assets--- our MVPs. The practical advise on how to manage MVPs is a extremely important for the HR community in supporting the organizations they work with. The authors research an area of leadership that is critical in these challenging times.