If your management is overwhelmed by all the ‘stuff’ that needs to be taken care of, and you want to focus on a few select things that matter most, this book can help you figure out what to focus on first, and how to prioritize the organizing principles in your organization. It takes a LOT of energy and an executive team that is 100% committed to implement though, so make sure that this is the right fit for your organization.
The author, Verne Harnish, runs a consulting company called Gazelles. This company focuses on ‘executive education’, and offers consulting services for growing companies. The book ‘Scaling Up‘ is the companion to Gazelle’s flagship corporate program, which helps owners and CEO’s navigate the growth of their businesses. A Gazelles coach will come in and guide the company to properly organize the pieces, using the book and some other tools, to get that job done. You could certainly just read the book and draw inspiration from it, but the real value comes from the advise you get from the coach.
Scaling Up distills a successful business into four major decision areas: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. For each of these decision areas, the book describes what they mean, why they are important, and what you can do to optimize each area. The theory is that if you get all four of these areas right, then success will be yours.
The book hits all the major self-evident aspects of modern business (the right people in the right place, everyone is accountable, focus on your niche, don’t get distracted, implement measurable KPI’s, etcetera). What I like about it is that it is structured well; it is very easy to follow but there is a lot of depth in each element of the program.
You can tell that the book is written with extensive experience behind it, but you do need the experience and knowledge of a coach to really understand what is behind the book. As a standalone book you might get a lot of inspiration for structuring your organization, but I don’t think it goes deep enough to really have a lot of value.
I also wanted to mention that Gazelles also organizes a number of events where a bunch of speakers, who all write books in the corporate world, come out and try to capture your imagination, buy their book and hopefully hire them to come help you implement what they write about. I’ve attended the ‘Growth Summit’ once, and I was impressed with the line-up of the speakers, and I was thoroughly inspired to take real action. For all you CEO’s out there – if you could use some inspiration, or if you want to do some real bonding with your executive team, I can definitely recommend attending one of the Gazelles events.