Robert in Business & Economics Books

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First published in 1995, <i>The Nordstrom Way</i> is a classic guide to great customer service. This new book replaces <i>The Nordstrom Way</i> with an even more practical guide to becoming the "Nordstrom" of your industry. Designed for customer service managers and trainers, as well as business owners, it's an invaluable resource for designing your own programs and initiatives. The authors not only explain the principles of the world's best customer service company, they also show you how to implement them in your own organization. <i>The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence</i> will help your business make customers its number one concern, and help make your business number one in your industry.

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Argues that a good education and a secure job are not guarantees for financial success, and describes six guidelines for making money work for you.

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<p><b>A shortand outline for almost every word in the English language.</b></p> <p><i>The GREGG Shorthand Dictionary Simplified</i> is divided into two parts: <b>Part I</b> contains 26,098 words most commonly used in notation with their official shorthand outlines. Also included are words that are frequently used in such fields as medicine, law, engineering, chemistry, and many others. These words represent a large range of vocabulary, omitting derivites that are not needed in shorthand. <b>Part II</b> contains 2,604 proper names and geographic expressions including a list of 72 commonly used abbreviations. This valuable reference should be part of the library of every shorthand writer.</p>

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<p>In today's "customercentric" world, superior service is fast becoming a vital competitive advantage. Customer Service provides hands-on, comprehensive coverage for improving all aspects of customer service, especially handling problems and stress. This new edition features interviews with working customer service professionals, boxes that highlight leadership qualities of successful customer service managers, an increased focus on diversity issues, and more.</p>

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Describes how the wealthiest percentage of the population handles investments, and suggests ways to follow the example, including building one's own business in order to invest as a business, not an individual.

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Applying Buffett's principles to technology and international investing<br> From the bestselling author of The Warren Buffett Way and The Warren Buffett Portfolio comes The Essential Buffett: Timeless Principles for the New Economy. In this fresh take on Buffett's irrefutable investment methods, Robert Hagstrom shows readers how to apply Buffett's principles to technology and international investing using real-life case studies of successful fund managers like Legg Mason's Bill Miller.<br> Following the Buffett model, Hagstrom explains Buffett's four timeless principles: 1) analyze a stock as a business; 2) demand a margin of safety for each purchase; 3) manage a focus portfolio; 4) protect yourself from the speculative and emotional forces of the market. Then Hagstrom shows how Buffett's thinking can be applied in the new economy, addressing technology investing, international investing, small cap stocks, and socially responsible investing. Perhaps most valuable are Hagstrom's insights into the psychology behind Buffett's focus investing. For the first time, we are given sure-fire guidelines on how to become a winning Buffett disciple.<br> The Essential Buffett will include convenient sidebars featuring key Buffett ideas, enabling readers to quickly compare Buffett's fundamental tenets.

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&#8220;Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state&#8212;a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can&#8217;t get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?&#8221;<br><br>In his explosive New York Times bestseller, <b>See No Evil</b>, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA&#8217;s efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our government&#8217;s cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and America&#8217;s dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism.<br><br>For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a &#8220;harmony of interests.&#8221; America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdom&#8217;s vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Sa&#8217;ud family. But the rot at the core of our &#8220;friendship&#8221; with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens.<br><br>In <b>Sleeping with the Devil</b>, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Sa&#8217;ud&#8217;s culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Sa&#8217;ud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groups&#8212;an end game just waiting to play out.<br><br>Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Sa&#8217;ud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sand&#8212;and so long as we continue to grab at the Al Sa&#8217;ud&#8217;s money&#8212;we are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>

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The subprime mortgage crisis wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of people and threatened to derail the US economy and economies around the world. This book calls for a restructuring of the institutional foundations of the financial system that can allow people once again to buy and sell homes with confidence.

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In todays hypercompetitive global marketplace, a companys pricing policy can make or break the bottom line. Yet a surprising number of firms attempt to increase profits without the aid of a carefully and creatively designed pricing strategy. Now, in this long-awaited book, the worlds two leading price experts Robert J. Dolan and Hermann Simon take managers beyond conventional thinking to show how their breakthrough system of "power pricing" will improve the bottom line by an order of magnitude. They destroy popular but not necessarily financially savvy ideas on pricing, such as relying on a standard markup on cost rule. They expose as passive the "strategy" of letting the market or a competitor "set the price." But the key is in what they provide: the tools by which the pedestrian pricer can become a "power pricer" who achieves quantum leaps in financial performance by aggressively implementing sophisticated pricing strategies. Dolan and Simon combine their international expertise and know-how to reveal the latest breakthroughs in pricing tactics. Drawing on their firsthand experience with firms throughout the world, they make available for the first time the logic behind the actual practices of "power pricers" engaged in fierce global competition. Market segmentation, promotional pricing, competitive strategic pricing, international pricing, nonlinear pricing, interrelated product line pricing, and time-customized pricing are just a few of the crucial concepts which the authors explore and explain when and how to implement. The authors approach to creating "power pricers" is twofold. They specify the practices of the strategic pricers among the worlds most successful firms and then lay out a four-dimensional system to attain this level of pricing sophistication and resulting profit improvement. Dolan and Simon draw their portrait of the power pricer in four critical dimensions: viewpoint on pricing, fact file support pricing, tools and scope of analysis, and determination and implementation. The authors argue that firms must view pricing as a key and highly manageable element in the profit equation, worthy of attention equal to that accorded to sales volume and costs. Companies must have data at their finger tips which are more accurate, timely, relevant, and dissaggregated than their competitors'. Using these data to create a systematic analysis of customers and competitors, companies will be able to create and assess pricing scenarios to achieve long-term profitability. This targeted, quadrupled approach to transforming the bottom line by managing price leaves no strategy or option unturned. Power Pricing is a highly detailed yet practically focused book which will become required reading for business leaders; general managers; marketing, product, and brand managers; accountants, financial managers, and marketing students, world-wide.

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Argues that many of Africa's problems are related to such internal factors as market mismanagement, anti-business sentiments, and fatalistic African family values, in an account that proposes radical solutions to shortcomings in foreign aid and debt relief. Reprint.

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A collection of Robert Greenleaf's finest and most mature works and an unexpected sequel to his "Servant Leadership". These pieces were designed to stimulate and inspire people in the practice of a more caring leadership and reflect Greenleaf's continual refinement of his servant-as-leader concept, focusing on issues such as spirit, commitment to vision, and seeing things whole.

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In today's business environment, strategy has never been more important. Yet research shows that most companies fail to execute strategy successfully. Behind this abysmal track record lies an undeniable fact: many companies continue to use management processes-top-down, financially driven, and tactical-that were designed to run yesterday's organizations.<BR>Now, the creators of the revolutionary performance management tool called the Balanced Scorecard introduce a new approach that makes strategy a continuous process owned not just by top management, but by everyone. In The Strategy-Focused Organization, Robert Kaplan and David Norton share the results of ten years of learning and research into more than 200 companies that have implemented the Balanced Scorecard. Drawing from more than twenty in-depth case studies-including Mobil, CIGNA, Nova Scotia Power, and AT&T Canada-Kaplan and Norton illustrate how Balanced Scorecard adopters have taken their groundbreaking tool to the next level. These organizations have used the scorecard to create an entirely new performance management framework that puts strategy at the center of key management processes and systems.<BR>Kaplan and Norton articulate the five key principles required for building Strategy-Focused Organizations: (1) translate the strategy to operational terms, (2) align the organization to the strategy, (3) make strategy everyone's everyday job, (4) make strategy a continual process, and (5) mobilize change through strong, effective leadership. The authors provide a detailed account of how a range of organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors have deployed these principles to achieve breakthrough, sustainable performance improvements.<BR>Presenting a practical, proven framework steeped in rich case study experience, The Strategy-Focused Organization helps solve a universal management problem-not just how to formulate strategy, but how to make it work. Building on one of the most revolutionary business ideas of our time, this important book shows how today's leaders can shape their own companies to meet the challenges and reap the rewards of a new competitive era.<BR>Robert S. Kaplan is the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School. David P. Norton is President of Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc.

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For those on a path to slow career death - a path that also affects the competitiveness, progress, and overall health of the organizations in which we work - Deep Change offers a survival manual for finding our own internal leadership power and learning the most important skill of all to triumph in the face of change: to "know thyself". Exploring the dynamic process of deep change and learning the new ways of thinking and behaving it requires can put an end to the slow death dilemma forever. In defining this process, author Robert E. Quinn, a renowned expert on organizations and management, demonstrates the crucial importance of deep change as the path to self-understanding and the key to revitalization of the individual and the organization. By finding our own moral core and beginning to see ourselves and our organizations in new and more productive ways, he explains, we can transform ourselves from victims to powerful agents of change. An introspective journey for those of us in the trenches of today's modern organizations, Deep Change is filled with illuminating stories and personal examples of the stages of change and the dangerous effects of refusing to change. It also includes reflective questions and ideas at the end of each chapter to help put insights into action.

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<i>Building the Bridge As You Walk On It</i> tells the personal stories of people who have embraced deep change and inspired author Robert Quinn to take his concept one step further and develop a new model of leadership-"the fundamental state of leadership." The exploration of this transformative state is at the very heart of the book. Quinn shows how anyone can enter the fundamental state of leadership by engaging in the eight practices that center on the theme of ever-increasing integrity-reflective action, authentic engagement, appreciative inquiry, grounded vision, adaptive confidence, detached interdependence, responsible freedom, and tough love. After each chapter, Quinn challenges you to assess yourself with respect to each practice and to formulate a strategy for personal growth.

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Here is the book - by the recognized architects of the Balanced Scorecard - that shows how managers can use this revolutionary tool to mobilize their people to fulfill the company's mission. More than just a measurement system, the Balanced Scorecard is a management system that can channel the energies, abilities, and specific knowledge held by people throughout the organization toward achieving long-term strategic goals. Kaplan and Norton demonstrate how senior executives in industries such as banking, oil, insurance, and retailing are using the Balanced Scorecard both to guide current performance and to target future performance. They show how to use measures in four categories - financial performance, customer knowledge, internal business processes, and learning and growth - to align individual, organizational, and cross-departmental initiatives and to identify entirely new processes for meeting customer and shareholder objectives. The authors also reveal how to use the Balanced Scorecard as a robust learning system for testing, gaining feedback on, and updating the organization's strategy. Finally, they walk through the steps that managers in any company can use to build their own Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard provides the management system for companies to invest in the long term - in customers, in employees, in new product development, and in systems - rather than managing the bottom line to pump up short-term earnings. It will change the way you measure and manage your business.

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<P>Identifying and Leveraging the Hidden Social Networks That Drive Corporate Performance<P> <P>In today's flatter organizations, collaboration in employee networks has become critical to innovation and to both individual and companywide performance. Executives spend millions on new organizational designs, cultural initiatives, and technologies to promote the sharing of knowledge and expertise across functional, hierarchical, and divisional lines. Yet these efforts have achieved disappointing results. <P> <P>Rob Cross and Andrew Parker argue that's because most managers have little understanding of how their employees actually interact to get work done. In fact, formal "org charts" fail to reveal the often hidden social networks that truly drive--or hinder--an organization's performance. In this eye-opening book, Cross and Parker show managers how to find, assess, and support the networks most crucial to competitive success.<P> <P>Based on their in-depth study of more than sixty informal networks within organizations around the world, Cross and Parker show how managers can implement a wide range of specific and inexpensive actions-from bridging strategically important disconnects in a network to eliminating information "bottlenecks" to recognizing key connectors-that will enhance the powerful impact networks can have on performance and innovation.<P>

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