Implementation

By Alan P. Brache and Sam Bodley-Scott McGraw Hill, $29.95

Ah, the challenges of putting what you have decided to do in your organization into practice. The more I read about organizations and leadership, the more I have come to realize how monumental the task can be. We put hundreds of hours and millions of dollars into our strategic initiatives, and then we look up a couple of years later and find we are no closer to our goals than we were when we started.

In Implementation, authors and Kepner-Tregoe consultants Alan P. Brache and Sam Bodley-Scott have given us what we may need more than anything to keep going—hope. For example, in Chapter 5, "Creating a Can-Do Culture," you will find perhaps the most exhaustively useful treatment of the importance of a winning corporate culture you are likely to find anywhere on the business bookshelves, and learn how to create a winning culture yourself.

The book is beautifully organized and contains many case studies that point out where the pratfalls and opportunities are in the game of strategic implementation. I would find it hard to believe that any CEO could get his or her act together without a thorough reading and implementation of the methodology in the book. Here's a book you can put to use the moment you get into it. Go get 'em, tigers. —S.C.