A starting point for smart leaders who want to build smarter companies.
Technology consultant Richardson, in her debut, aims to create savvy business leaders by banishing guesswork and blind decision-making.
It takes more than talent, technical prowess and hard work to lead a successful business, writes Richardson. Executives must also have a comprehensive knowledge of the people, products and processes that affect profitability so that they can make better decisions. The author, a technology whiz who has worked as a corporate strategist for Fortune 500 companies, cleverly calls this knowledge “Executive IQ” —common-sensical, data-driven insight into a company’s customers, employees, products and sales. She argues that merely having a vague idea of which customers buy certain products, or how much is spent on marketing, is unacceptable. Shrewd executives, she asserts, probe deeper when making strategic decisions. By using cutting-edge software, they can answer such questions as “How long does it take from the initial inquiry to convert a sale?” or “How many promotions have been awarded internally in the last two to five years?” This may seem like analytical overkill, but Richardson contends that understanding such metrics can keep a business afloat during rocky times. The book urges readers to assess their current Executive IQ by taking a “balanced scorecard” quiz and provides three well-crafted chapters of advice on how to implement a customer relationship management program; executives can use a CRM and Executive IQ together to operate their firms more effectively, the author explains. Overall, this is a book for overachievers, penned in a witty, nimble style. Some assertions here will ruffle feathers; for example, Richardson believes that many executives and entrepreneurs make poor decisions due to ego, fear or ignorance. The author has founded two companies herself, and her words carry the authority of someone who’s fought in the trenches. A new approach will likely generate friction, Richardson notes, but she makes the case that change can pave the way for long-term success.
A starting point for smart leaders who want to build smarter companies.Pub Date: April 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988339415
Page Count: 204
Publisher: The RLC Group, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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