Product Description

Confronting Reality will change the way you think about and run your business. It is the first book that shows how to connect the big picture of the new era of business with the nitty-gritty of what to do about it. Through a completely new way to understand and use the business model as the primary tool for confronting reality—a breakthrough that will become the management innovation of this decade—you’ll know sooner rather than later whether your fundamental business premise is under assault, where your best opportunities lie, what you should change and what you should leave alone, and how to realistically plan the future of your business.

The fundamentals of how a business makes money are being rapidly and permanently altered by sweeping structural changes. With their extraordinary depth and breadth of experience, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan are the ideal guides for everyone—entrepreneur, mid-level manager, or CEO—about what is to be done so you can get things right in this challenging, radically changed world. They start by showing you how to understand the most fundamental element of any business: whether you can realistically make the money you hope to in the game you’re playing.

Bossidy and Charan show how to use the business model to develop a robust, reality-based process for thinking about the speci?cs of your business in a holistic way. They show how to tie together the financial targets you must meet, the external realities you face, and internal activities such as strategy development, operating tactics, and selection and development of people.

Through the lens of the business model, as well as the skillful use of initiatives and development of people with the right leadership characteristics, you’ll see how Robert Nardelli at Home Depot, Jim McNerney at 3M, Dick Harrington at the Thomson Corporation, Michael Wisbrun at KLM, Joseph Tucci at EMC, and John Chambers at Cisco confronted reality. Whether they faced crisis or opportunity, all made the right kinds of changes through a combination of business savvy (the art of understanding the fundamentals driving a business) and business model thinking.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #445403 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-19
• Released on: 2004-10-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781400050840
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
In their 2002 bestseller, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan identify why people don’t get results: they don’t execute. Bossidy and Charan are back with another stellar study on organizational behavior that shows how companies can succeed if they return to reality and examine every part of their business. Confronting Reality is based on a simple concept, but many companies approach strategy and execution in a surprisingly unreal manner and even the simplest of measurement methods, like the business model, are not applied correctly.

Cisco, 3M, KLM, Home Depot, and the Thomson Corporation are just a few of the companies that Bossidy and Charan examine. To demonstrate how to examine a business using the business model, Bossidy and Charan map out external variables, financial targets, internal activities, and an iteration stage (defined as a time to "make tradeoffs, apply and develop business savvy") to prove how a dynamically evolving business model will help improve performance.

"The version of the business model we have developed is a robust, reality-based process for thinking about the specifics of your business in a holistic way. It shows you how to tie together the financial targets you must meet, the external realities of your business and internal activities such as strategy development, operating tactics, and selection and development of people."

Larry Bossidy, retired chairman and CEO of Honeywell International and Ram Charan, author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business, have once again shed industrial-strength light on how to run a successful business. --E. Brooke Gilbert

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Amazon.com Interview: Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan are back with Confronting Reality to show how companies can succeed if they get back to reality and examine every part of their business. Amazon.com senior editor E. Brooke Gilbert interviewed Bossidy and Charan to discuss the current business climate, their new book, and future projections.
Read the interview.

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan Discuss the Airline Industry

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan discuss the airline industry's failure to confront reality based on a recent Wall Sreet Journal article and their new book as a backdrop.
Read their comments.

From Booklist
Sweeping changes have radically altered the business environment since the optimistic 1990s, including the harsh realities of globalization and outsourcing, and the hangover of overinvestment and overcapacity. Now, more than ever, businesses cannot survive if they continue to depend on what has worked in the past. Bossidy, former CEO of Honeywell International, and Charan, advisor to CEOs and senior executives, present a sound framework for confronting these realities head on. Going back to basics, they redefine the often hazy concept of the business model with a logical breakdown of its elements, linking and reinforcing external and internal realities in relation to financial targets. This model is demonstrated through the examples of real-world leaders, including Joe Tucci at EMC, John Chambers at Cisco, Jim McNerney at 3M, and Bob Nardelli at Home Depot, all of whom have had to face enormous challenges when the business climate shifted drastically and unexpectedly. Demonstrating their own capacity for business savvy, the authors teach that there are no cookie-cutter solutions; each situation is a unique challenge and requires a tailor-made solution. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Buy their bestseller EXECUTION instead
There are many good and new things in this book. Unfortunately, the good things aren't new, and the new things aren't good.

I have reviewed Charan and Bossidy's book on EXECUTION as well as Charan's book on PROFITABLE GROWTH. Both were great readings that asked us to confront reality in order to do what matters to get things right.

I've just read CONFRONTING REALITY. And I cannot help asking myself, why it was published at all? It doesn't add any new material compared to their marvellous bestseller; Execution. Instead this book spends most of its time telling case stories on the subject. I find too many of them too long and too boring.

The authors' new focus on the vague concept of the business model is still a mystery to me. Why not build on strong concepts such as McKinsey's business system or Porter's value chain with proven track records. Please, confront reality!

My advice is that you buy Execution instead. It's much better. It has a clear concept, a stronger structure - and exactly the same highly important messages.

If you're a hardcore fan - like I am - of Charan and Bossidy's execution concept, you may just want to have this as an audio book for a long highway trip... that's how I managed to get through it.

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

Wrong, wrong, wrong ...
Larry & Ram lost me, and I hope most of you, with their very first example. The new CFO, with no knowledge of the company or plant other than reading a few spreadsheets, with about 3 comments convinces the General manager to close the plant, fire everyone, desimate the town and move to China. The coatings company described was high end, high service, specialty-focused and anything but commodity. The workers were unusually dedicated. They had some time. For the GM to do anything other than allow THE WORKERS to confront reality and give them a shot at reengineering the place is a complete travesty. I've seen it work many times and I am no bleading-heart union man. Bossidy & Charam set this up as a great example, but it is a pure, short-term, initial price analysis with NO consideration for total cost and total value. The GM might have been able to save a business, save a town and actually win customers -- or yeah, move to China afterall. But no one will ever know. Larry and Ram sure don't. Get real, guys.

Not much new
I got this book because of their previous book, "Execution". The core idea in "Confronting Reality" is the Business Model, which is, simply put, looking at three factors: External Forces, Internal Capabilities, and Financial Goals, before deciding on how to solve problems and set direction.

The issue is that the book is full of case studies (too many from ex-GE execs - I wonder how wide these guys travel outside their "GE Club") but one idea. The illustrations at the end of every case study are always the same - they don't even go to the trouble of customizing the three factor model to show how Sun is different then Cisco for example - and the point is always the same. This should not have been a book, but instead limited to an HBR article or something like that.

The best part is Bossidy's style of how he interacts with teams and asks good questions....but "Execution" is much better at this.

The title was catchy and Bossidy is a pro at this topic of facing reality and turning around businesses...but he should have either invested more to fill it out or skipped it all together.