Excerpt
- You are a bus driver. The bus, your
company, is at a standstill, and it's
your job to get it going. You have
to decide where you're going, how
you're going to get there, and who's
going with you.
Most
people assume that great bus drivers
(read: business leaders) immediately
start the journey by announcing to
the people on the bus where they're
going -- by setting a new direction
or by articulating a fresh corporate
vision.
In
fact, leaders of companies that go
from good to great start not with
"where" but with "who."
They start by getting the right people
on the bus, the wrong people off the
bus, and the right people in the right
seats. And they stick with that discipline
-- first the people, then the direction
-- no matter how dire the circumstances.
Excerpt
- The leader’s most important
job—selecting and appraising
people—is one that should never
be delegated. As a CEO, Larry Bossidy
personally makes the calls to check
references for key hires. Why? With
the right people in the right jobs,
there’s a leadership gene pool
that conceives and selects strategies
that can be executed.
People
then work together to create a strategy
building block by building block,
a strategy in sync with the realities
of the marketplace, the economy, and
the competition. Once the right people
and strategy are in place, they are
then linked to an operating process
that results in the implementation
of specific programs and actions and
that assigns accountability.
This
kind of effective operating process
goes way beyond the typical budget
exercise that looks into a rearview
mirror to set its goals. It puts reality
behind the numbers and is where the
rubber meets the road.
science
The
Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan
Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great
reading adventure, offering his vivid
and startling insight into the brain
of man and beast, the origin of human
intelligence, the function of our
most haunting legends--and their amazing
links to recent discoveries.
The
Elegant Universe, Brian Greene
Today
physicists and mathematicians throughout
the world are feverishly working on
one of the most ambitious theories
ever proposed: superstring theory.
String theory, as it is often called,
is the key to the Unified Field Theory
that eluded Einstein for more than
thirty years. Finally, the century-old
antagonism between the large and the
small-General Relativity and Quantum
Theory-is resolved. String theory
proclaims that all of the wondrous
happenings in the universe, from the
frantic dancing of subatomic quarks
to the majestic swirling of heavenly
galaxies, are reflections of one grand
physical principle and manifestations
of one single entity: microscopically
tiny vibrating loops of energy, a
billionth of a billionth the size
of an atom. In this brilliantly articulated
and refreshingly clear book, Greene
relates the scientific story and the
human struggle behind twentieth-century
physics' search for a theory of everything.
