books and articles in brief

Books and Articles in Brief

James W. Marcum, Pb. D., is director of library services at Centenary College of Louiriana in Shreveport. Racbael Green, MLS, is a reference librarian at Noel Memorial Libraly, Louisiana State University, Shreveport. Patrick W. Withen, Ph.D., is visiting assistant professor of sociology at Centenary College. Don C. Wilcox, D.B.A., is a professor of business at Centena? College.

James K Marcurn, Rachael Green, Patrick W Withen, and Don C. Wilcox

BOOKS Team Leader’s Problem Solver: Business-Tested Solutions for tbe Common and Not-So-Common Management Problems Faced by Today’s Team Leaders by Clay Carr. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. 442 pages; $14.95, softcover.

This is a useful handbook designed for those organizations that have teams up and running. How should the team handle mistrust? Low productivity? Personal dislikes? Major setbacks? Over-criticism? Lack of di- rection? In all, 125 problems are discussed in 12 chapters covering problems with interpersonal relations, the behavior of an individual, the performance of an individual, the performance of the whole team, work practices, other teams, leadership, the mission, higher management, com- puters and support technology, and abolishing the team.

Because of the scope of issues dealt with, the solutions offered are necessarily only a few pages long. While it is difficult to imagine offering realistic solutions to complex problems such as a lack of productivity in only a few pages, Carr does an admi- rable job, often offering two or three solutions in order to cover the possible variations for a problem. The solutions are comprehensive and com- pletely usable. For example, if your

team is having problems with bound- aries, first establish contacts and work with other teams, then, take the highest priority conflict to your higher- level manager. Or if the team cannot handle serious disagreement, make sure members are getting the proper training; be patient.

While this book is a practical guide for anyone working with a team, it does not cover many important issues such as team formation, the team’s relationship to the rest of the organization, the place of teams in a traditional organization, and other questions that organizations new to team structures are likely to have.- PWW

Fast Forward. The Best Ideas on Managing Business Change, ed- ited by James Champy and Nitin Nohria. Boston: Harvard Business School, 1996.320 pages; $24.95.

For this reader, Champy and Nohria have selected 14 seminal articles appearing in the Hamlard Busi- ness Review over the past eight years treating the subject of business change. It is a fertile field. Change is one of those topics where you want lots of good advice at the time you need it, unlike many business topics where the need to know is ongoing. One might quibble over a selection crite-

CCC 0277-8556/96/1503 125-12 0 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Tames W. Marcunt. Rachael Green, Patrick W. Witben, and Don C. Wikox

rion that failed to include Hamel and Prahalad o r Dorothy Leonard-Barton, but there is a bounty of nourishment on this table.

Ram Charan’s 1991 article on net- works and on reformulating performance appraisals for networked organizations is worth reviewing. John Kotter stresses the need to establish a strong sense of urgency to make transformations work. Michael Hammer’s call to obliterate needless work rather than automating it is included, as is the proposal from Tracy Goss and colleagues for reinventing the organization by turning away from proven business and venturing into the un- known with new endeavors.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s 1989 discussion of “new managerial work” leads off a selection of articles on managing that includes Abraham Zaleznicks 1992 update of his classic 1977 comparison of managers and leaders. Several inter- views with business leaders are included in the collection.

The assumption behind the book is that radical change is required for most organizations today. As the edi- tors put it, the choice is between “fast forward or fall behind.” These articles offer several approaches and ration- ales on why “fast forward” can and should be the choice. This is a useful book for the manager who needs some inspiration and ammunition for a radical change effort.-JWM

Process Improvement: A Hand- book forManagers by SarahCook. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Gower, 1996.176 pages; $54.95.

This is a focused and precise treatment of process improvement- what it is and how to do it.

After a few chapters on back- ground and benefits, a four-stage approach to implementing process improvement is developed. The four stages described are quite routine: needs identification, assessment and analysis, process design, and implementation.

The author and setting are En- glish, where “business process improvement” is the firmly established practice. The industry and corporate examples, however, may be unfamil- iar to American readers, diluting the impact of the narrative.

Compared to other offerings on related subjects, the value of this book is about half its lofly price tag.-JWM

Creating the Resilient Organiza- tion by Edward Deevey. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.263 pages; $21.95.

In this era of increasing domestic and global competition, both individuals and organizations must be flexible and responsive to change. Deevy provides a primer on how the organization, and the individuals within it, can meet the challenge. Central to the “new” set of management principles discussed by Deevy are trust, involvement, and recognition. Not new words, but new appli- cations of those terms in an organization that hopes to be adaptive to the changing competitive environment is the central message of this book. Deevy provides a step-by-step process by which the “resilient” organization can respond and adapt to the environment.

Going from a comprehensive explanation of the three secrets for creating a resilient organization to a

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discussion of the processes needed to transform the organization from its traditional position to one of resil- iency, the book is clear and focused. The three secrets relate the interpersonal values, the communication values, and the motivational values that must be recognized for the organization to become truly resilient.

In discussing change, Deevy em- phasizes the role of leadership. In this case, the leadership and involvement of both managers and workers are stressed, along with the methods by which those attributes can be found, developed and utilized within the organization.-DCW

Real-Time Profit Management: Making Your Bottom Line a Sure Thing by Bob Dragoo. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995. 218 pages; $34.95.

What, really, does a product or service cost? That is such a simple question to ask, but, so difficult to answer. How do you apportion out the cost of utilities? Management overhead? And how do you account for the different perceptions of top management and owners that profitability is the key variable, while line and operations think in terms of increasing volume, without consciousness of the differences invalue of the various products?

Dragoo offers a number of an- swers that fit together to provide a new approach to profit-oriented accounting. Activity-based costing (ABC) is one answer, but that model has been around awhile. ABC plus real- time analysis is the new approach offered here.

Time-history, broken down into “slices” for better analysis, reveals

much about where costs accumulate and profits hide. Cost data have dy- namics, and the goal is to understand these so improvements can be achieved. Break-even points must be figured to know which products, and which customers, are truly profitable.

Once the ABC information is gath- ered, then activity-based management (ABM) can make better strategic decisions. And that should translate into better bottom-line profitability.

Two appendices help tell the story. The first is a 25-page case study of a small manufacturing division that im- proved profitability by focusing on profitable items and dropping some that were unprofitable. The second appendix offers 30 examples of information gathering or use-by means of various statistical tools-that revealed surprising information for companies (such as the discovery that 78 percent of a firm’s customers gener- ated only 1 percent of its revenues) or a better grasp of the cost of holding and transporting inventory.-JWM

Organizational Transformation and Process Reengineering by Johnson A. Edosomwan. Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie Press, 1996. 223 pages; $39.95.

This is a workmanlike book of some utility as an overview of process reengineering and organizational transformation, though it is not clear if the author truly distinguishes between these two very different processes, since he generally muddles them together.

The most useful section of the book is a 40-page chapter on models of process improvement and reengineering. The ten models tend to blur

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Tames W. Marcum, Rachael Green, Patrick W. Withen, and Don C. Wikox

into an alphabet soup of acronyms, however, such as PASIM (production and service improvement model), the LMI CIP personal and process improvement models (the LMI portion is unexplained), or the NPRDC (Navy Personnel Research and Development Center) process improvement model. The practical utility or unfeasibility of the various models remains unexplained, however.

Edosomwan is a consultant who promotes himself vigorously in this book. Approximately half the sources listed are his own articles, books, and reports, with the other half scattered among such other contributors to the quality movement as Deming, Crosby, and Hammer and Champy. There are, however, some useful appendices, such as lists of associations and con- sultants in the field.-JWM

TotaLQuaLity in Marketing by Wil- liam C. Johnson and Richard J. Chvala. Delray Beach, Florida: St. Lucie Press, 1995. 300 pages; $39.95.

Part of a series on total quality (TQ), this book focuses primarily on helping managers apply TQ principles to the overall marketing management process. Written for the marketing management professional, it also offers guidelines on how quality initia- tives affect planning, organization, implementation, and quality control.

The opening chapter lays the groundwork for the importance of quality practices and how quality and marketing are related. The next two chapters provide a historical perspective of TQ, as well as a foundation for the “house of quality.” Once this base is established, the next five chapters use a

systems approach to deal with the building blocks of the structure: the management system, the role of vision and quality, quality and strategy, using quality teams, and implementing quality practices in marketing processes. The final chapter concerns adopting quality standards by examining various award criteria such as Baldrige, Deming, and I S 0 9000. The text is interspersed with exercises and discussion questions. Relevant articles, abstracts, case studies, and profiles of companies provide support materials. The volume concludes with a glossary of TQ/marketing terms.-RG

The Motivating Team Leader by Dr. Lewis E. Losoncy. Delray Beach, F L St. Lucie Press, 1995.244 pages; $16.95, softcover.

Work teams are known to increase interpersonal links on the job. This book is a good resource for proactively maximizing the benefits and minimizing the cost of increased interpersonal links in work teams. While motivation strategies are at the heart of the book, there are also ample scenarios dealing with apathy, resistance to change, and cynicism.

The 43 approaches for motivating team members here are primarily based in humanistic and social psychology, with little attention given to structural motivation. The work notes individualistic factors as the primdry constituents affecting motivation. Losoncy cites Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy to demonstrate that human behavior is shaped less by heredity and the environment than by the power of self-determination.

But if one can get by the rose- colored gloss on this work, The Moti-

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vating Team Leader has a wealth of good advice for motivating a team. Perhaps the most useful information comes in relation to working with team members who come from a traditional organization with bureaucratic lines of authority and responsi- bility. There are many insights on dealing with people who are uncoop- erative, who cannot give or receive useful feedback, o r who are unable to find that space between timid passiv- ity and overaggressive competitiveness that is so necessary for working in a team. The value of this information cannot be underestimated because most teams are composed of people who are experienced only with bureaucratic hierarchies of one form or another.

While the usefulness of The Moti- vating Team Leader is without question, those seeking to increase team effectiveness should not ignore structural analyses that place teams in the context of the larger organization and the social environment in general, such as those by Rothschild, Kanter, or Simmons and Mares. Furthermore, Losoncy’s compendium of motivators could be supplemented with an evolu- tionary view of employee development such as is found in the works of Argyris, Schon, and Torbert. The strength of Losoncy’s work lies in the fact that he puts humanistic psychology into practice in the work team.-PWW

The Great Transition: Using the Seven Disciplines of Enterprise Engineering toAlign People, Tech- nology, and Strategy by James Martin. NewYork: AMACOM, 1995. 528 pages; $32.50.

This is not a blockbuster, but it comes close. Martin brings expertise

in information technology to the challenge of organizational change, but he by no means restricts himself to that perspective. This book puts TQM, technology, human resources, strategy, and reengineering into a comprehensive package that makes sense. Each component has its role to play, but none can achieve sufficient organizational overhaul alone.

Martin promotes the concept of “enterprise engineering” to encom- pass his holistic approach. He defines enterprise engineering as consisting of seven disciplines including the development of technology, the development of human and corporate culture, strategic visioning, and three levels of reengineering (though he tries to avoid using the term): process, value stream, and enterprise.

The idea of strategic value streams and their reinvention is a concept he works hard to develop. Building on the concept of core competencies and core technological capabilities, he extends the idea to multifunction and multicompetency strategic capabilities. Better examples and illustrations would help us understand, but it is a concept bigger than the business process that is focused on utilizing crucial competencies to deliver perceived values to the customer. The concept of strategic value streams is powerful even though it needs more work.

This is an extensive, comprehensive book, covering the ground intended and giving the reader a broader perspective that allows a more realistic assessment about what a company can achieve through continuous improvement o r reengineering, or by becoming a learning organization. The book needs stronger editing; there is some repetition and the broader


James W. Marncm, Rachael Green, Patrick W. Withen, and Don C. Wilcox

scheme is not smoothly and clearly developed. But this is one of the best and most useful books available today to CEOs and change agents who know that their organizations must be revitalized but who are unclear about where to start and which of the many available roads to take toward corporate quality transformation.-JWM

Total Quality in Research and Development by Gregory C . McLaughlin. Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie Press, 1995. 256 pages; $44.95.

The rapidly changing effect of technology on the workplace has re- sulted in tremendous change for today’s organizations, with many operating in a constant state of transition. Part of the St. Lucie Press Total Quality Series, this book looks at these problems and offers systematic improvement methods for businesses and their management.

The layout addresses the need to apply quality principles in a systematic way. Chapter 1 provides a review of R&D along with a total quality model and the barriers to its implementation; chapter 2 goes into more depth with the concept of total quality; chapters 3 and 4 deal with present R&D systems; chapters 5 through 7 focus on the improvement process, from assessment to planning to managing customer satisfaction; chapter 8 examines I S 0 9000, an international quality standard, for its use in R&D; the concluding chapter presents a case study as a model for implementing TQ principles within an R&D department.

Each chapter is accompanied by a bibliography and abstracts of other

books and articles on the given topic. Some chapters feature a full-text article, while others provide examples of surveys and/or checklists. A glossary of R&D terminology completes the volume.-RG

Reengineering YourNonprofit Or- ganization= A Guide to Strategic Transformation by Alceste T. Pappas. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996.220 pages; $34.95.

The adage that “still waters run deep” comes to mind for this book. Lacking sizzle or dramatic presen- tation, this work rewards a close reading with a solid grasp of the differences between nonprofits and corporate organizations, as well as a clear view of the problems and pros- pects for transforming volunteer- muscled organizations.

Pappas demonstrates solid experience with such organizations as the University of Chicago, UNICEF, and the YWCA. She clarifies the importance of mission, trustee commitment, and volunteers to such organizations, making clear the difficulty these organizations typically have with tasks like benchmarking or reengineering since each thinks itself particularly unique and “important” (perhaps even “divinely inspired”). The author offers viable alternatives better suited to the industry. For example, she promotes a “best practices” strategy as one more compatible with the organizational culture than benchmarking.

The book is long on explaining the peculiarities of nonprofits and somewhat mediocre on explaining reengineering. But it might prove in- valuable to a consultant or a corporate executive called on to assist a

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nonprofit facing the task of dramatic transformation. Recent debacles, such as those staggering the United Way or the NAACP, demonstrate that such transformations are sometimes necessary. Accountability is at hand as surely for the volunteer organization of high moral purpose as it is for the public or corporate agency.- JWM

Common Body of Knowledge for Human Resources Personnel by Vito A. Reggio. Chicago: Reggio and Associates. 218 pages; $195.

Reggio has produced nearly 1,000 paragraph-long definitions of terms used in human resources development. He is a consultant, and his expertise is particularly evident in the area of compensation and benefits. The varieties of executive compensation and differential ratios among jobs are explained clearly.

This is an exercise in self-publica- tion, and it demonstrates the value of good editing. A publisher might have questioned the division of the topics into 15 categories, such as legislation, training, services, and records, a dispersement made workable by a good index. An editor might also have required better documentation. Allu- sions to Hertzberg o r the Blake and Mouton management grid will not be meaningful to everyone. Sharper focus might also help this work find its niche among the myriad guidebooks and handbooks on HR management.

The information provided is good, sometimes excellent. But it appears dated. There are no references to modern discussions of empower- ment, core competencies, teams, or reengineering. Many potential read-

ers will find the price exorbitant.- JWM

World-Class Manufacturing: The Nex t D e c a d e by Richard J. Schonberger. New York: Free Press, 1996. 280 pages; $30.

Schonberger refreshes his creden- tials as an authority on world- class manufacturing, particularly its Japanese and American variants, with this treatise on the subject. From the many notable management approaches of the past decade, he selects two as being preeminent: inventory turn and customer satisfaction. The bulk of the book is a development of his 16 principles of customer-centered, employee-driven, data-based performance. It is an approach supported with illustrative material from dozens of innovative manufacturers around the globe.

A well-worked theme of the book is the need to shift from a purely fiscaI/numbers-based valuation to a process-centered valuation. The real world, he points out, consists of processes. Numbers are artificial repre- sentations of those processes.

A particularly valuable chapter of the book discusses the new premises for human resource nianagement in this new era, such as allowing for the importance of teams, a more eg' '1 1' itar- ian structure, extensive training, and positive reinforcement.

This is a useful book for managers of manufacturing concerns facing stiff competition .-JWM

Negotiating Competitiveness: Em- ployment Relations and Organi- zational Innovation in Germany and the United States by Kirsten S.

James W. Marcum, Racbael Green, Patrick W. Withen, and Don C. Wilcox

Wever. Boston Harvard Business School Press, 1995. 236 pages; $29.95.

As much as many people would like it to go away, the question remains: Should the United States have an industrial policy? The author, visiting MIT’s Sloan School from the Geneva-based German American Project of the International Industrial Relations Association, begs the question since she, like most informed commentators, recognizes that the United States, which professes no industrial policy, has one by default.

Wever adds something new to the debate over industrial policy, which became sharply polarized when Bush defeated Dukakis in 1988. Her valuable insight is that the United States can keep what it will from its current “no policy” industrial policy and have all the benefits of the European and Japanese systems. This can be done when one recognizes that the social- economic-political environment af- fects business at three not-so-distinct levels: the micro-level of the organization and the community, the meso- level of industry and region, and the macro-level of the economy and soci- ety as a whole. In an insightful comparison of the American and German industrial systems (with not a little analysis of the Japanese system), Wever detnonstrates that the strengths of flexibility and high-end production are primarily found in the American system at the micro-level. On the other hand, the strengths of the Ger- man and Japanese systems, which include product quality and the ability to spread innovation rapidly through- out the system, operate primarily at the macro-level. Thus, the United States

can benefit by preserving its strength at the micro-level and by adopting new processes at the macro-level. Wever avoids the traditional conser- vative cry that industrial policy results in government deciding which businesses should live and die by citing many policies that increase communication a’nd cooperation in the business sector.

Policies should be created through negotiations among all stakeholders at the three levels in the system. And to help the negotiations along, Wever makes many sensible suggestions. For example, America is recognized as having a worker training problem. Workers are now undertrained and businesses are not investing in a manner that addresses this problem because there are no guarantees that trained workers will stay with the company that trained them and, thus, return the investment to that company. However, with federal level tax incentives to encourage training, worker training would become a national trend and all employers would benefit from increased worker expertise. These and other examples demonstrate Wever’s interdisciplinary approach and make her book important for anyone interested in seeking solutions to a few of the difficult problems facing American businesses.-PWW

ARTICLES

Gene Bylinsky, “Will Outsourcing Save Corporate R&D?” Fortune, 1331 (January 15,1996), SOA-SOJ.

Reaching beyond company walls for scientific talent and high-tech fa- cilities is the hot new trend in corpo-

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rate R&D. Companies are looking at their core competencies and employ- ing as many resources there as are needed. Then, they make alliances, buy from the outside, license, and go to other sources.

The hunt for technology beyond the corporation is known as “outsourcing.” At its best, outsourcing is a long-term collaborative effort that complements a company’s capabilities in science and technology. By eliminating some of the fixed costs of equipment, buildings, and research- ers’ salaries, it saves big money.

Industry’s principal extramural collaborators include universities, national laboratories, small high-tech companies, and private research institutes. Once companies embark on outsourcing R&D, however, they must handle it on a day-to-day basis and watch the whole situation from the highest levels of the corporation.

Companies are not going to mas- ter the art of outsourcing overnight. Some see nothing wrong in entirely dispensing with their own R&D. But overdependence on purchased research can leave a company far behind and unable to quickly buy the new technology it failed to develop on its own. Corporations must hang on to their core competencies or they will be giving away their sustainable advantage-RG

Madelyn R. Callahan, “Training on a Shoestring,” Training G Deuel- opment, 49:12 (December 1995), 18-23.

New technologies, an ever-expand- ing international marketplace for goods and services, and increasing competition for markets in the United States and

abroad are just some of the key forces that drive the need for more training- and retraining. Effective ways to train employees can be found, and it can be done on a tight budget.

The first order of business is to conduct a thorough needs assessment. Trainers can develop programs based on the solid results they get from such assessments.

Local colleges are consistently over- looked as a money-saving resource. There is often a huge cost difference between the offerings of local colleges and private training suppliers.

When it comes to outsource training, it is a good idea to negotiate. Many suppliers are willing to offer volume discounts. Another way to beat some of the high costs of outsourcing is to provide programs on-site instead of off-site. Smaller companies should consider offering training programs in partnership with other companies.

Computer-based training com- bined with pre-reading can further reduce costs. Another inexpensive resource is the Internet. Whatever method companies use, the goal should be to keep people on the job as much as possible, while still making training available .-RG

William R. Crandall, John A. Parnell, and Susan Shadow, “Does Teaching Business Ethics Really Make a Difference? A Survey of Practicing Managers, ” Central Business Review, 1 5 1 (Winter 1996), 16-20.

Managers of U.S. companies are under increasing scrutiny in the evalu- ation of their decision making. As a result, many companies are begin-

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.Tames W. Marcum, Rachael Green, Pam‘ck W. Withen, and Don C. Wikox

ning to realize that ethical decision making is also a form of protecting the bottom line.

Which factors contribute to the ethical attitudes of an individual? This article examines this issue by seeking to discover if differences exist in the judgment decisions of managers who have been exposed to ethics training. Also, gender differences are analyzed to determine whether ethical attitudes differ between males and females.

The study was conducted using a one-page written survey that ascer- tained demographic data and perceptions concerning five potentially unethical scenarios from 144 respondents (51 percent male, 49 percent female).

The results revealed no differences in the ethical judgment of managers who had ethics training and those who had not. One explanation for these findings is that formal ethics training is only one of several effective means of influencing a manager’s ethical attitude. The study also found that female managers perceived the business scenarios as being more unethical than did their male counter- parts. The suggestion is that female managers may be more sensitized to ethical matters because they may have experienced unethical behavior spe- cifically aimed at them.-RG

Robin Lissak, “Going for the Gold in HR Administration,” Personnel Journal, 75:2 (February 1996),99- 101.

Today’s HR administrators rely on the capabilities of their staff, who must continuously sharpen their skills through training and development, be supported by the most appropriate technology, and be able to adapt

quickly and efficiently to a changing operating environment.

The best practice is not necessarily to purchase and install expensive technology, nor to outsource HR administration to the lowest bidder. Deciding on the best practice, however, means satisfying a complex equation that includes these variables: the level of service to deliver to employees, the cost that fits comfortably in the budget, existing resources (including systems and personnel), corporate culture, and the overall corporate strategy.

This is not to say that technology or outsourcing do not play an important role in solving the equation, but an analysis should be done ahead of time to include some of these questions: Is there an existing core competence? What are the minimum requirements in terms of technology and time to achieve the desired improvements? How does this compare with the option of doing everything in-house?

Managing HR administration for medium- to large-size corporations in today’s highly competitive environment is similar to the challenge facing the Olympic athlete. By taking a fresh new look at the way to approach this situation, HR practitioners stand a much better chance of winning the gold.-RG

Michael Maccoby, “Knowledge Workers Need New Structures,” Research-Technology Manage- ment, 39:l (January/February 1996), 56-58.

This complex information age de- mands new thinking about organizational structure. Companies must design three aspects of structure: macro, strategic, and work process.

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Macrostructure describes the overall way a company is formed by the architecture of business units, divi- sions, and corporate governance. Di- visions within these units develop knowledge in areas such as sales and R&D, and how this knowledge is deployed depends on the strategic structure of the organization.

Strategic structure includes three levels: strategic, operational, and doing. The strategic level determines goals and placement of resources. The operational level implements these goals by planning. The doing level puts these plans into action.

The work process structure describes the different ways work processes are designed, depending on the nature of the product or service. Essentially, this process is a heterarchy in which leadership functions shift according to which team member has the appropriate knowledge. This means that all team members need leadership skills.

People generally reach the top of the strategic structure by being the kind of person others feel safe in following. The new structures require that managers play a number of roles, as good followers and team players, as well as leaders and subject matter experts.-RG

Jerry L. Worster, “Budgeting ’90s Style,” Journal of Property Man- agement, 61:l oanuary/February 19961, 58-61.

Of all the business metamorpho- ses during the past two decades, changes in the process of budgeting may produce the most direct benefit to managers of the ’90s. There are many useful tips to remember that can

turn the annual budget process into a prosperous experience.

Managers should keep an open budget file on their desks and make daily notes of ideas that could posi- tively or negatively affect operations. Keeping current on local political and economic events is a good head start on anticipating any potential impact they might have on the company’s operations and fiscal management.

Maintenance personnel should be asked for ideas on how to save money on operations. Setting up a reward system can encourage office and ad- ministrative staff to submit their own time- and money-saving ideas.

Management needs to use ’90s budgeting tools, such as spreadsheet programs and accounting software packages. Clients should be made to understand that the budget is intended to be used as an interactive management tool. The potential cumulative effect of even a small budget change should never be underestimated. Even if it has merely a small positive impact, it is probably still worth doing. Money must be budgeted for reserves, however. Skimping on reserves will only force a negative effect on the budget when the inevitable hap- pens.-RG

Roberta C. Yafie, “Pass the lOQ, Partner,” Journal of Business Strutegy, 17:l Uanuary/February 19961, 53-56.

Corporate leaders are taking another look at their workforces’ knowledge of the business, not knowledge about work rules, benefits, and over- time pay. This is about the bottom line-stock performance, quarterly


James W. Marcum, Rachael Green, Patrick W. Withen, and Don C. Wikox

reports, capital investment, etc. Ac- cording to studies, workers who are treated as business partners are most likely to be more productive and more motivated to contribute to their company’s profitability.

By learning how the business works, employees gain a new appre- ciation for the company, feel a more direct stake in its success and, there- fore, work harder to assure them- selves job security. With a more knowl- edgeable workforce, all employees of the company are working for the common good and feelings of “us versus them” tend to vanish.

Open-book management and the

partnering approach mean management gives up to get. It starts with giving up power and with generating information, not sending it. In this manner, partners get real information, not just what management de- cides they need to know. Creating an upbeat work environment and giving recognition to a people-oriented workforce are fundamental to the partnering strategy. Having an environment that is compelling makes people want to go to work, and to work hard. Employees who are part of the corporate information loop will, in turn, bring more to the balance sheet.-RG 0

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