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Book's Description
Too many attempts to reach a goal, implement a strategy, or complete a project are delayed, run over budget, or fail altogether. Even the best strategies can fail because of a lack of execution. Execution Plain and Simple is a book for managers on how to make things happen, overcome delays and flagging enthusiasm, and achieve tough goals faster. This book makes explicit a 12-step basic process for achieving results. It takes the reader through each of these steps and explains how to overcome the problems that undermine success and attack the momentum of any important project or goal--such as the realities of organizational politics and individual motivation. The aim is to help managers have significantly greater impact. By sharpening their skills and insight, managers can cut through much of the delay, off-target diversions and eliminate the frustrations that impede success. Results come faster. The method outlined here is gleaned from four decades of the author's and his colleagues' practical experience helping managers accelerate achievement of significant performance and strategic change. Execution Plain and Simple will help any manager take on any specific challenges, or gear up to respond to any new assignments. Its 12 steps remind managers of the basics that can so easily get lost in the tumult of organization life. It teaches managers to look for the snares that undermine progress toward a goal. And it explains how to get around these barriers. Execution Plain and Simple will help smooth the way and speed the achievement of real results for managers at any level of the organization, no matter what the goal or the project.
Customer Reviews
A guidebook for the manager who must get things done ,09/07/2004
Bob Neiman's book unravels the mysteries of how to make things happen in organizations. Any manager who has been tasked with a challenging assignment will find a generous helping of practical, useful advice in this book. Going beyond the technical dimension of project management, Execution Plain and Simple lays out a step by step approach that blasts through the psychological, interpersonal, and political obstacles that can sink even the best planned efforts. And the author shares his experience with simple, direct language and useful case examples. If you are responsible for getting something done - or you advise someone else who is - you will find this book extremely useful.
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Packed With Knowledge! ,22/12/2004
Has your corporation or department misplaced its vision, purpose or spirit? Relax. Author Robert A. Neiman provides an effective path out of the lost-and-found department. Neiman's 12-step program offers practical solutions and political advice for even hardcore bureaucracy addicts. The text features true-to-life scenarios, worksheets and instructions for a full menu of corporate activities, ranging from dreaded employee reviews to awards ceremonies. The author's portrait of corporate life is like an excellent still-life painting, with realistic details, highlights and shadows. The text is enhanced with actual snapshots from testy workplace situations. These insertions, however, would work better with a bit of pruning and, although the vignettes are helpful, it is tempting to skim these little corporate dramas. But don't skip the charts and worksheets. These features are excellent tools. What's more, the author's insistence on honesty, integrity and personal responsibility is a business wakeup call. We recommend this book to every ambitious worker, manager or executive on the corporate ladder.
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More useful for project leadership than personal ,10/03/2005
Vision, purpose, defining the scope of the work, and gaining the critical mass needed to get execution within a normally stagnant company are all covered well in this book. For somebody in a large company (like myself), this book provides a lot of guidance to leadership on how to bring small-team energy to a culture of slow-moving big teams. In that respsect, this is a great book.
The only failure I see is that I didn't notice much attention paid to individual performance. A failing of large companies is that they tend to load so many roles, side-responsibilities, and conflicting priorities on their employees that enabling some folks to break free, focus on a small but impact-laden project, and really deliver it are a separate set of issues that need to be addressed as well. This book provides great information in an immediately-useful form-factor, but beware of using it alone, paritcularly if you're new to a company and its culture.
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Zest as a decisive element in successful implementation ,09/07/2004
To understand what has to be done is one thing. To mobilize an organization to implement is another, more complex task. The most productive and satisfying experiences for me and I expect most people have been those there the "zest factors" were prominent. Mr. Neiman has provided a disciplined way of thinking through how these conditions can be replicated in the more ordinary circumstances that over time spell the difference between success and failure in this competitive, intreguing world.
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5 STARS WITH ONE RESERVATION ,07/08/2007
Robert Neiman has worked closely for decades with the quintessential management consulting 'guru' Robert Schaffer... and this shows in this very helpful book... for that reason alone it deserved a 5-Star rating at One Big Idea Consulting Limited NZ ... where it is a standard recommendation to all our clients.
We have one reservation. This does not invalidate Neiman's Twelve Steps to success with projects, but should be kept in mind by the readers when they come to applying Neiman's 'Twelve Steps' in real-live projects.
What is Neima's One Big Idea ? What is the one, single 'plain and simple' action that makes up the 20-80 Pareto.
Robert Schaffer has One Big Idea that runs through every article,Harvard Business Review on Breakthrough Thinking every book, every seminar, every consulting assignment that he has ever touched. He may add a twirl here or a twist there; but inevitably Robert Schaffer has taught us all to focus on one predominant under-pinning in every consulting project ... viz. Never ever persuade or push the client to attempt any change that he or she is not 'ready' for.
For Schaffer 'readiness' is the magic key to project success. When a client is truly deep-down 'ready' to tackle a change, it is very hard to fail... and the consultant has done the 20% of input that will trigger 80% of the achievemnt.
'Readiness' is tricky and requires artful diagnosis and prognosis and infinite patience and intuition, much more than sigma-six number- crunching and swamps of spread-sheeting and dazzling powerpoint flash.
Consulting is all about facilitation and not about persuasion. A gung-ho consulting style is very likely to do more harm than good when all is said and done. Neiman could have placed a tad more emphasis on this in his Twelve Steps process that are still quite sound overall.
This book is recommended with 5 Stars, with one reservation. Does it alert and concentrat
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