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Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Studer Sense
Having been through various Studer trainings and earning my fire starter pin in the leadership team of a hospital many years ago, I was so excited to see Quint publishing these ideas for the rest of the working world.
I'm now in a different corporate environment and am sharing "Results That Last" with my leadership teams here. The translation into the traditional American corporate environment simply works. The concepts are not only well written and outlined, but also the supplemental figures and diagrams really help to illustrate the tools that make hardwiring behaviors work.
The book is easy to read and get through either as a refresher (for myself) and as a first time read (as it has been for colleagues).
Rating:  - Rounding is a winner!
Best part of entire book is on rounding. We are instituting it with our agency to complement customer service training. It can be hard to get people to think beyond the immediate customer service problem and a response that will get rid of the customer. Rounding looks at the systemic issues and implements a plan to ensure they get done.
Rating: - Results-Driven Leadership > Outstanding Organizational Performance
In the Introduction to this book, Quint Studer makes the following assertion: "Standardize the right leadership practices and you will find that organizational performance improves across the board...and stays improved." More specifically, results-driven leadership at all levels and in all areas will achieve and then sustain outstanding performance throughout the given enterprise. That's obvious. Here's the challenge: To get the right goals, the right behavior, and the right processes in proper alignment. More specifically:
1. Have stretch goals that everyone understands and supports, then measure performance in terms of progress toward achievement of those goals. At all times, know what is most important and focus on doing it.
2. View behavior from two separate but related perspectives: values and productivity. At companies such as GE and Southwest Airlines, for example, there is zero tolerance of inappropriate behavior no matter how productive the given offender may be. At the same time, people are expected to produce results (Jack Welch calls it "hitting the numbers") or seek career opportunities elsewhere.
Note: I agree with Studer that the behavior of all supervisors must be "standardized," at least to the extent that they have impeccable character, know their stuff, provide constructive criticism whenever it is needed, earn and remain worthy of trust, and do everything humanly possible and appropriate in the best interests of those entrusted to their care. That said, allowances must be made for differences in personality, lifestyle decisions, avocations, etc.
3. Make all processes as simple as possible...but no simpler. Many processes streets that remain essentially unchanged (except for occasional repairs) even as residents of homes, merchants and their customers, and students enrolled in schools come and go. This is especially true of the process by which an organization such as the U.S. Marines develops leadership. "Many are called, a few are chosen" and then all receive rigorous formal training with hands-on daily supervision as they are absorbed by the culture and identify with its values, meanwhile strengthening individual skills, enriching personal knowledge, and - over time - adding increasing value to the organization.
According to Studer, "Evidence-based leadership (EBL) enables us to create results that last. What is EBL? It's a strategy centered on using the current `best practices' in leadership - practices that are proven to redsult in the best possible outcomes. The `evidence,' in this context, is the reams of data collected from study after study that aim to determine what people really want and need from their leaders. When leaders apply these tried-and-true tactics to every corner of our organizations, we achieve consistent excellence. Our organization's success is no longer dependent on individuals. It's hardwired. No matter who leaves, the excellence remains."
Throughout his narrative, Studer explains how EBL enables those who practice it to identify and deal with "High, Middle, and Low Performers," recognize the five critical elements employees want from managers, "manage up" to improve the performance of those they supervise, measure performance fairly and consistently, improve employee selection and retention, "harvest" intellectual capital, take a customer-centric approach, and build a culture around service, and serve as a role model for effective communication, cooperation, and collaboration.
Well-done!
Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check out Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management co-authored by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton as well as their earlier book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action as well as Edward Lawler's Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage, Robert Mittelstaedt's Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?: Avoiding the Chain of Mistakes Which Can Destroy Your Company, Michael Levine's Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards, George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker's Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company, and Sydney Finkelstein's Why Smart Executives Fail and What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes.
Rating: - Improved Leadership and Management Behaviors That Produce Greater Effectiveness
Results That Last is an excellent companion to the remarkable series of books that Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton about creating and implementing superior strategies (The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action, Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies, Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes, and The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment).
Researchers report that only about a third of all strategies are successfully implemented. Many couldn't be implemented because the concept was too difficult to do. Others fail because the management cannot bring the right actions to bear. For this latter group, Results That Last can be quite helpful.
Quint Studer has taken the research literature on best practices in motivation, satisfaction, improvement, coordination, communication, and implementation and spelled out a series of leadership and management processes that will help you apply those findings. Even someone who doesn't think of himself or herself as talented in leadership or management will get a lot more done with these methods. For most, it will be more valuable than an MBA degree.
I have two cautions about the book:
1) If your strategy is a mistaken one, you'll still flop.
2) Mr. Studer's experience seems to be mostly in hospitals and consulting. As such there's a lot of fine-grain application in other industries the book doesn't describe. You'll have to find that on your own. By referring to the source best practice studies, you'll fill in some of that gap.
Rating: - Results that Last
Quint Studer wrote a masterpiece for modern leaders to follow.
The book has a broad application of thoughts, and fits modern business issues. This book is well worth reading and applying for results that last.
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