Up Your Business!: 7 Steps to Fix, Build, or Stretch Your Organization, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded

Preface

Up Your Business! is written for leaders or aspiring leaders at all levels in an organization. Regardless of whether your goal is to fix, build, or stretch your organization, the principles herein will help you. They apply equally to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and to the home-based-business owner wanting to take his or her enterprise to a higher level. The strategies are presented in a step-by-step sequence and in easy-to-understand terms, and are ready for immediate application. You will be able to use the book as a blueprint to fix, build, or stretch your business. I’ve included numerous real-life examples that support the book’s key points. You’ll find the style nonacademic and politically incorrect. In fact, I’d rather offend you by being direct than affront you with fluff. I believe you’ll find the lack of sugarcoating and rationalizing refreshing.

Up Your Business! eschews fads and the latest business buzzwords. It offers sound, tried-in-the-trenches leadership and management principles that work if you work them. The chapters proceed in blueprint fashion.

Chapter 1, “Always Remember, ‘It’s the People, Stupid!’” leaves no doubt that without the right people your vision and strategy are worthless. But it doesn’t leave you there. It provides numerous tips on recruiting and interviewing the right people as well as strategies for removing the wrong ones.

Chapter 2, “Abolish Corporate Welfare: Create a Culture of Merit,” defines the difference between a culture of entitlement ...