Kiss Theory Good Bye:  Five Proven Ways to Get Extraordinary Results in Any Company
Prosen, head of a business training center affiliated with the University of Texas in Dallas, begins his book with six pages of endorsements from an assortment of CEOs, professionals and nonprofit managers and another six pages of self-praise. Unfortunately, his "five attributes of high profitable companies" are utterly familiar. They include "superior leadership, sales effectiveness, operational excellence, financial management, and customer loyalty." Prosen offers equally prosaic advice for achieving them. For example, the secrets of "superior leadership" include hiring smart people, fostering a healthy corporate culture and communicating clearly-no breakthroughs there. Because the book attempts to cover the entire range of management skills in less than 200 pages, the discussions offer information that practically any business person should already know. (Will any sales or marketing professional be surprised to learn that the Internet and industry conferences can be useful sources of competitive intelligence, as chapter three patiently explains?) Prosen would have served his readers better by choosing one management skill at which he truly excels and providing in-depth, original insights into that topic.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.