Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't

by Ram Charan

Book Overview

The new grand theory of leadership by Ram Charan . . . The breakthrough book that links know-how-the skills of people who know what they are doing- with the personal and psychological traits of the successful leader. How often have you heard someone with a commanding presence deliver a bold vision that turned out to be nothing more than rhetoric and hot air? All too often we mistake the appearance of leadership for the real deal. Without a doubt,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307341518
• ISBN13: 9780307341518
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Crown Business
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Practical and invaluable "how not tos" as well as "know-hows"

On page 3, Ram Charan establishes a rapport with his reader which he then sustains throughout his brilliant book: "You will be constantly tested for your know-how to lead your business in the right direction. Will you be able to do the right things, make the right decisions, deliver results, and leave your business and the people in it better off than they were before?" Note his use of direct address. By intent, this is Charan's most personal book by far. With all due respect to his earlier works (e.g. Profitable Growth Is Everybody's Business as well as Execution which he co-authored with Larry Bossidy), I think this is also the most valuable book he has written thus far. Charan is a relentlessly pragmatic business thinker who, with all the skills of a master raconteur, anchors each of his insights concerning productive leadership in a real-world context. The material is carefully organized within nine chapters, followed by a "Letter to a Future Leader" and a brief review of the eight "know-hows" on which his narrative has focused. It would be a disservice to Charan as well as to those who read this brief commentary, were I to list the "know-hows." They are best revealed within the context that Charan establishes for each of them. I commend Charan on his provision of several reader-friendly devices. For example, he concludes Chapters 2-9 with a checklist of key points, each of which specifies an action to be taken or an issue to be addressed. I also appreciate Charan's probing and instructive analysis of several leaders whose "know-how" produces exceptional results. Here are three brief excerpts: "Palm's designs became more customer oriented not because the CEO [i.e. Todd Bradley who is now president of Hewlett-Packard's personal systems group, competing successfully and profitably against Dell] said they should, but because he got people oriented toward well-functioning operating mechanisms. He was careful in selecting the people in charge of them, and he tracked their progress and output with consistency and appropriate frequency. He worked backward from the desired business results - products that exactly met consumers' needs - to the business activities that drive them and the critical intersections of people and perspectives." Steve Jobs "has an unusual ability to imagine things that don't yet exist and win people over to his vision. The Mackintosh brought life back to Apple and set the standard against which the rest are compared. Then, with Pixar in the movie-animation business, and most recently in the music industry, Jobs has shown that he has a firm hold on the realities of the marketplace. His successful launch of the iPod was based on a combination of detecting a need, imagining a new way to satisfy that need, thinking through the specifics of what it would take to make it fly in the real world, and then repositioning the company." "Jeff Immelt spends 30 to 40 percent of his time on coaching, training, and managing people at

Advice to Boards and CEOs: Favor Those with Doing Skills over Those with Leadership Charisma

I'm often amused to read descriptions of the responsibilities of corporate boards: "To represent shareholder interests" and "replace the CEO" are two of my favorites. Most boards do everything possible to learn as little as they can about what shareholders favor. Boards are more likely to keep a CEO on too long than they are to find a good replacement. Dr. Ram Charan takes dead aim at lousy hiring of leaders by sharing many examples where CEOs and other leaders made a great impression during interviews, but didn't have a clue about how to run the company better. You'll probably find yourself scratching your head, for example, about why a former CFO, CEO Rick Wagoner of General Motors, chose to gamble the company's limited financial resources on a foolish charge to gain market share that left the company virtually crippled. CEOs make those kinds of mistakes every day. What solution does the blunt Dr. Charan propose: It's simple; find people who already know how to do what needs to be done as leaders. He explores this subject at all levels of a large company, which makes the book all the more relevant and interesting. If boards don't know what CEOs need to know, what are those factors? I've paraphrased Know-How's key points below: 1. Pick a useful direction where the organization can succeed and help your executives to understand why that's the way to go. 2. Stay ahead of the curve on emerging changes in your business and environment by paying attention to new shifts. 3. Turn your individual stars into effective team players so that you can pull together in the right direction. 4. Develop leaders who will have these same skills. 5. Create effectiveness while encouraging candor about where you might be wrong. 6. Set goals that will stimulate improved performance by having people work on the right things. 7. Establish and stick with the right priorities to meet your goals. 8. Keep track of what public opinion is and be prepared to engage those views in constructive ways whether these are the views of citizens, consumers, customers, or shareholders. The book's format is easy to follow. Each chapter begins with a longer example that helps you get a sense of what he's describing and then fleshes out the concept with sub-points and smaller examples. It's a nice combination of theory and practice. The book strongly praises Charan clients like Bob Nardelli, former CEO of Home Depot; Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE; and Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon. The subliminal message is "Follow the GE way." That's a point worth considering because Mr. Nardelli didn't keep his job long after this book was written. Why? He did a poor job of improving stock price, despite Dr. Charan's assurance that Mr. Nardelli had made peace with shareholders. Also, a lot of the public criticisms of Mr. Nardelli's early days at Home Depot (such as getting rid of his most knowledgeable aisle people) don't make it into the book. Be cautious about how seriously you take t

A wonderful book for anyone that expects to, or will, have P & L responsibility in a business.

What a joy to read. I really loved this book. I don't read books on leadership all that often because they usually are full of fluff or mumbo-jumbo trying to smooth-talk their readers. I just read and reviewed one of those books yesterday. Know-How is well-written and easy to follow. It takes a reasonable subject and breaks it down into 8 points before eloquently discussing each. The 8 skills a manager/leader with P & L responsibility must have to be successful are: 1. Dealing with Forces beyond the Market. 2. Pinpointing External Change. 3. Positioning and Repositioning. 4. Setting Goals. 5. Setting Priorities. 6. Leading the Social System. 7. Judging People. 8. Molding a Team. My favorite chapter was the one on "positioning and repositioning." For me it was the most important concept in the book. As recently as 1995 the topic would not have been particularly relevant. But since 1995 the business world has been changing by leaps and bounds. People with P & L responsibility must by necessity be adept at positioning and repositioning their company in order to be profitable. So many companies today are failing because their leaders are not good at doing this. The rest of the book was an important side-show to the positioning and repositioning topic. Clearly one has to deal with forces beyond the market and pinpoint external change BEFORE a need for positioning and repositioning can be pinpointed. And to position and reposition requires that goals be set and priorities made. And an organization is nothing without its people being well managed, i.e., topics 6-8 cited above. I enjoyed the recaps at the end of each chapter. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has a need for doing strategic planning for their organization. 5 stars!

Know-How - The Critical Linkage to Success

Why does a gifted person tagged for a leadership role fail when he/she gets there? And how does a leader with little or no education succeed? Best selling author and acclaimed management philosopher, Ram Charan, provides an answer to this paradox in his latest offering, "Know How" by focusing on the critical linkage - know-how - that separates leaders who perform from those who do not. In the book, Charan details eight critical know-hows observed in the most successful leaders, discusses real life examples of success and failure, and provides a checklist, "Questions to Ask Yourself" for the reader. Charan, relying on his 45 years of observational research, constructs a more complete theory integrating know-how with personality traits, psychological orientation and cognitive architecture. He shows how these know-hows and individual personal traits are interlinked and reinforce each other. Every leader Charan has known has mastered the nuts and bolts of one or more know-hows early in life and has used these skills over and over again to learn all of the critical know-hows. ...And this is how real leaders are really made. The eight critical Know-Hows include: 1. Will the Dogs Eat the Dog Food? Positioning and Repositioning the Business to Make Money. Shaping and reshaping the value proposition to meet the needs of an ever changing external landscape. The quality of the leader depends on the ability to sort out so many elements of the complexity of the business and connecting them with the money making formula. 2. Before the Point Tips: Connecting the Dots by Pinpointing and Taking Action on Patterns of External Change. The need to look at the big picture and then work through the messy details. We are in uncharted waters. Relatively linear, continuous, and predictable are not the norm. Do you have the broad lens? Section on how to detect points before they tip. 3. Herding Cats: Getting People to Work Together by Managing the Social System of Your Business. Getting people to align their efforts is a lot like herding cats. Understanding the social system of a business is the best way to get a handle on the otherwise mysterious subject of managing and changing how people work together to meet ever-changing business requirements. Have to establish and enforce what behaviors are acceptable and which are not. 4. Leaders Are Made, Not Born: Judging, Selecting, and Developing Leaders. Discovering and developing a person's natural talent. 5. Unity Without Uniformity: Molding a Team of Leaders. Making a team more than the sum of its parts. 6. The Buck Starts With You: Determining and Setting the Right Goals. 7. It's Monday Morning, Now What"Setting Laser-Sharp Dominant Priorities. 8. Driving on Brokeback Mountain: Dealing with Forces Outside Your Control. Knowing how to anticipate and prepare for issues outside constituencies raise and judging the risks they pose to the business model. Charan closes "Know-How" with a letter to a future lead

The Substance of Leadership

In an era of constant change, there is a crying need for leadership. Although change is a constant, today's magnitude, speed and depth, is unlike previous renditions. Multibillion dollar businesses emerge from nowhere. Highly-valued institutions and organizations are rendered impotent over-night. Yet, many cling to choosing future leaders on the basis of superficial personal traits and characteristics. How many times have you heard an anointed future leader described as "intelligent," "a commanding presence," "a great communicator," "having a bold vision," or "a born leader?" Ram Charan, a consultant with a Harvard Business School MBA and doctorate, has identified, eight skills - he calls them "know-hows" - essential for leadership success: 1. Positioning and Repositioning. The ability to find an idea for the organization that meets customers' demands and makes money. 2. Pinpointing External Change. The ability to identify patterns that place the organization on the offensive. 3. Leading the Social System. The ability to get the right people with the right behaviors and the right information to make better decisions and business results. 4. Judging People. The ability to calibrate people based on their actions, decisions and behaviors and matches them to the job's non-negotiables. 5. Molding a Team. The ability to coordinate competent, high-ego leaders. 6. Setting Goals. The ability to balance goals that give equal weighting to what the business can become and what it can achieve. 7. Setting Priorities. The ability to define a path and direct resources, actions, and energy to accomplish goals. 8. Dealing with Forces beyond the Market. The ability to deal with pressures you cannot control but affect your business. Citing case studies from his consulting practice, Charan identifies personal traits of leaders that help or interfere with the know-hows. 1. Ambition. The drive to accomplish something but not win at all costs. 2. Tenacity. The drive to search, persist and follow through, but not too long. 3. Self-confidence. The drive to overcome the fear of failure and response, or the need to be liked and use power judiciously but not become arrogant and narcissistic. 4. Psychological Openness. The ability to be receptive to new and different ideas but not shut other people down. 5. Realism. The ability to see what can be accomplished and not gloss over problems or assume the worst. 6. Appetite for Learning. The ability to grown and improve know-hows and not repeat the same mistakes. Charan reduces the concept of business leadership to essential qualities. Know-How is readable and insightful. By linking personal attributes and business success, he delivers a vital message to a society starving for true leadership.