The Three Tensions: Winning the Struggle to Perform Without Compromise

by Ken Favaro and Dominic Dodd

Book Overview

A manager argued that he could either increase his business unit's margins or its sales, but not both. His chief executive reminded him of the time when people lived in mud huts and faced the stark choice between light and heat: punch a hole in the side of your hut and you let the daylight in but also the cold, or block up all the openings and you stay warm but sit in darkness. The invention of glass made it possible to overcome the dilemma'to let...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787987794
• ISBN13: 9780787987794
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Best business book ever

This book addresses all of the most important issues a business will face. It is deep yet easy to read. It is theoretical yet easy to apply. Managers of all companies, large or small, in good times or bad, will find strategies and tactics that can be immediately applied to correctly value their businesses, grow customer benefits, and overcome the tensions that tear most companies apart. If you want to think and act on a higher level than you are now, buy this book immediately.

Revealing look at corporate performance

Dominic Dodd and Ken Favaro explain how companies try to solve the conflicts between competing business goals by making unnecessary compromises, and then get trapped in the never-ending spin of "the corporate cycle." Their book shows how to resolve three central "tensions": whether to grow or profit, whether to take a short view or a long view, and whether to favor individual units or the larger firm. Their case histories detail how leading companies (Cadbury Schweppes, Gillette and Nokia) thrived by resolving their tensions - and how other major corporations (General Motors and Coca-Cola) lost ground by not heeding them. Dodd and Favaro's "customer benefit" mantra is simple but appealing, and their writing is pretty sharp. The authors make their case using Russian proverbs, metaphors such as "the mud hut conundrum" and amusing anecdotes of managers caught on the tension treadmill. Their "new way of thinking" sometimes evokes a motivational speaker at the local Holiday Inn, but the authors readily concede that carrying out their advice isn't easy. They quote some blunt wisdom from corporate executives to add a needed dose of real world gravitas. getAbstract recommends this useful analysis to managers who are trying to balance equally worthy priorities.

A Must Have For All Managers

This most interesting audio book explores the problems that all managers face when trying to balance profitability and growth....great results now or later...as well as other conflicting trade offs. The authors present helpful ideas that all managers can use based on research into the 20 year performance of over 20 CEO's of major corporations. It's a fascinating study that is a must have for any executive who wants to come out a winner.

Trite But True

The issues discussed in the three tensions are familiar to anyone with business management background. However, the authors do offer a clear and logical exposition of the challenges of balancing competing goals. The "batting average" they offer as a metric is interesting, if it is indeed as reliable as the authors indicate. A good book to read on a plane!