Kiss Theory Good Bye, by Bob Prosen

Bob Prosen is a highly seasoned business veteran who has worked for or with companies such as NCR (a former employer of mine), AT&T, Hitachi Data Systems, Sabre and Sprint. As I read his book I felt like it was a brain dump of his many years of management and financial analysis. The subtitle of the book is “Five Proven Ways to Get Extraordinary Results in Any Company.” Those five are: superior leadership, sales effectiveness, operational excellence, financial management and customer loyalty. Yes, these are pretty broad, but Bob does a great job explaining the key aspects of each.

I found myself folding down the corners of many pages as I read this book, which is a good sign, of course. Here are a few of the more memorable items:

How do you like this excuse: You’re new to a company, you have some great ideas for improvements, you share them and then you get shot down with, “Once you know what we’re facing, you’ll understand why we do things this way.” In other words, once you become a part of the problem, you won’t want to shake things up.

If a company is gridlocked in too many meetings, then someone in that company is afraid to make a decision.

One of the most important aspects of being a superior leader is hiring people smarter than you. How do you know if you’ve hired the right people? First, ask yourself how often the people around you recommend sound ideas that you never knew were possibilities.

Another great way to reduce costs is to periodically challenge why every report in your company is required.

As a leader, you must create an environment that encourages full disclosure of information without fear of retribution, as well as healthy and vigorous debate that doesn’t get so overly critical that creative ideas are squelched.

When you talk about things that go wrong (as the leader of an organization), it makes you even more credible when you share the good news.

This book should be required reading for anyone entering the world of business…any business…and it should be on the shelf as a handy reference for the rest of us, no matter how many years of business experience you have.