Less Is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity [Hardcover]

Jennings spends time cutting the fat with regard to the management team, communications, organizational structure, decision making, internal processes, analytics/measurements, education/training, and finance (to name but a few). His recipe is to build a vision, get people on board with that vision, document processes, improve them, focus on the customer, and count those things which matter. Definitely not rocket science on the surface, but his analysis of the 10 most productive companies really shows how many of them implemented unorthodox approaches towards recreating their organization. Further, he provides commonalities between these seemingly unrelated companies (different industries, sizes, customer focuses, etc) which he believes elevates these companies above the rest. According to the financial analysis he provides in the second edition, it is hard to dispute his findings. Time will tell if his methodologies is the silver bullet to eliminate waste and drive MEANINGFUL productivity.

The research method Jennings and his team utilized for the book is the driver that makes the book so interesting. By carrying out detailed analysis to locate several under-the-radar, but incredibly productive companies, they managed to isolate some of the common threads for corporate success without being sucked into the vortex of large mega-companies whose stories are already well known and perhaps over-documented. The companies chosen represent a fairly good cross-section of international business, but I would have like to have seen at least one very high tech computer vendor make the cut. There are probably good reasons why there wasn't one, but there was no mention of this if my memory serves... In addition to the excellent research on the case companies, there are also some good insights into legendary companies like Ford and Toyota briefly provided for specific instances.

The significant flaw in this book is that when it is taken as a whole, it amounts to not much more than a very interesting, carefully crafted, indictment of most executive management in corporations today. The executives profiled all really know the nuts and bolts of their business and have been with them long enough to really cast Deming-like vision into reality. That plays well for well a while, but with 6 tapes, I'd like something more practical I can start at work tomorrow since I'm not an executive and probably never will be. The book does try to service this need for mid-managers like me towards the end of the book by encouraging that we apply at least some of the key principles to some degree in the hope of making a grass roots difference at least within our department. Actually, the department I work with abides by many of the principles given and they do help. But that doesn't stop large-scale lay-offs, frozen budgets and other realities that most managers really have to live with. The book's untitled theme is that strong success only flows from the top down. In the highly successful cases analyzed, each has exceptional Level 5 leaders (to use Jim Collins terminology). What if where I work is like 90% of all places where the executives turn-over a lot, are forced to optimize all decisions for short-term profit on Wall Street and de-rail some good plans due to economic realities? The book's primary advice to me would seem to be: go to work somewhere else, find that 10% club. Maybe true, but not particularly helpful today.

Even for those top-level executives whom this book will reach, it is likely to fall on deaf ears. Not because executives really are the "wing tip shoe wearers, peacock strutting" jerks Jennings occasionally alludes to. No, it is Jennings own inflammatory and derisive language that will tend to make executives shut the book. I wanted to lend my tapes to the president of my company because of the good macro-productivity ideas, but decided I wouldn't because he might take it as my endorsement of this class-warfare attitude.

There are other sources out there for most of the information here on egalitarian culture, continuous process improvement, open-book management, profit sharing incentives, etc. I'd be interested to know the average working hours of the employees in the case study companies as a cultural factor but I don't recall this being mentioned. In any case, the productivity measures would factor this in, just a cultural question I have about these companies.

Much of what Jennings says is true and interesting. There are some things that can be learned here, but much of it comes down to re-invent almost everything, starting with your executives. Who can implement that? Again, it is the detailed case study research that puts compelling value into this book.