Monthly Archives: December 2009

I’m a regular reader of management books.

For the sake of the development of my department, for the development of my staff members and for my professional and personal development. And because books – in any form – can be fun reading about my passsions and prides

Having operated in big Dutch companies, i’m always looking to better understand what drives leadership and management in large organizations. And how  their success can be enhanced.

Over the last decades, many great theories about how companies have to perform became available. Including Discipline of Market Leaders by Treacy and Wiersema, the 7-S framework from Waterman and Peters, Strategic Intent and Core Competencies by Prahalad and Hamel or Good To Great by Collins.

In the first decade of this millennium our (and mine) business world
changed tremendously.  And somewhere, somehow many of the before mentioned insights were blown to bits.

New  valuable insights refer often why companies can not be successful today. I refer to How The Mighty Fall from Collins or Sheth’s The self-destructive habits of good companies.

Collins leaves us with a haunting statement on the back cover that all professionals and managerss should note well: “Whether you prevail or fall, endure or die, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you”.

In this business and intelectual climate a young Dutch professional, Carol Velthuis, has written “Zomerspelers“. A book approaching organizations that are successful both as market leader and a more than average market growth.

Carol states that industries sometimes for years are dominated by one leader. Those long successful businesses are called ‘ summer players “, with a reference to the natural seasonal cycle . The big question, Carol tries to answer,  is how a company  can continue as long as possible in the summer of that cycle.

Velthuis and her team mates analyzed 500 large companies in all their stages. They did not use the Jim Collin’s approach; instead desk research mainly based on interviews took place.

In the end,  15 enterprises were classifed as summer players: including Amazon, Apple, Canon, Caterpillar, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Ikea and Walt Disney. Readers of management literature are probably familiar with most of these names and probably their cases.

The core

Velthuis reflects on the facts that these summer players have a number of characteristics in common.

Indeed, they all focus on customers, have a  management that is very close to the operations, they excel in both quality and cost and they have strong common value characteristics.

My rating

3,5 stars on a scale 0-5.

This entertaining book is an  accessible description of some of the most extraordinary business stories and offers instructive lessons for every business leader and professional.

Zomerspelers is clearly a product of intellectual and management passion and clear goals. Carol Velthuis explains in the first chapter explains why passion and clear goals are important.  She breaks with all applicable models strategy by claiming that one must excel in both quality and cost.

Lots of  cases that inspires one, presented simply.  Based on the chosen approach, as a reader I encountered many lapses in time and geography. In this case it entertained me and made it possible for me to finish the book in a weekend.

I really loved  in particular the discovery of the five paradoxes of good leadership. As a professional and as person one of my 2010 resolutions is working with these  on  a daily basis and make sure it creates success on the department, professional and personal level!

This book is recommended reading for anyone who is interested in connecting to the changing context in our business world. It is then up to you how that knowledge and information will be applied by you  to achieve business, professional or personal success.

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

• Resolutions 2010: the personal computer personal again (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Resolutions for 2010: Getting Ready for 2010 now (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Resolutions for 2010: The Über-Connected Organization (HarvardBusiness.org) (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Resolution for 2010 Customer effort score: Shifting the loyalty curve by reducing customer effort (fredzimny.wordpress.com)