The Pursuit of Something Better
How an Underdog Company Defied the Odds, Won Customers' Hearts, and Grew It's Employees into Better People
By: Dave Esler, Myra Kruger
Published: 2nd edition, August 1, 2009
Format: Paperback: 288 pages
ISBN-10: 0982443706
ISBN-13: 978-0982443705
Publisher: New Ridge Books
"Most business leaders understand the importance of aligning corporate culture with business strategy", write Esler Kruger Associates partners Dave Esler and Myra Kruger in their insightful and visionary book The Pursuit of Something Better: How an Underdog Company Defied the Odds, Won Customers' Hearts, and Grew It's Employees into Better People. While most businesses understand the importance, write the authors, very often the reality of the company and its culture are very different.
Dave Esler and Myra Kruger understand the value of values in the company culture. Whether those values are leadership that inspires and motivates the employees, maintaining strong ethical principles, or always doing the right thing for the employees and customers, doing something better is also good business. The authors share the powerful case study of mid-sized telecommunications company U.S. Cellular, and its visionary CEO Jack Rooney, as a real world example of the alignment of company culture with solid business strategy. The result was a growing company, of happy and motivated employees, and loyal and satisfied customers.
Myra Kruger and Dave Esler describe what they call the Dynamic Organization that considers ethical corporate culture to be part of the business strategy. In essence, the culture is the business. The two are inseparable. In many failed companies, ethics and empowered employee culture that does the right thing, is entirely separate from the business strategy. As a result, the business strategy never achieves its desired goals, employees become unmotivated, and customers defect to other vendors. In the Dynamic Organization, as demonstrated by the authors and the U.S. Cellular case study, the unity of culture and strategy into an indivisible whole, is the key to success in every aspect of the company.
For me, the power of the book was the clear demonstration that ethical business practices, and doing the right thing for employees and customers, results in a more profitable company. The authors provide a powerful case for an organization doing the right thing, as part of a holistic business strategy, backed up by strong case studies of their concepts in action. The key example of U.S. Cellular, and its dynamic CEO Jack Rooney, form a convincing real world backdrop, for the ethical and empowering business principles outlined by authors Dave Esler and Myra Kruger. The recommendations for business building should be required reading for any business executive in companies of every size and in any industry.
I highly recommend the inspirational and must read book The Pursuit of Something Better: How an Underdog Company Defied the Odds, Won Customers' Hearts, and Grew It's Employees into Better People by Dave Esler and Myra Kruger, to any business person seeking to create a profitable company that is based on doing the right thing. The authors prove that ethical business practices, with employees empowered to do the right thing for customers, suppliers, and one another are not only developers of strong company morale, but are also keys to building a growing and profitable company.
Read the uplifting and corporate culture transforming book The Pursuit of Something Better: How an Underdog Company Defied the Odds, Won Customers' Hearts, and Grew It's Employees into Better People by Dave Esler and Myra Kruger, and start building a company based on doing the right thing. Not only is an ethical and empowering organization more profitable, but it's a more dynamic and exciting place to work. The authors show convincingly, how doing the right thing is the best business practice.
