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Building Business Value by Martin O'Neill - Book review

Building Business Value

How to Command a Premium Price for Your Midsized Company

By: Martin O'Neill

Published: May 1, 2009
Format: Hardcover, 156 pages
ISBN: 0982056907
Publisher: Third Bridge Press

"As a C-level executive, your main priority and commitment to your company is to build value". writes Corsum Consulting business strategist Martin O'Neill, in his business transformational book Building Business Value: How to Command a Premium Price for Your Midsized Company. The author describes how average companies sell for a mediocre value of multiples of four or five times earnings, and that poorly run companies sell for much less value. On the other hand, well run value based companies may command premium value of nine or ten times earnings. The book shows how to achieve those premium values for a mid-sized company.

Martin O'Neill considers enhancement of business value to be a leadership driven issue. Building value is based on collaboration and taking a holistic approach to transforming the company effectiveness. The author believes that leaders of a middle sized organization must take an open and honest assessment of the current status of the company. At the same time, the company's leaders must create a vision of a successful future for the business. Once the current evaluation and vision are created, a strategy can be developed to transform the company into a premium valued business.

Martin O'Neill (photo left) recognizes that not all companies are enhancing value for immediate sale or public share offering. Instead, building a superior company can be a longer term process that adds value and creates a stronger business in the marketplace. The author's emphasis is on the process of becoming a great organization, that transforms itself from the ordinary to the extraordinary, and how that is the core of the leader's purpose. As a result, the visionary leader must think constantly about the future, whether in terms of products and services, the industry, or the economy. At the same time, leaders must make a personal commitment to building value, and instill that sense of commitment in their leadership team.

For me, the power of the book is the practical approach to building value in a medium sized company. The author points out that increasing company value is an ongoing process, that requires vision, commitment, and continual improvement and growth, to transform the organization. Martin O'Neill helps his readers by illustrating his concepts with many graphs, diagrams, and flow charts, so that any business leader can follow the process step by step. Since the sale or transfer of ownership of the company is the pay day for the organization's leadership, the author considers it crucial that value be maximized. As a result, the book's focus is on creating a well run business, with dedicated leaders and employees who share in the leader's vision.

I highly recommend the value building textbook Building Business Value: How to Command a Premium Price for Your Midsized Company by Martin O'Neill, to any business leader who seeks to create a vision for creating premium business valuation. The book guides the leader in transforming a lackluster company into a superior business that will build a current and future value well above the usual benchmarks for the industry as a whole.

Read highly readable and practical book Building Business Value: How to Command a Premium Price for Your Midsized Company by Martin O'Neill, and discover how to build not only greatly enhanced monetary value in a company, but to leave a powerful and lasting business legacy as well. Reading this book will pay off for business leaders in much more than money, but in greater satisfaction for everyone in the company as well.

Tags: Building Business Value: How to Command a Premium Price for Your Midsized Company, Martin O'Neill, enhancing business valuation, business book reviews.

Cindy Ventrice: Make Their Day! - Blog Business Success Radio

Listen to Wayne Hurlbert on Blog Talk Radio

President of Potential Unlimited Seminars and best selling author of the seminal and completely revised guide to employee recognition that works, Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works, Cindy Ventrice, tells the real truth about employee recognition. She demonstrates that intangible and low cost rewards including praise, thanks, opportunity and respect are more effective than most expensive employee recognition programs. Follow her advice and save money while having a happier and more motivated workplace.

Cindy Ventrice is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on Blog Talk Radio.

The show airs live on Tuesday, July 28, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time; 5:00 pm Pacific Time.

President of Potential Unlimited Seminars and best selling author of the seminal and completely revised guide to employee recognition that works, Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works, Cindy Ventrice, tells the real truth about employee recognition. You will learn:

* Why traditional employee incentive programs don't work

* What employees really want to find meaning in their work

* Why intangible rewards that cost little are so effective

* How leaders can create a corporate culture of intangible rewards

Cindy Ventrice (photo left) is a management consultant and workshop leader with over 20 years of experience. Through her company, Potential Unlimited Seminars, she helps organizations improve performance by improving work relationships. She has been very active in the American Society for Training and Development, serving for five years on the board of the Silicon Valley Chapter and as chapter President in 2003.

Her strong understanding of technology provided Cindy with an opportunity to work on many diverse projects including: developing bakery production and real estate management systems, and setting up job-costing, inventory tracking, payroll processing, and point of sale systems. Over time, she had the opportunity to work in a wide range of industries including: technology, nonprofit, government, health care, manufacturing, trade, service, education, and tourism, developing a comprehensive understanding of business operations.

With each project, Cindy had a chance to observe and learn, firsthand, about employee loyalty and motivation. She began to see a correlation between project success and the way employees are treated, and eventually developed a project management course that focused less on scheduling and resource management and more on the cooperative and collaborative elements of effective project management. Slowly, she moved away from technology-based solutions and towards people-based solutions.

My book review of Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works by Cindy Ventrice.

Listen live on Tuesday at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific time.

If you miss this very informative show, it will be available for free download as a podcast for iPod, iTunes, and MP3 players; or play it right on your computer. To download this, or any other of my guest interviews, go to the Blog Business Success host page and click on Archived Segments. Once there, click on the podcast icon at the end of the episode description, to download the show free of charge for your listening enjoyment. You can also subscribe to the show feed.

To call in questions for my guest, the number is: (347) 996-5832

Let's talk with President of Potential Unlimited Seminars and best selling author of the seminal and completely revised guide to employee recognition that works, Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works, Cindy Ventrice, as she tells the real truth about employee recognition. She demonstrates that intangible and low cost rewards including praise, thanks, opportunity and respect are more effective than most expensive employee recognition programs. Follow her advice and save money while having a happier and more motivated workplace on Blog Business Success Radio.

Tags: Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works, Cindy Ventrice, employee recognition programs, Blog Business Success, BlogTalkRadio.

Make Their Day!, Second Edition by Cindy Ventrice - Book review

Make Their Day!, Second Edition

Employee Recognition That Works

By: Cindy Ventrice

Published: May 2009
ISBN-13: 9781576756010
Format: Paperback, 220pp
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

"It is a simple fact: people who feel valued perform at a much higher level", writes President of Potential Unlimited Seminars, Cindy Ventrice, author of the seminal and completely revised guide to employee recognition that works, Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works. The author explains why traditional employee incentive programs fail, and why intangible rewards that focus on the human needs of employees, are much more effective in achieving their goals.

Cindy Ventrice understands that employees value praise, thanks, opportunity, and respect in the workplace. Employees want to find meaning in their workplace, and they want their contributions to be recognized and valued on a human level. This deep psychological craving for respect and recognition far outweighs tangible incentives, including money. Cindy Ventrice points out correctly, that organizations that value and trust their employees, are more effective at meeting deadlines, providing superior products and services, and achieve greater success. The author provides examples of real companies where traditional employee incentive programs had failed, and were turned around to profitability by an employee recognition culture.

Cindy Ventrice (photo left) recognizes that there is no universal best practices solution that applies to all companies, in all circumstances. Instead, the author believes that employee recognition corporate cultures are as individual as the companies themselves, and the people who they employ. Cindy Ventrice points out that leadership from company executives is needed to build a new company culture, and to build it into the corporate DNA, so that it becomes second nature for everyone. At the same time, the financial, employee turnover, and productivity results from the recognition program require measurement. When real gains are demonstrated by the intangible rewards, the culture will internalize the concept even more deeply into all of its activities.

For me, the power of the book is the author's deep understanding of what is really important to employees. The author provides many real world examples of employee recognition plans that worked well, as well as additional ideas for consideration in other organizations. Instead of expensive bonus and incentive systems, elaborate perks, or plaques on the wall, the most effective recognition programs provide real meaning to work. People want and deserve to recognized and thanked for their accomplishments. At the same time, they want the opportunity to grow as employees and as people. People who are appreciated on a personal level are more productive, have greater job satisfaction, and will take on more responsibility effectively.

I highly recommend the essential employee recognition book Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works by Cindy Ventrice, to anyone seeking to add meaning to work, and to develop an employee recognition culture that works. In difficult economic circumstances, the free intangible rewards suggested in the book, are especially important, as they save money, enhance productivity, and boost profits.

Read the organization changing book Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works by Cindy Ventrice, and stop wasting your time, and that of your employees, on ineffective traditional incentive plans, In their place, instituting the more meaningful intangible rewards will create results that will make everyone in the organization beam with pride.

For additional employee recognition information and resources, visit at author Cindy Ventrice's website.

Tags: Make Their Day!, Second Edition: Employee Recognition That Works, Cindy Ventrice, employee recognition programs, business book reviews.

Ed Schein: Helping: How To Offer, Give, And Receive Help - Blog Business Success Radio

Listen to Wayne Hurlbert on Blog Talk Radio

Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus at MIT and author of the seminal, yet highly practical book Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help, Edgar H. Schein, discusses the concept of helping from both the helper and the recipient viewpoint. By using a sociological, psychological, and economics approach to the concept of helping, Ed Schein is able to describe the complexity of helping, He shares ideas for offering, giving and receiving help that deepen business and personal relationships. His ideas are equally valuable in a personal or business setting.

Ed Schein is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on Blog Talk Radio.

The show airs live on Thursday, July 23, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time; 5:00 pm Pacific Time.

Note: This is a rescheduled show from an earlier date.

Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus at MIT and author of the seminal, yet highly practical book Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help, Edgar H. Schein, discusses the concept of helping from both the helper and the recipient viewpoint. You will learn:

* Why the concept of giving and receiving help is so complex

* How societal and status roles affect the helping dynamic

* How helping operates in a business setting

* How to improve your helping roles and your acceptance of help

Edgar Schein (photo left) was educated at the University of Chicago, at Stanford University where he received a Masters Degree in Psychology in 1949, and at Harvard University where he received his Ph.D. in social psychology in 1952. He was Chief of the Social Psychology Section of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research while serving in the U.S. Army as Captain from 1952 to 1956. He joined MIT's Sloan School of Management in 1956 and was made a Professor of Organizational Psychology and Management in 1964.

At the present he is Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and continues at the Sloan School part time as a Senior Lecturer. He is also the Founding Editor of "Reflections" the Journal of the Society for Organizational Learning devoted to connecting academics, consultants, and practitioners around the issues of knowledge creation, dissemination and utilization.

Ed Schein has been a prolific researcher, writer, teacher and consultant. Besides his numerous articles in professional journals he has authored fourteen books including Organizational Psychology (3d edit., 1980), Career Dynamics (1978), Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985, 1992, 2004), and Process Consultation Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (1969, 1987, 1988), Process Consultation Revisited (1999), and The Corporate Culture Survival Guide (1999).

Ed Schein wrote a cultural analysis of the Singapore Economic Development Board entitled Strategic Pragmatism (MIT Press, 1997) and has published an extended case analysis of the rise and fall of Digital Equipment Corporation entitled DEC is Dead; Long Live DEC: The lasting legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation (Berrett-Kohler, 2003). He was Co-editor with the late Richard Beckhard of the Addison Wesley Series on Organization Development which has published over 30 titles since its inception in 1969.

His consultation focuses on organizational culture, organization development, process consultation, and career dynamics, and among his past and current clients are major corporations both in the U.S. and overseas such as Digital Equipment Corporation, Ciba-Geigy, Apple, Citibank, General Foods, Procter & Gamble, ICI, Saab Combitech, Steinbergs, Alcoa, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Exxon, Shell, AMOCO, British Petroleum, Con Edison, the Economic Development Board of Singapore, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (on the subject of "safety culture").

Ed Schein currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations, and the Boards of Massachusetts Audubon Society and the Boston Lyric Opera.

Ed Schein has received many honors and awards for his writing, most recently the Lifetime Achievement Award in Workplace Learning and Performance of the American Society of Training Directors, Feb, 3, 2000, the Everett Cherington Hughes Award for Career Scholarship from the Careers Division of the Academy of Management, Aug. 8, 2000, and the Marion Gislason Award for Leadership in Executive Development from the Boston University School of Management Executive Development Roundtable, Dec. 11, 2002.

He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Academy of Management. Prof. Schein is married, has three children, and seven grandchildren. He and his wife Mary live in Cambridge, Mass.

My book review of Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help by Edgar H. Schein.

Listen live on Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific time.

To call in questions for my guest, the number is: (347) 996-5832

Let's talk with Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus at MIT and author of the seminal, yet highly practical book Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help, Edgar H. Schein, as he discusses the concept of helping from both the helper and the recipient viewpoint. By using a sociological, psychological, and economics approach to the concept of helping, Ed Schein is able to describe the complexity of helping, He shares ideas for offering, giving and receiving help that deepen business and personal relationships. His ideas are equally valuable in a personal or business setting on Blog Business Success Radio.

Tags: Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help, Edgar H. Schein, personal relationship building, Blog Business Success, BlogTalkRadio.

Upbeat by Rajesh Setty - Book review

Upbeat

Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times

By: Rajesh Setty

Published: May 1, 2009
ISBN-13: 9781935073031
Format: Paperback, 96 pp
Publisher: Ashoka Books

"The easiest way to get out of mediocrity is to set higher standards for yourself", writes entrepreneur and thought leader Rajesh Setty in his perceptive and inspirational book Upbeat: Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times. While acknowledging the recession, the author points out that many other business people just think about surviving the economic downturn. Instead, this book encourages business people to thrive in any economy, through a combination of attitude, strategy, and positive action.

Rajesh Setty recognizes the trap that business people can fall into regarding a sagging economy. Conversations tend to emphasize the negative aspects of the business climate, and overlook the opportunities that arise as a direct result of those economic forces. As a result, the author stresses the importance of replacing self defeating and negative talk with a flexible examination of what is really happening in the economy. While competitors are cutting back, the author reminds business people of that developing a strategy that enhances strengths and removes outmoded concepts, can deliver profitable results.

Rajesh Setty (photo left) doesn't simply suggest platitudes in his book, but builds on positive attitude adjustments with practical and actionable ideas. By applying such well known and proven techniques as building on the strengths and skills of one's own network, that powerful improvements to the business can take place. The author recognizes that one of the simplest and most ignored principles is that of tenacity. Merely by developing a flexible, yet workable strategy, and sticking with it, a company can succeed where others fail. All too often, people give up and quit, just at the edge of their greatest success.

For me, the power of this compact, yet important book is the blending of keeping a positive attitude with developing and seeing through a powerful business strategy. While the focus of the book is thriving in a recession, the same principles can propel a business to higher profits and industry leadership in a growing economy. More than a mere positive thinking book, Rajesh Setty has created a positive action book, that can transform any business person into a successful one. At the same time, the book will turn a lackluster company into a force in the marketplace.

I highly recommend the inspiring Upbeat: Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times by Rajesh Setty, to any business person who is experiencing personal doubts, or a loss of confidence in their company. A recession is never easy for business success, but with the right viewpoint and flexible attitude, great business opportunities can be discovered and turned into profit centers.

Read the short but powerful and life changing book Upbeat: Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times by Rajesh Setty, and turn those negative conversations into positive action. This recession may hold more business opportunities than you ever dreamed possible. The book will help you develop a winning strategy in this and any economy.

Tags: Upbeat: Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times, Rajesh Setty, positive attitude, business book reviews.