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| Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't | 
 enlarge | Author: Ram Charan
Publisher: Crown Business
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
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You Save: $12.50 (45%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 5220
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307341518
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4092
EAN: 9780307341518
ASIN: 0307341518
Publication Date: January 2, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
In Know-How, Ram Charan, coauthor of the bestseller Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, gives readers a bold new approach to understanding leadership. Charan suggests that when it comes to choosing our business leaders, we don't recognize the crucial difference between the appearance of leadership and the actual ability to run a business. We focus too much on superficial things, like raw intelligence or a commanding presence, and don't pay near enough attention to the skills leaders need. In his new book, Charan identifies the eight skills leaders must develop and refine, and explains how personal traits factor in. Curious readers can learn more about Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't in our brief Q & A with author Ram Charan, and sneak a peek at the first chapter, below. --Daphne Durham
Q&A with Ram Charan
Q: You identify 8 know-hows. Can you take us through one of them?
A: In this time of continual change, money making or business models are becoming obsolete more frequently than ever before. It wasn't that long ago when AOL was king of the hill. That leadership was taken over by Yahoo. Now Yahoo is at a crossroads and the leadership has been taken over by Google. So far Google is ahead. It has the central recipe to increase its revenues via advertising because it knows how to measure advertising effectiveness better than anybody else. Leaders at both AOL and Yahoo must be scratching their heads trying to figure out how to reposition the company to make money in the new context. Repositioning is a know-how. It's hard work, and it requires imagination. We will have an opportunity to see about the decision made by Time Warner top brass to summarily replace Jim Miller with Randy Falco of NBC Universal. Randy has a distinguished record. He will have to demonstrate one of the most crucial know-hows in this book: Can he reposition AOL for the new game, and in time? Cost cutting is not the answer.
Q: How can you build your know-how, or help others develop theirs?
A: No talented athlete ever became a champion without consistent regular practice in the right way, along with feedback and hard work. There are no short cuts.That's why you should start practicing early in your career by taking assignments that will help you cultivate the know-hows and seeking out bosses you can learn from.
Q: Many people think of leaders as having innate traits that set them apart from the rest of us. Are you saying we should be looking at skills instead of personality?
A: At the time somebody enters the work force, a great deal of his or her personality has been formed. Most people who talk about leadership today talk about personality, personality, personality. Personality traits, presence, charisma--they will experience attrition if you don't practice them in the context of know-hows. Personality traits and know-hows reinforce each other. In the 21st century, the transparency of results is immediate. Failure is detected very early. Dependence on personality traits without the mastery of the know-hows is a recipe for disaster.
Q: What do you think about the future?
A: The future is very bright. The global economy will continue to expand. There will be more demand for leaders than ever before. Master the know-hows. Hone your personality traits while you're mastering the know-hows. Don't forget that your success must come in the context of global competition. Take the opportunity to win.
Read the First Chapter of Know-How The Substance of Successful Leaders Know-how is what separates leaders who perform--who deliver results--from those who don't. It is the hallmark of people who know what they are doing, those who build longterm intrinsic value and hit short-term targets. What gets in the way of finding people who can perform is the appearance of leadership. All too often I see people being chosen for leadership jobs on the basis of superficial personal traits and characteristics, such as: • The seduction of raw intelligence: "He's extremely bright, incisive, and very analytical. I just feel in my gut he can do the job." • A commanding presence and great communication skills: "That presentation was awesome. How she ever boiled down all that data onto the PowerPoints is beyond me. Shecertainly had the committee in the palm of her hand. Mark my words, she's going to the top." • The power of a bold vision: "What a picture he painted of where we are going, moving forward." • The notion of a born leader: "The people in the unit love her. Such a morale builder and motivator!" Certainly intelligence, self-confidence, presence, the ability to communicate, and having a vision are important. But being highly intelligent doesn't mean that a person has the knack for making good business judgments. How many times have you seen people confidently making decisions that turn out to be disastrous? How often have you heard a vision that turned out to be nothing more than rhetoric and hot air? Read more from Chapter 1...
Product Description
The new grand theory of leadership by Ram Charan . . . The breakthrough book that links know-how—the skills of people who know what they are doing— with the personal and psychological traits of the successful leader.
How often have you heard someone with a commanding presence deliver a bold vision that turned out to be nothing more than rhetoric and hot air? All too often we mistake the appearance of leadership for the real deal. Without a doubt, intelligence, vision, and the ability to communicate are important. But something big is missing: the know-how of running a business—the capacity to take it in the right direction, do the right things, make the right decisions, deliver results, and leave the people and the business better off than they were before.
For well over four decades, Ram Charan has been learning in the most visceral way the underlying reasons why leaders succeed and fail. As one of the most influential advisers to top management teams of leading companies around the world, he has had a front-row seat to observe the cause and effect of leadership practices and behaviors.
Ram Charan’s insight into the real content of leadership provides you with the eight fundamental skills needed for success in the twenty-first century:
• Positioning (and, when necessary, repositioning) your business by zeroing in on the central idea that meets customer needs and makes money
• Connecting the dots by pinpointing patterns of external change ahead of others
• Shaping the way people work together by leading the social system of your business
• Judging people by getting to the truth of a person
• Molding high-energy, high-powered, high-ego people into a working team of leaders in which they equal more than the sum of their parts
• Knowing the destination where you want to take your business by developing goals that balance what the business can become with what it can realistically achieve
• Setting laser-sharp priorities that become the road map for meeting your goals
• Dealing creatively and positively with societal pressures that go beyond the economic value creation activities of your business
Know-How is the missing link of leadership. By showing how the eight know-hows link to, interact with, and reinforce personal and psychological traits, Ram Charan provides a holistic and innovative portrait of successful leaders of the twenty-first century.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 The Substance of Leadership January 2, 2007
115 out of 120 found this review helpful
In an era of constant change, there is a crying need for leadership. Although change is a constant, today's magnitude, speed and depth, is unlike previous renditions. Multibillion dollar businesses emerge from nowhere. Highly-valued institutions and organizations are rendered impotent over-night.
Yet, many cling to choosing future leaders on the basis of superficial personal traits and characteristics. How many times have you heard an anointed future leader described as "intelligent," "a commanding presence," "a great communicator," "having a bold vision," or "a born leader?"
Ram Charan, a consultant with a Harvard Business School MBA and doctorate, has identified, eight skills - he calls them "know-hows" - essential for leadership success:
1.Positioning and Repositioning. The ability to find an idea for the organization that meets customers' demands and makes money.
2.Pinpointing External Change. The ability to identify patterns that place the organization on the offensive.
3.Leading the Social System. The ability to get the right people with the right behaviors and the right information to make better decisions and business results.
4.Judging People. The ability to calibrate people based on their actions, decisions and behaviors and matches them to the job's non-negotiables.
5.Molding a Team. The ability to coordinate competent, high-ego leaders.
6.Setting Goals. The ability to balance goals that give equal weighting to what the business can become and what it can achieve.
7.Setting Priorities. The ability to define a path and direct resources, actions, and energy to accomplish goals.
8.Dealing with Forces beyond the Market. The ability to deal with pressures you cannot control but affect your business.
Citing case studies from his consulting practice, Charan identifies personal traits of leaders that help or interfere with the know-hows.
1.Ambition. The drive to accomplish something but not win at all costs.
2.Tenacity. The drive to search, persist and follow through, but not too long.
3.Self-confidence. The drive to overcome the fear of failure and response, or the need to be liked and use power judiciously but not become arrogant and narcissistic.
4.Psychological Openness. The ability to be receptive to new and different ideas but not shut other people down.
5.Realism. The ability to see what can be accomplished and not gloss over problems or assume the worst.
6.Appetite for Learning. The ability to grown and improve know-hows and not repeat the same mistakes.
Charan reduces the concept of business leadership to essential qualities. Know-How is readable and insightful. By linking personal attributes and business success, he delivers a vital message to a society starving for true leadership.
Know-How - The Critical Linkage to Success January 4, 2007
67 out of 69 found this review helpful
Why does a gifted person tagged for a leadership role fail when he/she gets there? And how does a leader with little or no education succeed? Best selling author and acclaimed management philosopher, Ram Charan, provides an answer to this paradox in his latest offering, "Know How" by focusing on the critical linkage - know-how - that separates leaders who perform from those who do not.
In the book, Charan details eight critical know-hows observed in the most successful leaders, discusses real life examples of success and failure, and provides a checklist, "Questions to Ask Yourself" for the reader. Charan, relying on his 45 years of observational research, constructs a more complete theory integrating know-how with personality traits, psychological orientation and cognitive architecture. He shows how these know-hows and individual personal traits are interlinked and reinforce each other.
Every leader Charan has known has mastered the nuts and bolts of one or more know-hows early in life and has used these skills over and over again to learn all of the critical know-hows. ...And this is how real leaders are really made.
The eight critical Know-Hows include:
1.Will the Dogs Eat the Dog Food? Positioning and Repositioning the Business to Make Money. Shaping and reshaping the value proposition to meet the needs of an ever changing external landscape. The quality of the leader depends on the ability to sort out so many elements of the complexity of the business and connecting them with the money making formula.
2.Before the Point Tips: Connecting the Dots by Pinpointing and Taking Action on Patterns of External Change. The need to look at the big picture and then work through the messy details. We are in uncharted waters. Relatively linear, continuous, and predictable are not the norm. Do you have the broad lens? Section on how to detect points before they tip.
3.Herding Cats: Getting People to Work Together by Managing the Social System of Your Business. Getting people to align their efforts is a lot like herding cats. Understanding the social system of a business is the best way to get a handle on the otherwise mysterious subject of managing and changing how people work together to meet ever-changing business requirements. Have to establish and enforce what behaviors are acceptable and which are not.
4.Leaders Are Made, Not Born: Judging, Selecting, and Developing Leaders. Discovering and developing a person's natural talent.
5.Unity Without Uniformity: Molding a Team of Leaders. Making a team more than the sum of its parts.
6.The Buck Starts With You: Determining and Setting the Right Goals.
7.It's Monday Morning, Now What"Setting Laser-Sharp Dominant Priorities.
8.Driving on Brokeback Mountain: Dealing with Forces Outside Your Control. Knowing how to anticipate and prepare for issues outside constituencies raise and judging the risks they pose to the business model.
Charan closes "Know-How" with a letter to a future leader, Michael, in which he advises that "given the transparency of today's world, any shortcoming in his know-hows, personality traits, or character will be revealed very quickly." He encourages Michael to be self-reflective; speed his progress through learning by experience, through others; be open to new ideas, people, situations, and problems; embrace fear and disappointment: and to focus on the know-hows of business.
While written for business, "Know How" will serve as an excellent guide for all who aspire to be successful leaders whether in the private, public, or non-profit sectors. It joins Dotlich's "Head, Heart, and Guts" (Wiley, 2006) as a perfect bookend to all that has been written on what makes a successful leader. These two books are unique, covering critical leadership attributes previously un-addressed.
 Do not recommend March 16, 2007
29 out of 41 found this review helpful
This book talks a lot about what you have to do to be a leader. You have to reinvent, you have to follow, you have to innovate, etc..... Every leader knows that he/she must be focusing on priorities, molding teams, coaching leaders. Moreover that everybody believes in the management positions highly believe that we are certainly doing things recommended. But perhaps the question is how effectively we are doing this. For instance having read Linda Richardson's book on coaching I discovered that I coached people in a very wrong way and therefore I was not effective. This book does not give any ideas of how to effectively do the things that are most important for leaders.
Therefore I found it as not practical at all. This makes me wondering why this book has got so many good references. Besides to this, it was definitely not the kind of book you just stick until you "swallow" all of the content. I do not recommend this book.
 Good 1st leadership book, otherwise pretty worthless June 29, 2007
28 out of 29 found this review helpful
I'm thoroughly disappointed with this book. It's like the elementary school guide for recognizing someone who does things well. It might as well say, if your company makes a lot of profits, it's a good business. There is not a single revolutionary concept or idea in the book's 262 oddly sized pages. Go figure, aligning your business with the market, putting together a good team, setting goals, and anticipating and responding to forces beyond the market are strong traits in a leader. I wish I could include a more in-depth analysis, but there's nothing significant here to analyze. He doesn't go out on any limbs that can be criticized.
That said, I think this book might be of some value as someone's 1st book on leadership because it does a good job of presenting the foundations of a leader (that many other authors have already written volumes about) in a condensed form.
Substandard. Disappointed June 19, 2007
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
I am so surprised by the high percentage of five star ratings. Are they influenced by the overwhelmingly positive comment by the many top excecutives of those you-know-which gigantic corps, or the Harvard background of the author, or the past success of "Execution"? God knows. No matter what, I find the writing of the author dry, repetitve and shallow. There's no new insight, nor simply anything new and exciting at all. The eight knowhows (readily available in many other reviews) are just common sense, though one may argue common sense is not that common amongst CEOs. IMHO, one may learn much more from most work of Drucker (or even Welch) than this. In short, not recommended.
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