Know-how

The 8 Skills that Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don’t

by Ram Charan

Number of pages: 304

Publisher: Random House

BBB Library: Leadership, Corporate Success

ISBN: 978-1905211234



About the Author

Ram Charan is a business advisor and public speaker. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, where he earned MBA and doctorate degrees.

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Editorial Review

Although personal traits are important in making successful leaders, it is the know-how that separates those who build long-term values from those who hit short-term targets. Personal characteristics do not guarantee sound judgment or realistic vision, and their values are greatly diminished without the know-hows that could be learned and developed through experience. The command of these know-hows enables you to diagnose any situation and take appropriate actions. However, they must be combined with the right personal traits to make optimum use of them as they interact with one another and with the know-how. The know-how is about what you must do and be, and your ability to succeed depends on practicing it while at the same time refining your personal traits through a series of deliberate, appropriately challenging assignments, combined with self-reflection. 

Book Reviews

"In this ground-breaking new book, Ram Charan, co-author of the bestselling Execution, redefines leadership by focusing on eight specific practical skills that, if mastered, are guaranteed to bring success." Random House

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Wisdom to Share

If you need different business results, you have to change the social system, otherwise, people will do what they have always done, and the outcome will be the same.

A sound social system enables business to execute ambitious strategies, and the know-how of diagnosing, designing, and leading it enables you to mobilize people to deliver results and transform organizations’ nature.

The know-how of making the organization’s social system deliver what you need is a prerequisite for success.

To execute change, things must transform internally; the working of the organization, its behavior, and its culture.

People who create organic growth—that is profitable and sustainable—connect the dots sooner and are on the offensive.

The earlier you can detect changes, the more the time you will have to generate and test hypotheses, mobilize resources, and reposition the business to achieve goals.

It takes a special know-how to mentally deal with the ambiguity toward forming a view of the patterns that are emerging, and then connect these little dots and take action accordingly.

Positioning always requires some educated guesswork with emotions set out of the way as sometimes the potential for big money can skew the perception of what will happen if some of the judgments prove wrong.

In today’s world positioning does not last long, and its essence is to know when a change needs to be made, determine its shape, and link it with the fundamentals of moneymaking.

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