Description
If you were asked to name a dozen truly successful American companies, your list would probably include IBM, AT&T, Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, General Mills, and a handful of others. More than ten years ago, Fred Harmon and Garry Jacobs began to ask what it was that made these companies stand out, and why they've been able to sustain their success over so many years and against such stiff competition. As the result of a search that involved personal interviews with in-the-know employees from a wide mix of companies, the authors found some stimulating, thought- provoking answers. The Vital Difference reveals those answers.
Harmon and Jacobs discovered, first, that human energy is the single most important factor in the development of organizations and individuals. In every successful company they visited, they encountered energy being converted into a charged, intense atmosphere not found in less successful companies. And they learned how to accomplish that conversion, and how any organization can achieve it.
They also realized that each organization-like the people who make it up-has a distinct personality, and they isolated the five all-important elements of that personality-a psychic center, character (or organization structure), systems, skills, and the physical body. They learned how each of these elements can and must be developed to its fullest in the company and the individual, and how they can be coordinated to achieve lasting corporate and personal success.
Most important, they discovered the process companies and individuals undergo to sustain success, and they show you just how it works, and how you can do it for yourself and your organization. Filled with real-life examples from some of America's most successful organizations, and drawing on such diverse disciplines as the psychology of personality, the process of social development, and Indian yoga, The Vital Difference will provide you with fresh, exciting insights into lasting success-what it means and how to achieve it.
The authors bring distinct and unique perspectives to the subject of corporate success. Frederick G. Harmon is Corporate Vice President of the American Management Association and President of The Presidents Association, AMA's chief executive officer division. Before joining the organization in 1970, he spent 15 years as a business writer and editor, serving as staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, business editor of the San Juan Star in Puerto Rico, and editor-in-chief of International Management Magazine, published in Great Britain. Garry Jacobs is a consultant, researcher, and writer who brings a somewhat unconventional background to the study of business management. Attracted by Indian psychology and philosophy while attending the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s, he traveled to India in search of spiritual enlightenment. Since that time he has lived in India, where he is studying economic and social development and acting as a consultant to businesses, universities, government, and international organizations.
ISBN:0814455697
