Link: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5917.html
Q&A with: James Heskett and W. Earl Sasser of Harvard Business School
Published: December 22, 2008
Authors: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, and Joe Wheeler
Organizations with strong, adaptive cultures enjoy labor cost advantages, great employee and customer loyalty, and a smoother on-ramp in leadership succession. A book excerpt from The Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage by HBS professors Jim Heskett and W. Earl Sasser and coauthor Joe Wheeler. Key concepts include:
* Organizations with clearly codified cultures often become better places to work.
* An operating strategy based on a sturdy, effective culture is selective of prospective customers.
* High-performing organizations periodically revisit and reaffirm their core values and associated behaviors... read on