In this "refreshingly different" high-toned business book, three leading business school professors take to America's back roads in search of offbeat small businesses—enterprises that hold valuable lessons for executives and entrepreneurs everywhere (Bloomberg Businessweek). While playing hooky from a conference in Boston a few years back, three former colleagues from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management hopped in a car and embarked on a life-changing road trip. They pulled into a shoe store in Maine and noticed that the sales help was unusually pushy. After a few questions, they discovered the store had a "secret shopper" program, in which employees would be marked down if they were not sufficiently aggressive with customers. A lightbulb went off. Instead of teaching the tried-and-true case studies involving GE and Microsoft, these three men decided to pull their heads out of their ivory towers and search for insights about product differentiation, pricing, brand management, building a team, and a host of other topics. Why take your cues on employee compensation from Wall Street when you can learn from a Main Street company like Couer D'Alene's best crime-scene cleaner? Want to learn about scaling a business? Come meet Dr. Burris, the flying orthodontist, who operates multiple, profitable practices in rural Arkansas. Spiced with vehicular mishaps and unexpected finds, this is one business book you won't want to miss.
While playing hooky from a conference in Boston a few years back, three former colleagues from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management hopped in a car and headed on a road trip. They pulled into a shoe store in Maine and noticed that the sales help was unusually pushy. After a few questions, they discovered the store had a "secret shopper" program, in which employees would be marked down if they were not sufficiently aggressive with customers. A lightbulb went off. Instead of teaching the tried-and-true case studies involving GE and Microsoft, these three wise men decided to pull their heads out of their ivory towers and go in search of insights about product differentiation, pricing, brand management, building a team, and a host of other topics. Why take your cues on employee compensation from Wall Street when you can learn from a Main Street company like Couer D'Alene's best crime-scene cleaner? Want to learn about scaling a business? Come meet Dr. Burris, the flying orthodontist, who operates multiple, profitable practices in rural Arkansas. The book isn't all egghead; the chapters are spiced with the type of vehicular mishaps and Maalox moments that are common on any road trip"--
Captain Richard Leland is a rising star in the NYPD. Young, bright, and super ambitious, his goal is to be the police commissioner by the time he’s forty. He’s right on track, but then department politics rears its ugly head. All his carefully laid plans are suddenly thrown into jeopardy when his boss, Chief of Department Charles Drum, decides his young protégé needs more patrol experience—something that Leland has been avoiding at all costs because he knows that almost anything that goes wrong in a precinct could derail his promising career. To his horror, Leland is transferred to the notorious Bronx precinct that cops call “Fort Frenzy.” With good reason, a wary Leland views his precinct assignment as a career minefield that at any moment could blow his hopes and expectations all to hell. His new boss, Assistant Chief Lucian Hightower, is an archenemy of Chief Drum and he’s not at all happy to see this “headquarters groupie” in his borough. Another major flashpoint for Leland is Kawasi Munyika, a loudmouthed political activist who is waiting for that one “cause” that will propel him into national prominence. Then, there’s the “Poet Bandit,” a psycho whose robbery notes contain poems, and the “Midnight Mangias,” a couple who break into restaurants and cook their own meals. If that isn’t enough, Leland is forced to contend with angry cops, whacko cops, a radio car romance, a “cop fighter” bar that needs to be closed, and a beautiful, if contentious, community organizer who is a thorn in his side. Or is she? Finally, it all comes to a head. Kawasi Munyika finds his “cause”—the boycott of a Korean grocery store. And Richard Leland is faced with his own personal Armageddon: Will he protect his career or will he do the right thing? This book, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, offers the reader an insider’s unique view of the life of a precinct commanding officer and what goes on behind the walls of a NYPD precinct.
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