HR Professional - June/July 2008 - (Page 51)

OFF THE SHELF WHAT’S WORTH READING Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward Harvard Business School Press, 2007 B Y J AY S O M E R S E T Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want By James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II Harvard Business School Press, 2007 Is it possible to rescue your career after a major professional setback? Conrad Black is likely pondering this very question in his Florida jail cell right now. And if he’s chosen Firing Back as his bunk-side book, he’s in luck. Authors Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward believe almost anybody can rebound from seemingly career suicide by following their ﬁvestep recovery process that guides you through the initial shocks and setback through reputation resurgence and new opportunity. Business how-to books are rarely engaging, but reading this book is like eating candy as the authors weave stories about failure recapitulated. It’s hard to remember, but successful entrepreneurs like Donald Trump and Martha Stewart once suffered incredible blows, and were able to reinvent themselves and emerge more successful than ever. The same goes for the founders of Home Depot, Apple, Staples and Hewlett-Packard—iconic companies all led by phoenix-like CEOs and executives. If you’ve ever been ﬁred, you know how difﬁcult it is to pick yourself up and get back in the ring. In the business world, creating triumph from tragedy isn’t just a concern of the fallen but also the company itself, and this is where HR plays the key role in repairing and rebuilding the affected company as a whole and, in some cases, the fallen leader. Inspiring and insightful, this book arms the reader with the tools to recovery through excellent lessons and examples of winners and losers. Success isn’t a matter of luck, argues the authors, but taking a carefully chosen path. It might sound trite, but when you’ve got the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and The Donald all singing the praises of this book, you know there’s something going on beyond Tony Robbins-like platitudes. w w w. HRT houghtLeader. c om I want the real thing, the genuine article. I want more than a quality product, I want authenticity, and I am your customer. So goes this book written by James Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II, the authors of The Experience Economy (1999), which, like Authenticity, claims companies no longer compete on quality—a given nowadays—but on experience. The best businesses recognize this and use it to sell their brand. After all, there’s a reason Apple controls 80 per cent of the portable music player market; people want an iPod simply because it’s an iPod, not because it’s a superior product. So, what’s a business to do? Luckily for the reader, the authors actually provide advice on helping establish your company’s product as “the real deal.” The central idea is the Theory of Everything, ﬁve distinct classes of authenticity that correspond to ﬁve economic offerings: “natural” authenticity, where the product is authentic because it derives from natural, organic materials; “original” authenticity is hard to imitate or is established as “the original” (Guinness beer); “exceptional” authenticity, where service goes beyond what is expected, especially in industries known for treating people poorly (WestJet); “referential” authenticity, where the brand draws inspiration from human history and shared memories (iconic brands like The New Yorker); and ﬁnally, “inﬂuential” authenticity, where a brand invokes feeling of a higher purpose (fair-trade organics). This book helps you focus on which type of authenticity ﬁts your company, and how to align business strategy accordingly. How do the best companies achieve authenticity, and how can I follow suit? Read on, but be warned: simply saying you’re authentic doesn’t make you so. You have to actually follow through with your claims, and this points right to the heart of HR: managing human expectations and creating company culture. J u n e / J u l y 2 0 0 8 51 http://www.HRThoughtLeader.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Professional - June/July 2008

HR Professional - June/July 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Contributors Leadership Matters Upfront Legal Compensation The Broad Perspective Leading by Example On Message Strategy Talent Management HR 101 Case Study Interview with J.P. Pawliw-Fry Off the Shelf The Last Word HR Suppliers Guide 2008 Calendar of Events

HR Professional - June/July 2008

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