Book Review

Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't

by Ram Charan

In typical Charan fashion, Know-How cuts to the bottom-line on the first page and then steadily lays out a comprehensive and sensible approach to choosing and measuring members of a company's leadership team. The eight skills are:

• The ability to position and reposition a company to make money: think GE, Target and Apple.
• Connecting the dots by pinpointing and taking action on emerging patterns of external change: think Verizon, FedEx and Google.
• Getting people to work together by managing the social system of your business.
• Judging, selecting and developing leaders.
• Molding a team of leaders.
• Determining and setting the right goals.
• Setting laser-sharp dominant priorities.
• Dealing with societal forces beyond the market.

The book is well-written and full of fascinating case studies and anecdotes. After reading this book, you may just want to revisit your performance evaluation processes and metrics. Charan makes great arguments for why this set of skills make or break organizations.

Over the past decade, Dr. Charan has captured his business insights in numerous books and articles. These include the best seller Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and Confronting Reality, both co-authored with Larry Bossidy, What the CEO Wants You to Know, Boards at Work, Every Business Is a Growth Business, Profitable Growth, and Boards That Deliver.