Managing for the Short Term: The New Rules for Running a Business in a Day-To-Day World

by Chuck Martin

As managers, senior executives, and CEOs all over have painfully discovered, if you don't manage for the short term, you won't be around for the long term. Bestselling business author Chuck Martin... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385504357
• ISBN13: 9780385504355
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Broadway Business
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Book far better than the title

I almost didn't read this book because of the title, but being a big fan of Martin's previous books, I gave it a try anyway. Good move, as it turns out. The title can be deceiving because the book is REALLY about tying the short and the long term together. It shows how to make what sometimes seem to some of us like meaningless day-to-day activities at the office fit within an organization's strategy.It really brings home for me the major disconnect inside organizations, from what executives pronounce vs. what managers hear. It shows how to close those gaps by getting execs to spend more time inside the company, with the managers!You can't get more practical than this. There must be a hundred managers quoted about how they run their departments and their companies (as well as themselves). It's great to get a book that rather than being filled with ponderous theories, is filled with practical insight from executives and managers on the front lines - these are the guys who are really doing it and makes it a great read.

Like talking directly to the C-Suite

I once had the pleasure of being seated next to one of the nation's best known pollsters on a long flight. It was a wonderful conversation, like talking to "America." Reading Chuck Martin's new book is like that too. He has surveyed and visited with so many senior executives while researching this book, and presents the results with a killer reporter's writing skills. You feel like you are talking directly to the global C-suite, getting their very personal perspectives on managing for the short term.The outcome is a book that is perceptive and practical, and completely real-world. I found the communications chapters alone worth the price of the book. The same could be said about the section on self-management, and other sections as well.What is this book really all about? You'll know when you get to Martin's Law of Expanding Immediacy. If you're feeling busier today than you were yesterday, this is why.

This book rocks!

I didn't think someone as skeptical about corporate America as I am could get much out of this book, but it's changed my thinking about how to handle office politics. I've been very frustrated by people making decisions just to cover their own behinds, but this book has shown me that the best way to beat these guys is to make a good business case. Politics is one thing, but if you can find the right person and prove that what you want to do will bring in more money or keep it from going out, you can win, even against people who play dirty. This book shows you how to beat the jerks at their own game.

The book has immediate practical uses for managers and execs

Chuck Martin is focused on the real and now. This book is not about pondering philosophical truths or strange occurrences in business. It is about statistics observed in major companies and shows how executives deal with the things that make businesses run, grow, and fail. Managing for the short term helps executives and managers align themselves in a practical way through viewing the organization and oneself. To me, it is a business guide and reality check. I can use the book as a "consultant in print" to modify the way I work and direct my company. Chuck may be the Sun Tzu of practical business management for 2002. The book's chapter 7 fortifies the value proposition in my company's strategic plan for supporting corporate communications services. Well done. Read it and do something to make your organization more effective today.

Every manager should read this book!

What is the good of a long term business strategy if you are not executing each and every day? Chuck Martin's pragmatic lessons are refreshing and essential to ROI-focused managers. I especially enjoyed the comprehensive discussion about the communications gap between management and the rest of the organization, as well as the success stories in bridging this gap for immediate gains in productivity and profit. I like the research, which gives the stories and lessons real teeth. In a time of mediocre business books, I believe that this is a must read.