Death to All Sacred Cows: How Successful Businesses Put the Old Rules Out to Pasture

by Beau Fraser, David Bernstein, Bill Schwab

Book Overview

"Teams Create the Best Solutions."
BANG. "Always Trust Your Research."
BANG. "It's Okay to Put Up with Jerks, If They're Talented."
BANG. When you think about it, there are a lot of Sacred Cows grazing lazily in the halls of corporate America. And we think it's time someone shot them. Dead. Don't get us wrong. While the authors have nothing against cows in general (they love steak), they do have a problem with Sacred...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B001PTG4XC
• ISBN13: 9781401303310
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

great book

Death to All Sacred Cows is not only a great advertising book, it's a primer for managing creative work environments - and who doesn't have that these days? What's interesting to me (in addition to the incredibly well-illustrated stories) was that not only did I enjoy the book, but my Gen X/Y staff picked it up and learned a bunch of cool stuff. So I guess you could say they slayed the sacred cow called "Gen X/Y people don't read management books." It's funny, engaging and oh so smart. The writing style is casual yet smart, and it's easy to remember the lessons because the examples are so well told. I highly recommend this book to those in communications and those who wish to communicate. Tthose who wish to be better at managing their business and their staff will also enjoy it. At the end of the day, it's a good romp of a read, and who doesn't want that?

Learning Was Never so Much Fun.

"It's impossible not to have seen all the press this book has received in the past few weeks. And it's deserved. This is a fun and thought provoking book perfect for anyone who needs help in battling debilitating bureaucracy and stale thinking so prevalent in corporate America. Using international business and historic examples, the authors carefully go about slaying the sacred cows of business in a fun and irreverent voice. Who knew taking one's medicine could taste so good?!"

If Vonnegut wrote a business book, this would be it

Well, not really but it is a breezy, fun, and useful book, not the usual 300 pager which is just an engorged zine article. They hit some worthwhile targets: don't trust research(as Henry Ford said, if I gave people what they said they wanted, they'd be getting a faster buggy); the customer is not always right; and are dead on with their human resources advice---don't always give people a second chance(after all, a bad fit is a bad fit); keep email to a minimum(must be read in 30 seconds or less and keep to the need to inform several people at once); and eschew the Enron(or GE) type culture of culling out the "bottom" since it only breeds fear and fear does not work long term. Good stuff.

The only remaining sacred cow is that there are none

REVIEW FOR: Death To All Sacred Cows 4.5 Stars Five steps to a better this. Ten steps to a better that. Most new business books recycle the same garbage as the old business books. That's why Death to all Sacred Cows stands out. It doesn't give you steps to follow like I'm some kind of idiot. It tells you things you don't know. Or maybe wondered about, but never articulated. The premise is, there are things (Sacred Cows) we all accept as true, but aren't. Things like "it's okay to put up with jerks if they're talented" or "everyone deserves a second chance." Things we've all been conditioned to agree with. Well, this book gives you some compelling reasons to stop agreeing with them. A jerk can ruin your company and some people don't deserve a second chance. They'll only screw up a second time. Sure, the ad guys who wrote the book tell you how to identify sacred cows and how to go about killing them. But they don't oversimplify it into steps or rules. And I know why: Because that would be a Sacred Cow, too.

Entertaining and Insightful

Is it an oxymoron for a business book to be smart AND entertaining? Well, this is a funny AND intelligent business book, best described as The Harvard Business Review meets The Daily Report! While I know I will benefit from reading business books, I usually avoid them. They tend to be dense or based on an idea that is impossible to execute. More spin than practical application. Death to All Sacred Cows, like Tipping Point or more recently, Freakonomics is different. It advocates an approach versus a tedious and not believable "Ten steps to riches" formula. While I never remember the ten steps other business books lay out in excruciating detail, I certainly can remember, understand and apply an approach such as the one laid out in this memorable book.