More Than a Motorcycle: The Leadership Journey at Harley-Davidson

By Dan Seemiller and Mark Holowchak

Book Overview

In the late 1980s, Harley-Davidson beat back an assault by Japanese competitors and engineered a remarkable financial turnaround. But it subsequently faced an even more formidable challenge: maintaining and improving on its success in the absence of an external crisis. To answer this challenge, then-CEO Rich Teerlink, partnering with organizational consultant Lee Ozley, threw out the top-down strategies that had just saved the company and began building a different Harley-one that would be driven not by top management, but by employees at every level. What happened next is the stuff of turnaround legend.
More Than a Motorcycle is the story behind the story of the purposeful transformation of an American icon, as told by the two individuals most deeply involved in that decade-long process. The book chronicles the victories and setbacks along Harley's difficult journey from a traditional "command-and-control" culture to an open, participative learning environment.

Teerlink and Ozley deliver three fundamental messages: people are a company's only sustainable competitive advantage; there is no "quick fix" to effect lasting, beneficial organizational change; and leadership is not a person, but a process to which everyone must contribute. They provide practical, reality-tested prescriptions for critical tasks like developing employee alignment, building structures that support participation, and implementing effective reward programs. Finally, they draw lessons from the Harley experience-lessons about values, trust, and community-that apply broadly to any business.

An against-the-odds story of a business road less traveled, this book encourages today's leaders to look around the next bend-and to give every employee a view of the road from the driver's seat.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875849504
• ISBN13: 9780875849508
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 1.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Helpful for Intermediate even Advanced Players

If you're looking for a "Teach yourself Table Tennis 101" type of book, this is not the one. In fact, this book is targetting to most intermediate and advanced table tennis players, although it covers some basic materials and standard strokes in a couple of chapters. Most players focus on improving their looping and attacking skills. However, the author kept emphasizing the effectiviness of enhancing the match results by practicing serves and improving footwork. He did a good job on the chapter about the serves. He explained all the key important placements of the serves for various siturations and effects. For the footwork techniques, the lateral two-step, the up-and-back two-step, the backhand-corner two-step, and the lateral crossover are all covered in pictorial step-by-step details. Readers can easily follow and practice. The author also gave out some tips on tournament tactics, like ball placement, the short game, and varying the spin. Overall the book is good except the chapters on conditioning drills are a bit basic and weak. (Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 14-Jan-2006)

Indispensable for TT players who really want to win.

This book is for players who already know how to play TT. It doesn't include the TT rules. Ideal for intermediate-level players who want to progress up to "professional" level. This book describes all the major strokes and footwork. It's the only book that describes the various services both forehand and backhand. (Table Tennis from A to Z by Messinis contains only a cursory and theoritical examination of the services.). But the best part about this book is the one about how to shape up yourself for the tournament. The warm-up/warm-down exercises are great. The chapter on nutrition is excellent. The chapter on strategy is brilliant. Furthermore, the "tone" of this book is quite reader-friendly: it's like hearing the author speaking by your ears. In short, buy this book and I guarantee you'll never regret it.

Great book to improve skills

As a new player this is the book to get. It does a great job describing the various skills of table tennis. It also tells you how to improve. Great book I am sure you will like if your serious about the game.

A must have for any new players.

This is a good book which goes through the basic and advenced strokes of the game including how to be a world champion. The only bad thing is having to read and understand all those confusing directions about where to move your paddle and your hand.

A " MUST READ" for all Table Tennis enthusiasts.

I am a Singaporean. You do not find many books on Table Tennis on sale here. So when I went to London, I bought 3 different books. Of the 3,I found the book by Dan Seemiller the most comprhensive and informative. Before, I had a lot of problems initiating an attack against opponents who utilise heavy underspin pushes and chops. Dan's book helped me master the skill of looping against underspin and thereby allowing me to initiate the attack. I found that a lot of players are not able to counter the spinny arch loop. As a result, I am more confident of my strokes and have moved a couple of rungs above my opponents. I would like to recommend this book to all who wish to improve and perfect their game of Table Tennis.