Battling for Competitive Advantage - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

KENNETH ALLARD, a former army colonel, is a well-known commentator on international security issues, strategy, and military matters, regularly appearing on NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, and the Imus in the Morning radio show. As one of the star attractions of Leading Authorities, a major speakers bureau, he appears before a wide range of business audiences around the country. Colonel Allard served overseas as an operational intelligence officer and as a peacekeeper in Bosnia, and also played key roles in two of the most significant reform efforts in Pentagon history: helping to draft the landmark 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act that changed the way the military operates, and directing the study that produced the sweeping "reinventing government" reforms of the 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act. He is an adjunct professor in the National Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Dr. Allard holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and an MPA from Harvard University. He was dean of students of the National War College from 1993 1994.

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Praise for Business as War

"Kenneth Allard has provided a tremendous public service with his superb book, Business as War: Battling for Competitive Advantage. Colonel Allard demonstrates the thoughtful and balanced thinking that made him such an effective intelligence officer. Ken Allard also systematically unravels and explains the complexities of modern business and warfare. In doing so, he underscores the need for practical strategy, dexterous leadership, and unwavering ethics in our nation s offices and boardrooms. This excellent book will prove helpful to business leaders as well as the academic community charged with explaining successful leadership of large organizations."
General Barry R. McCaffrey, USA (Ret.), Professor of International Security Studies at West Point and NBC News Commentator

"Colonel Ken Allard doesn t just have supreme military intelligence. His operational brilliance extends to the business world as well. Business as War teaches you that business is war and that Ken is the perfect commander-in-chief to follow into your business battles."
Ron Insana, Co-Anchor, CNBC s Business Center

"In war, they don t give out medals for second place. In business as in war, you can t win without first surviving. Increasingly, the business landscape looks more like a battlefield than a boardroom or shop floor. Written in a style that is pure Allard, Business as War offers the hard-won wisdom from one warrior s world to another. Read, laugh, squirm, survive, and win!"
Scott A. Snook, Associate Professor, Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School

"In the post-9/11, post-Enron environment, Ken Allard s Ten Commandments of Military Leadership are directly applicable to today s business CEOs. His perspective on what the military s values-based leadership can teach business managers is invaluable."
Tom Petrie, Chairman & CEO, Petrie Parkman & Co.

Aus dem Klappentext

Today s competitive business environment is so hazardous from the threat of terrorism to black outs, from global competition to information overload that it seems more like battle and waging war than commerce. Trying to implement even the most brilliant of business strategies is frequently impossible in the face of a shifting landscape that feels like it requires night vision goggles and precision guided weapons over marketing plans and metrics.

To help you survive (and maybe even thrive!) you need to understand the way of the warrior, and who better to train you than former National War College dean and MSNBC military commentator, Ken Allard? Whether you recognize it yet or not, the military is just a violent form of economics, and military training holds more lessons for the businessperson than not.

To succeed in today s turbulent business environment, standard business operating procedure no longer works. For companies and management intent on thriving in a landscape of global conflict and competition, new skills must be learned and old habits abandoned. Business as War: Battling for Competitive Advantage draws sometimes startling yet keenly insightful parallels between the strategies and tactics of the United States military and the challenges that companies face in the no-holds-barred world of business. Through firsthand accounts from his military and business career as well as real-world examples that apply cutting-edge military perspectives to the everyday world of business, Allard clearly illustrates how military lessons when implemented correctly can lead a business down the road to success.

First, you ll be introduced to the traditional military arts of leadership and strategy. You ll discover how true leadership an essential key to both business survival and prosperity can unite an organization at every level. You ll also learn how forming a coherent strategy can make supporting courses of action much easier to determine. Building on these critical elements, Business as War moves on to discuss the personification of the art of command, better known as "generalship," as well as how to develop the leaders needed to run a successful business operation.

After examining how people fit into the business equation, Business as War explores the proven techniques that form the basis of solid business practice. You ll receive an executive education on a variety of important issues, including:

• How to transform information into business intelligence
• Developing modern enterprise security measures that encompass physical, computer, and information assets
• Streamlining the information-sharing process
• Changing business hierarchies to fight networks
• How to be globally effective and operate in a world where the unknown will always be a threat
• Getting corporate boards to do their job

Many of the principles that apply to war also apply to business, and in tough economic times, survival is a matter of waging war. Business as War adapts the effective tools of war to a business environment where new competitors and difficult challenges are constant threats to you and your company.