Hit the Ground Running: A Manual for New Leaders »

Jason Jennings is the bestselling author of three highly acclaimed leadership and management books—Think Big, Act Small; Less Is More; and It's Not the Big That Eat the Small . . . It's the Fast That Eat the Slow. USA Today calls him one of the three most in-demand business speakers in the world

Want to compete with the best of the best? Then hit the ground running. Here's how.

The toughest job in business is taking over as a new leader. You have to quickly assess the situation, pull together a strong team, decide on a strategy, and inspire everyone to execute it.

The stakes for new leaders are even higher. Whether you've been brought on to fix something that's broken, launch a product, move the company in a new direction, or head up a division, every new leader is under the gun to get up to speed and begin producing strong numbers— ASAP.

In Hit the Ground Running, Jason Jennings introduces us to America's best performing new CEOs who pulled off the most impressive transformations of the decade. They doubled revenues, more than tripled earnings per share, and doubled their company's net profit margins.

After interviewing and analyzing the stories of these top leaders, Jennings delivers their hard- earned, battle-tested strategies, which will inspire any new leader to take the helm and start delivering.

When Richard and Tim Smucker were appointed co-CEOs of The J. M. Smucker Company, they shared their strategy with everyone and got them on board with their mission. Since then, Smucker's went on to dominate the markets and bring in billions of dollars of new business.

Mike McCallister, the CEO of a twenty-billion-dollar health-services giant, decided to stop pretending and publicly admit that health insurance is broken. Humana began to replace a crippled, complex, and confusing system with one that works and has more than tripled revenues, earnings, and share price since McCallister took over.

By processing change in bite-size pieces, Jeffrey Lorberbaum led Mohawk Industries through twenty successful acquisitions and turned his family's carpet-making business into the largest flooring company in the world.

Filled with engaging stories and lessons from the cream of the crop, Hit the Ground Running will help new leaders at every level balance short- and long-term goals as well as the needs of shareholders, employees, customers, and the community.

Publishers Weekly

At a tumultuous time in business, this book makes a smart appeal to the new generation of leaders. Though his research comes from a pre-crash environment, business writer Jennings (Less is More) derives rules from interviews with 10 highly successful CEOs based in solid, honest values like simplification, communication and cooperation: "don't deceive yourself," "ask for help," "cultivate a sense of urgency," etc. Unfortunately, Jennings's chatty delivery focuses more on anecdotes than points and strategies. Chapter four, "Find, Keep and Grow the Right People," offers useful background on Staples but buries the nut: "People don't quit teams; they only quit organizations... Staples CEO Ron Sargent has mastered the art of turning an organization into a team." Team-developing strategies (promoting from within, making "everyone an owner," prioritizing diversity) are examined only briefly. Rule eight, "Be accountable," is represented well in Goodrich's "top-to-bottom accountability," but gets weighed down in clumsy metaphors like, "I'm convinced that if you stop and take a deep breath, all companies have a smell." Though it isn't an MBA-level tome, this volume's affable approach might work for those new to business books or for befuddled managers with time to spare.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction 1

Do You Have What It Takes? Twenty Quick Questions 9

Rule 1 Don't Deceive Yourself-You Will Reap What You Sow: The J. M. Smucker Company 14

Rule 2 Gain Belief: The Hanover Insurance Group 32

Rule 3 Ask for Help: Harris Corporation 51

Rule 4 Find, Keep, and Grow the Right People: Staples 69

Rule 5 See Through the Fog: ATI 89

Rule 6 Drive a Stake in the Ground: Humana 110

Rule 7 Simplify Everything: Aladdin Mills 132

Rule 8 Be Accountable: Goodrich Corporation 154

Rule 9 Cultivate a Fierce Sense of Urgency: Questar 175

Rule 10 Be a Fish Out of Water 194

120 Quotes from America's Best-Performing CEOs 206

Thanks 227

The Research 231

Index 241