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Friendship Marketing: Growing Your Business by Cultivating Strategic Relationships

This book puts marketing on the most personal, one-to-one level by identifying the elements of friendship and relating them to business relations. Using dozens of real-life examples, the author shows how building relationships is the key to business development and personal fulfillment. It has little to do with technology, but everything to do with sales techniques.

Oasis Press. 187pp. Paperback.

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From Mind to Market: Reinventing the Retail Supply Chain

Offers a good introduction to the new thinking about market research. It's a handbook of the latest trends, strategies, and techniques of marketing in today's global community. Blackwell illustrates his points with examples from companies that already employ such practices, including Kinko's, The Limited, and Banc One Corporation.

Collins. 272pp. Hardcover. Cost: $20.48

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Global Agency Founder to Help Companies "Build Corporate Soul"

Ralf Specht, founding partner of Spark44, an international ad agency he helped grow into a $100 million plus company with 1,200 employees, now turns his attention to promote “a framework that aligns value-creating employee action with broader corporate strategy through shared understanding and shared purpose.” 
Building Corporate Soul
 
To regular readers of ESM, the theme of Building Corporate Soul: Powering Culture and Success with the Soul System™ sounds familiar. Corporate soul, the author Ralf Specht writes, “is a function of aligning value-creating employee behaviors with corporate strategy through understanding and shared purpose.” 
 
Specht says he knows that many books already focus on values and principles. His book, he says, is designed to provide “a strong outline for implementation.” In 12 chapters, he provides a step-by-step implementation process CEOs and business leaders can use based on his own management experience and research on other companies.
 
To support the return-on-investment of “soul,” he created a Soul Index “comprised of companies that have a shared understanding of vision, mission, values and spirit, and corresponding shared behaviors of leadership, ecosystem drivers, compensation, recruitment, development, partnerships, and followers centered on shared purpose.” The companies selected, ranging from Adobe, Salesforce, Microsoft, and Amazon, to Workday, Hilton, Apple, SAP and American Express, significantly outperformed all the major stock indices from 2016 to 2021, the five years he tracked. 
 
The book defines the concept of the corporate soul. It provides a description of the author’s soul system; outlines the role of purpose; discusses how to understand the soul of your company; lead with soul; nurture the soul ecosystem; promote its drivers, reward soul supporters; hire for soul; develop soul leaders, allies, and followers, and concludes with some of the author’s personal reflections.
 
Ralph SpechtHere’s a recent Q&A with Specht about his book. 
 
ESM: This all makes sense. Why isn’t it being done now?
 
RS. It is being done. But it is not being done by the majority of businesses. Everybody in the world by now has understood what exponential growth is. That is what I see is happening at this moment. There is a fast-growing dynamic in place; companies the world over do realize that they have to do things differently. 
 
The book includes the Soul Index, a performance ranking that is predominantly based on employee data about satisfaction and engagement at work as well as CEO approval data combined with business and brand success data. The results speak volumes. Companies that rank in the top 20 are delivering better returns than their peers. Happier employees drive better products and services as well as more satisfied customers. It´s an equation that gets more and more acceptance. Recent data by JUST Capital in the US are confirming the trend. Soul Index winner Adobe is also the number one on Benefits & Work-Life Balance as well as Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. 
 
The focus on corporate culture is growing and the recent moves from the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) will drive listed companies to consider the implications of any actions on their workforce more than ever before. There will be a better world – hence my vision is to make soulless companies a thing of the past.
 
ESM: Who is going to lead the way to making this happen? What role do you wish to play and how?
 
RS: Change is coming from many different players. There are the government bodies like the SEC that could have a huge impact if they finally commit to it. The power of employees should not be underestimated. The ´Great Resignation´ or ´Great Reshuffle´ as it is more rightfully named is actually nothing but a movement – although it is not organized like a movement but by millions of individual decisions – of workers who vote with their feet as a consequence of feeling undervalued by their companies or managers. They do not feel any sense of belonging to their company. Those businesses that do not have corporate soul – and their leaders are realizing that they need to act. Otherwise, there won´t be a company in the future.
 
I do much more believe in the concept of ´carrot´ rather than ´stick´. The carrot for any CEO is that a company of which the employees say ´our firm has got soul´ tastes so good because it means it is a highly successful company. Look at prime examples like Microsoft and Salesforce – you can see that the leadership has fully understood why it is critical and what needs to be done to make it tangible for all stakeholders.
 
My book is a reach for a book. It is written by a global business leader informed by the latest studies from academia and consultancies – it brings together practitioner realism with the theoretic wisdom. It is the basis for my engagement in this space in consulting companies and organizations to fully understand that thriving cultures, cultures with soul, are more successful than others. One of the options I am currently looking into is to open a Leadership Academy that focuses on implementing successful human-centric corporate cultures.
 
ESM. You come from the advertising business, and yet you barely mention the field. What role do you think advertising/marketing play in the current state of affairs, and what can or should advertising do about it?
 
RS. True. Because ´Corporate Soul´ is not an advertising or marketing idea. I spent more than two decades with McCann – their mantra has always been ´Truth Well Told´. Today, this is more relevant than ever. But too often, ´brand purpose´ has become a fig leaf concept for CMO´s (chief marketing officers) and their agencies to market products or services. But ´purpose´ is not a marketing concept. 
 
´Purpose´ is at the core of how to lead a company. It is the key to align corporate strategy and corporate behaviors with that ´purpose´. Hence the Soul System framework defines it as ´shared purpose´. Shared by the entire board and shared with all stakeholders, especially staff. That is the critical first step. Then all corporate functions get involved – marketing being one of them and then agencies come into play.
 
Agencies need to ask the ´Truth Well Told´ questions:
Is your purpose just an answer that sounds good to the questions consumers have? 
Is it a truth that is grounded in the very essence and reality of the company that is bringing this brand to market? 
Is it real or is it just wishful thinking?
If it is not real, they need to advise their clients on the risk that they are about to enter for their firm. As we all know, it takes a lot of time to earn trust and build a sound reputation. But you can destroy it faster than you think. But agencies are not the ultimate decision makers. CMOs have a real responsibility here – and given their often short-lived tenure these days, one can see the pressures that they are dealing with.
 
ESM. Your book makes no mention of human capital reporting or the greater ESG or Stakeholder Capitalism movement. 
 
RS. When I wrote the book, it has been my intention to celebrate companies that have built corporate soul. Real-life cases of established firms like Lego, Hilton Hotels or Bentley Motors that have returned to the foundations of their founders’ beliefs on why the firm had been in business in the first place. Or start-up companies that are characterized by the innate energy, drive and focus of their founders to design a company that is better than any competitor in the field.
 
It´s my belief that learning from great and successful examples is the most infectious way to support the (Stakeholder Capitalism) movement. In my view, we need to make the leadership behaviors which build soul synonymous with the behaviors which build success. If we are successful in doing so, then the movements will all benefit. The value proposition is about success, because that is a language leaders understand. But the language of success needs to evolve and corporate soul needs to become the new language of success.
 
ESM: Do you think companies with corporate soul should publish human capital and sustainability reports to demonstrate this commitment? 
 
RS. Absolutely. But there needs to be a clear framework for these – similar to accounting standards. We need human capital standards so that is easier for all stakeholders to compare sectors and companies. In the future, I am expecting that investor roadshows will no longer be a CEO and CFO show. We will see the Chief Talent Officer playing a key role at an equal level. Something we are not seeing in many companies at this day and age. But this will change as the largest stakeholder groups such as customers and employees will increasingly want to see the real facts when it comes how a corporation deals with its human capital.
 
“Our people are our biggest asset.” How often have we heard that statement since former Xerox CEO Anne M. Mulcahy spoke these words at the 2003 Life Management Conference? The time has come to make this not just nice words, but a reality.
 
About the Author
Ralf Specht is the author of “Building Corporate Soul”. He developed the Soul System™, a framework designed to power culture and success for any business.

After two decades with McCann Erickson in various executive roles, he was a founding partner of Spark44, an innovative, industry-first joint venture with Jaguar Land Rover. Under his leadership as CEO, Spark44 grew to a 1,200 people business in 18 countries. He is the author of Building Corporate Soul: Powering Culture & Success with the Soul System™ from Fast Company Press. 

Connect with Specht on LinkedIn and buildingcorporatesoul.com.



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Master the “S” of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG), A.k.a. Stakeholder Capitalism
 
The Enterprise Engagement Alliance at TheEEA.org is the world’s first and only organization that focuses on outreach, certification and training, and advisory services to help organizations achieve their goals by fostering the proactive involvement of all stakeholders. This includes customers, employees, distribution and supply chain partners, and communities, or anyone connected to an organization’s success.
 
Training and Thought Leadership 
  • Founded in 2008, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance provides outreach, learning and certification in Enterprise Engagement, an implementation process for the “S” or Social of Stakeholder Capitalism and Human Capital Management and measurement of engagement across the organization.
  • The Enterprise Engagement Alliance provides a training and certification program for business leaders, practitioners, and solution providers, as well as executive briefings and human capital gap analyses for senior leaders.
  • The EEA produces an education program for CFOs for the CFO.University training program on Human Capital Management.
  • Join the EEA to become a leader in the implementation of the “S” of ESG and Stakeholder Capitalism. 
EE for CEOsEngagement Digital Media and Marketplaces
Video Learning
The EEA Human Capital Management and ROI of Engagement YouTube channel features a growing library of 30- to 60-minute panel discussions with leading experts in all areas of engagement and total rewards.
 
EE RoadmapBooks
Enterprise Engagement Advisory Services 
The Engagement Agency helps:
  • Organizations of all types develop strategic Stakeholder Capitalism and Enterprise Engagement processes and human capital management and reporting strategies; conduct human capital gap analyses; design and implement strategic human capital management and reporting plans that address DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), and assist with managed outsourcing of engagement products and services.
  • Human resources, sales and marketing solution providers profit from the emerging discipline of human capital management and ROI of engagement through training and marketing services.
  • Investors make sense of human capital reporting by public companies.
  • Buyers and sellers of companies in the engagement space or business owners or buyers who seek to account for human capital in their mergers and acquistions
For more information: Contact Bruce Bolger at Bolger@TheICEE.org or call 914-591-7600, ext. 230.
 

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In Praise of Good Business: How Optimizing Risk Rewards Both Your Bottom Line and Your People

Drawing upon her work both as a psychologist specializing in management psychology and her 15 years as a consultant to the Fortune 500, Bardwick develops a bold new management paradigm for maximum employee productivity. She suggests ways to challenge employees where risk is at an ideal level, and creates a results-driven organization. Characteristics of successful organizations and management are examined in terms of achieving change through driving for measurable success and rewarding and punishing, thereby bringing about a results-driven mind-set requiring: urgency leadership, purpose, collaboration, selection, method, trust, and commitment.

Wiley. 368 pp. Paperback. Cost: $42.00

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Incentive Travel--The Complete Guide

Covers all aspects of creating, planning, and undertaking an incentive travel program and is essential for anyone who plans incentive travel for an agency or end user.

Dendrobium Books. Hardcover. Cost: Currently unavailable

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Incentives in Marketing & Motivation

A comprehensive text on the incentive marketplace. The content is illustrated and includes numerous case studies that reveal the breadth and potential of the incentive marketplace.

Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. 427 pages. Paperback. Cost: $7.95

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Integrated Direct Marketing

Experienced marketers, especially senior managers, will benefit from the author's strategies for integrating direct mail, advertising, telemarketing, and field sales for maximum impact.

McGraw-Hill; 1 edition. 240 pp. Hardcover.

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Manage Globally, Sell Locally: The Art of Strategic Account Management

Manage Globally, Sell Locally addresses the factors that make managing the account relationship different from territory management. It also offers tools to help the account manager measure success or position within the account. This book is best for organizations with an account-focused sales force.

McGraw-Hill. 216pp. Hardcover. Cost: $20.90

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Managing Through Incentives: How to Develop a More Collaborative, Productive, and Profitable Organization

Shows managers how to apply proven motivators to help any size firm energize the work force, increase its profits, and meet the challenges of today's competitive global economy. Presents the pros and cons of incentives as well as why and how they work and discusses in detail incentives for executives and workers and those used for marketing to consumers.

Oxford University Press. 352pp. Hardcover. Cost: $60.00

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New Book: <i>Enterprise Engagement for CEOs</i> Targets People-Centric Capitalists

“If organizational leaders worldwide had practiced the principles outlined in this Little Blue Book, there might not have been a Little Red Book,” 
- Dr. Gary Rhoads, Co-Founder, Enterprise Engagement Alliance 
 
Dr. Rhoads is Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Marriott Graduate School of Business at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City and Chairman of Xvoyant, a fast-growing sales engagement company, and before that, founder of Allegiance, the first Enterprise Engagement company focused on connecting the voice of the customer to employees.
 
By Dr. Gary Rhoads
EE for CEOs book coverWith the right focus on the value of people, capitalism can create a virtuous circle of prosperity that surpasses the potential of any other system. Enterprise Engagement for CEOs is for a new generation of leaders and proud capitalists who don’t just say Human Capital is their organization’s most important asset, they know it. By Human Capital, I mean not just employees or customers, but all stakeholders ˗ distribution partners, vendors, communities and investors. In the case of not-profits, this also means donors and volunteers, and in government, constituents, political donors and volunteers.

Enterprise Engagement for CEOs is available now online at Amazon.com for $15.99 and is available on other online retailers. It provides a quick summary for executives of the principles covered in the Enterprise Engagement Alliance's education and certification program.

Enterprise Engagement for CEOs provides organizational leaders or anyone who aspires to be one a logical, practical guide to a new strategic and systematic approach to people management that generates greater and more sustainable financial results than the prevailing reactive, process- and short-term focused management style. It also creates a better experience for all stakeholders and a healthier, more prosperous society, not to mention greater peace of mind for boards, management and investors.
 
Nothing about Artificial Intelligence or any other economic force will change the fundamental principle that Human Capital is an organization’s most precious asset. One would hardly know it, though, based on the way most organizations are run, not only in the U.S. but throughout the world. Despite the many CEOs who say that people are their most important asset, many take or enable actions that hurt customers, employees, communities and other stakeholders in the name of short-term profit. Human Capital is not carried as an asset on any balance sheets except under the nebulous category of goodwill, and most organizations, public or private, disclose little information to anyone that would substantiate a serious commitment to Human Capital. In fact, surveys have shown that most CEOs do not even rank people among their top five assets.
 

Despite Billions Spent, Nothing Changes 

The result? According to Gallup, less than 40% of employees are engaged in their work ˗ a level unchanged in over a decade ˗ at an estimated cost of hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Nearly two-thirds in a Monster.com survey said they get the blues at the start of the work week. As for consumers, overall satisfaction with product and service quality remains just above 70%, hovering in the same general range since the American Consumer Satisfaction Index was created in the last century. It’s no wonder that a recent Gallup survey found that only about 33% of citizens are satisfied with “things in America,” despite record employment.

Organizations arguably spend hundreds of billions each year to engage their stakeholders, whether in branding and marketing, leadership recruitment and coaching, motivational speakers, engagement surveys, communications in myriad forms, training, job design, innovation and collaboration, rewards and recognition and on and on. There are probably hundreds of useful business books and motivational speakers on leadership, and an equal number of management training programs, and yet little has changed but the buzzwords.

The state of people management is analogous to the state of quality management in the 1980s, when U.S. companies spent billions on quality control and new machinery and yet encountered stubbornly high defect rates exploited by the Japanese, who were adopting a proactive, integrated approach to quality management created in the West but largely ignored here. In 1987, ISO 9001 Quality Standards created a commonly accepted framework and nomenclature with a strategic and systematic approach that helped transform quality in manufacturing, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Now, the principles of Enterprise Engagement embodied in the new ISO Annex SL and ISO 10018 Quality People Management standards can do the same for Human Capital management.
 

What Makes This Book Required Reading for CEOs

The principles of Enterprise Engagement and ISO 10018 Quality People Management standards go beyond the already widely addressed issues of leadership skills to help CEOs apply the same strategic and systematic approach to people management today that ISO 9000 standards did for quality management in the 1990s. This easy-to-understand approach and completely voluntary set of ISO standards provide the principles and a roadmap from which any organization can benefit to achieve a greater return-on-investment from their current efforts to enhance their various stakeholders simply by using the proven strategic, systematic, integrated approach that transformed quality. The result is higher, more sustainable performance, a happier workforce and more satisfied customers and communities, not to mention investors.

Enterprise Engagement and ISO standards address the growing desire for a more humane capitalism that benefits all stakeholders and society by demonstrating that a strategic and systematic focus on Human Capital offers a more successful and sustainable way to run an organization of any kind. 
 

Topics Covered

Here is the table of contents of Enterprise Engagement for CEOs:
Why a CEO’s Guide to Enterprise Engagement?
The Enterprise Engagement Strategic and Tactical Implementation Process
The Enterprise Engagement Operating System
A Template for the Disclosure of Human Capital Practices and Measurements
The Role of the Chief Engagement Officer 
CEO Profiles
A CEO’s Enterprise Engagement Toolkit
Resources 

Enterprise Engagement for CEOs, 123 pages, is available now online at Amazon.com for $15.99 and is coming soon to most other online retailers.
 
For Bulk or Customized Copies: 
Bruce Bolger, Enterprise Engagement Alliance
Bolger@TheEEA.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230. 
 
 

Master the Principles of Enterprise Engagement to Achieve Organizational Goals and Enhance Your Career
 
  • Profit from a new strategic and systematic approach to engagement to enhance your organization’s brand equity; increase sales, productivity, quality, innovation, and safety, and reduce risks.
  • Get trained to become a Chief Engagement Officer for your organization.
  • Achieve ISO 10018 Quality People Management Certification to demonstrate your organization’s strategic commitment to people to your customers, employees, distribution partners, vendors, communities, investors, and regulators.
  • Learn how to create Sustainability or Integrated Reports for Your Organization or Clients.
  • Get up-to-speed on ISO human resources standards and guidelines to enhance HR performance.
Live Education: Enterprise Engagement in Action. Take advantage of a three-hour customized webinar for individuals or teams on all aspects of Enterprise Engagement, including the definition, economics, implementation framework, return on investment, ISO quality people management standards, as well as preparation for Certified and Advanced Engagement Practitioner status. 
A CEO's Guide to Engagement Across the Enterprise cover
ICEE periodically runs regional one-day workshops on ISO 10018 Quality People Management principles and certification. Stay tuned for upcoming date.

In Print: 
Written specifically to provide CEOs and their leadership teams a concise overview of the framework, economics, and implementation process of a CEO-led strategic and systematic approach to achieving success through people.  (123 pages, $15.99)
The first and most comprehensive book on Enterprise Engagement and the new ISO 9001 and ISO 10018 quality people management standards. Includes 36 chapters detailing how to better integrate and align engagement efforts across the enterprise. (312 pages, $36.)
 
 
Online: The Enterprise Engagement Academy at EEA.tmlu.org, providing the only formal training on Enterprise Engagement and the new ISO 9001 and ISO 10018 quality people management standards. Provides preparation for professionals to support organizations seeking ISO 10018 employer or solution provider certification, as well as elective courses on Trade Show Engagement, Rewards and Recognition, Government, and other topics. 
Plus
10-minute short course: click here for a 10-minute introduction to Enterprise Engagement and ISO standards on Coggno.com.
5-minute Audiopedia summary of the Enterprise Engagement field.
 
Services: The International Center for Enterprise Engagement at TheICEE.org, offering: ISO 10018 certification for employers, solution providers, and Enterprise Engagement technology platforms; Human Resources and Human Capital audits for organizations seeking to benchmark their practices and related Advisory services for the hospitality field.
The Engagement Agency at EngagementAgency.net, offering: complete support services for employers, solution providers, and technology firms seeking to profit from formal engagement practices for themselves or their clients, including Brand and Capability audits for solution providers to make sure their products and services are up to date.
C-Suite Advisory Service—Education of boards, investors, and C-suite executives on the economics, framework, and implementation processes of Enterprise Engagement. 
Speakers Bureau—Select the right speaker on any aspect of engagement for your next event.
Mergers and Acquisitions. The Engagement Agency’s Mergers and Acquisition group is aware of multiple companies seeking to purchase firms in the engagement field. Contact Michael Mazer in confidence if your company is potentially for sale at 303-320-3777. 
 
Enterprise Engagement Benchmark Tools: The Enterprise Engagement Alliance offers three tools to help organizations profit from Engagement. Click here to access the tools.
• ROI of Engagement Calculator. Use this tool to determine the potential return-on-investment of an engagement strategy. 
• EE Benchmark Indicator. Confidentially benchmark your organization’s Enterprise Engagement practices against organizations and best practices. 
• Compare Your Company’s Level of Engagement. Quickly compare your organization’s level of engagement to those of others based on the same criteria as the EEA’s Engaged Company Stock Index.
• Gauge Your Personal Level of Engagement. This survey, donated by Horsepower, enables individuals to gauge their own personal levels of engagement.
 
For more information, contact Bruce Bolger at Bolger@TheEEA.org, 914-591-7600, ext. 230.
 

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Principles of Results-Based Incentive Program Design

Based on the Incentive Marketing Association's Principles Of Results-Based Incentive Program Design Seminar, this is the first formal curriculum ever developed for incentive program planning. The textbook includes sections on Incentive Program Basics for the Business Executive, Core Strategies for the Business Executive, Planning and Design Considerations for the Practitioner, and Implementation and Management Considerations for the Practitioner.

Incentive Marketing Association. Cost: $69.95

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Retaining Your Employees

Described as a "crisp, fifty-minute" book, this concise, step-by-step approach to employee motivation. The authors focus on using "respect, recognition, and rewards" to achieve positive organizational results. In a concise, quickly readable format, they address the benefits to keeping employees and keeping them happy; creating a fun, enriching and "hard-to-leave" workfplace; understanding the impact of feeling valued at work, and tapping to employee desires for personal and professional growth.

Thomson Course Technology . 104pp. Paperback. Cost: $13.95

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Sales, Marketing, and Continuous Improvement: Six Best Practices to Achieve Revenue Growth and Increase Customer Loyalty

Sales, Marketing, and Continuous Improvement, is a straightforward, example-filled guide that discusses the need to have sales and marketing as part of your improvement processes. With a step-by-step 6 phase guide, author, Stowell, offers practical guidance for avoiding common pitfalls. This book is good for anyone in a management position in any company, in any industry.

Jossey-Bass. 286pp. Hardcover. Cost: $42.00

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Strategic Incentive Program Design

The first formal curriculum ever developed for incentive program planning. This four-part curriculum and seminar course has been developed with the help of the Performance Improvement Council of the Incentive Marketing Association through a grant from the Advertising Specialty Institute. The textbook includes sections on Incentive Program Basics for the Business Executive; Core Strategies for the Business Executive; Planning and Design Considerations for the Practitioner; and Implementation and Management Considerations for the Practitioner.

Cost: $39.95

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The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First

This book examines why much of the current conventional wisdom is wrong and asks us to re-think the way managers link people with organizational performance. Pfeffer builds a powerful business case for managing people effectively--not just because it makes for good corporate policy, but because it results in outstanding performance and profits.

Harvard Business School Press. 345pp. Hardcover. Cost: $19.77

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The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits and Lasting Value

The authors examine what they feel is the link between employee, customer, and investor loyalty and attempt to prove that traditional accounting practices do not show the "loyalty effect." They make a compelling case by applying other gauges to show the impact of loyalty on long-term organization performance.

McGraw-Hill. 336pp. Hardcover. Cost: Varies by seller

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