Beliefs, behaviors & results by Scott Gillis, Lee Mergy, Joe Shalleck

This book was published in 2013, and has 7 chapters on top of the introduction and closing comments. The book walks us through the different real life cases, where the CEOs had driven the organization to the wrong direction, to the right direction. It was based on the interviews and discussions with the successful CEOs who had delivered exceptional shareholder value. For me, the most interesting part is the terms used and discussed on this book actually live in our company everyday, on each of our strategic planning, board meetings and interim reviews. I was a bit shocked in the beginning, reading all the words in our Group CEO's voice. For any corporate citizen, it's a must read book. Economic profit, shareholder value, value concentration, ownership cultures are commonly used terms. At the end of the day, all businesses are running to improve the value to the owners, so that message was clearly laid out and the book is THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S GUIDE TO DELIVERING SUPERIOR SHAREHOLDER VALUE. The common misconception that was repeatedly mentioned in the book was that the CEOs were chasing the wrong hare. Be it the revenue growth, operation expansion, new product launch, conqueiring new territory, without looking at the long term economic profit. EP is determined as NET income minus Equity Charge or Capital cost. So it actually reflecting all the cost of the capital required to run your business, be it the shareholder - return, corporate office, interest rate you pay for your lender. It's consolidated at the overally financial reports, but when we look into specific business divisions or branch, we tend to omit this important factor. Changing the beleif, hense a behaviour is a long, hard journey. The book suggests planning the change in 12 - 24 months. I liked the way it stretched the timeline, factoring the human elements, but also set some urgency, by saying it should not stall more than 2 years, otherwise everything will go back to the old ways. I feel more confident about speaking the same language with my team and bosses. Great read!