A Road Map for Meeting the Challenge of the New Corporate Environment

"Boards today are striving to improve in a very dynamic environment. Based on years of hands-on experience and building on the breakthrough ideas of Boards at Work, Charan provides practical, actionable ideas to move boards to a higher level of performance--to make a step-change improvement in the quality of their governance. It's a must-read for new and experienced directors alike."
-John A. Krol, lead director, Tyco; director, MeadWestvaco and Ace Insurance; former CEO and chairman, DuPont; and NACD Director of the Year in 1998

"By detailing the evolution of board dynamics in the post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment and providing insight into new best practices, Ram Charan has developed a comprehensive guide to creating and maintaining a next-generation board. These pages will help every executive stay ahead of the curve--with winning strategies for prospective board members, as well as for executives trying to develop their boards and management teams."
-Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO, Verizon

"For boards, this is it--the guide every director needs, from the world authority on how real boards work today."
-Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor at large, Fortune magazine; co-host, Fortune Boardroom Forum; and co-anchor, Wall Street Week with Fortune

"This excellent book will help countless managers and directors. A practical masterpiece!"
-Richard H. Brown, director, Home Depot and DuPont

"I offer high praise for Boards That Deliver, the latest creation from the fertile mind of Ram Charan! Timely, relevant, and succinct--this could be Charan's best work to date."
-William T. Solomon, chairman of the board, Austin Industries

Digitally transform your organization, one manageable step at a time In The Digital Leader: Finding a Faster, More Profitable Path to Exceptional Growth, a team of visionary entrepreneurs delivers an authoritative and engaging roadmap demonstrating how to digitalize your business by taking small, achievable steps that yield measurable, near-term results. In this handbook of concrete strategies and methods, the authors show you how to pinpoint and implement bite-sized projects that sync up with your business priorities. You'll learn how to find and choose between the digital enablement options available to you while discovering the tools you need to explain their value to stakeholders and get much-needed buy-in from executives, managers, and employees. You'll also: Learn about the value of experimentation, continuous innovation, and how to generate dramatic transformation by using incremental changes to your advantage Find out how to digitalize one piece of your business at a time, instead of taking on a gargantuan transformation all at once that is destined for failure Discover how to straddle the technology and business worlds and help define each of them to the other A can't-miss resource for executives, managers, and other business leaders, The Digital Leader also belongs in the bookshelves of IT and data professionals seeking to maximize their impact on the businesses around them.

After the downsizing, re-engineering and streamlining trend of the past two decades, there has been a renewed interest in growth. Mergers and acquisitions are playing a key role in the battle for market share, but share alone cannot secure a company's future. This text argues that truly sustained growth can only be achieved through a new way of thinking. The author's set out a framework based on five keys: there is no such thing as a mature business; not all growth is good; growth is a mentality created by a company's leadership; balanced growth is the key to prosperity in the 21st century; and growing is less risky than not growing.

Unleash one of your company's greatest competitive weapons.

"Ram Charan is a wise counselor and keen observer on the front lines of the American board revolution. "Boards At Work" is a rare blAnd of candid stories of casualties, of victories, and of sound ideas for change illustrated with real-world examples of how to adopt them."
--William Adams, director, Bell Atlantic and other boards

Unleash one of your company's greatest competitive weapons. In this timely new work, ace consultant Ram Charan takes an eye-opening look at how many boards are transcAnding tradition by becoming dynamic partners in corporate governance. He also shows CEOs how they can go about tapping the vast storehouse of experience and wisdom a board's membership represents. Filled with specific instructions and strategies, Fortune 500 examples, and real-time tools for initiating board transformations, "Boards At Work" takes readers to the front lines of the American board revolution.

"This book is a most important contribution for both new and experienced directors, addressing contemporary corporate governance. The 14 practical questions represent the most vital issues that boards need to proactively address and are particularly crucial now as boards deal with the aftermath of the global financial tsunami."
--Thomas J. Neff, chairman, U.S., Spencer Stuart

"If Corporate America's board members had answered these questions, the crisis of '08 would have been avoided. The book is that powerful. It should be required reading in every boardroom, executive suite, and business school on the planet. This book with its singular wisdom could change the face of corporate governance--with huge dividends to shareholders and society."
--Ralph Whitworth, principal, Relational Investors LLC

"Ram Charan always seems to get it right. "Owning Up" not only asks the right questions, it gives answers that can make a real difference for improving board performance."
--James M. Kilts, former chairman and CEO, The Gillette Company

"As always, well-reasoned, insightful, and thought-provoking. A work that every director will find of value, particularly given the intense pressure of these unprecedented economic times."
--Professor Charles M. Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware

"Here is the book that every corporate director needs today. With his decades of insider experience, Ram Charan brings more wisdom and insight to this subject than anyone else I know."
--Geoff Colvin, Fortune editor and author, "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else"