Wear Clean Underwear: Business Wisdom from Mom; Timeless Advice from the Ultimate CEO - Softcover

Abrams, Rhonda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440509076 ISBN 13: 9780440509073

Publisher: Dell, 2000

Synopsis

Find out how successful companies like Disney, Nordstrom, and Kinko's have triumphed by heeding Mom's timeless advice.

Mom. She's the quintessential leader. She not only manages, but she teaches, nurtures, sustains, and guides. She patiently taught us right from wrong as well as how to think, to care, and to be decent human beings. In this eye-opening guide, a leading business writer and consultant shows us how great companies have excelled by embracing timeless values--and how, in an age of increasing cynicism, the time is right for thinking like Mom. Filled with sage advice from top business leaders and based on in-depth research and personal interviews, Wear Clean Underwear illustrates how successful businesses--including Disney, Kinko's, and 3M--have triumphed by heeding Mom's advice:

Southwest Airlines bucked industry trends and succeeded--by listening to Mom's If All Your Friends Jumped off a Bridge, Would You Jump off One Too?

When outdoor clothing manufacturer Patagonia began to outgrow its own values, character, and style, its CEO made an extraordinary decision, taking a lesson from Mom: Don't Get Too Big for Your Britches.

Nordstrom is virtually unmatched in its reputation for customer service. How do they do it? In part from following Mom's great adage: I Don't Care Who Made This Mess, Just Clean It Up!
"If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off one too?" Southwest Airlines bucked the industry trend of keeping wages and benefits low while competing on the basis of price--and is now one of the ten most admired companies in the country and one of the few consistently profitable airlines.

"Don't judge a book by its cover." A severely dyslexic man realized he'd never get a good job, so he opened his own business, which was built on mutual trust and communication with his employees--a company called Kinko's, now with more than 900 locations nationwide.

Filled with sage advice from top business leaders based on in-depth research and personal interviews, WEAR CLEAN UNDERWEAR illustrates how successful businesses, including Disney, Nordstrom, and 3M, have triumphed by heeding Mom's advice. -->

About this title

Review:

Columnist and consultant Rhonda Abrams believes today's most successful businesses are shifting from a patriarchal style of leadership to one in which characteristics such as growth, development, maturity, and nurturing--all traits traditionally associated more often with mothers than fathers--have moved to the forefront. Wear Clean Underwear: Using Mom's Fundamental Lessons to Run an Extraordinary Business is her light-hearted but utterly serious examination of this continuing trend, matching familiar motherly maxims like "How do you know you won't like it, if you've never tried it?" and "Don't get too big for your britches" with actual managerial practices at companies such as Nordstrom, Kinko's, and 3M. "Moms everywhere have developed an almost universal language to achieve their goals and instill common values," she writes.

Virtually everyone's mother at one time or another told them to "Clean your plate, children are starving in China" or whatever country happened to be in the news. Think about all the lessons in that one little line: don't waste your resources, understand that you are more fortunate than others, empathize with those who have less.

In this clever volume, Abrams shows how such wisdom can be both relevant and useful in today's business environment. --Howard Rothman

From the Back Cover:

"Full of sound business advice."
--Inc.

"Funny and insightful."
--Detroit Free Press

"Fascinating profiles of companies."
--People

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0440509076
• ISBN 13: 9780440509073
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240