16 great resources to help your business succeed

I know that I don’t know everything, and I do enjoy reading. Some for pleasure, both fiction and non-fiction, but I also like to read books that can help me in my business. For me, these can be the stories of other CEO’s and their tricks of the trade, or they can be by more academics and researchers on trends and best practices. I have a pretty good bookshelf, but in case anyone has similar interests and wants to benefit from my library, here are 16 of my all-time favorites going back 30 years or so, in chronological order. Each one has impacted me in some way.

In Search of Excellence – Tom Peters and Bob Waterman, 1982

The first of its genre, and groundbreaking in its studies of best practices. A great distillation of these, with research behind them, into simple management concepts we all can get. For example, this is where “stick to your knitting” and “close to your customer” were popularized. Great lessons for today here.

World Class Manufacturing – Richard Schonberger, 1986.

The first book I read on the concepts of lean manufacturing, and it was very exciting to me as I was getting into manufacturing management. Waste elimination, cycle time reductions, combining operations, 5 S, set up reductions, etc. Good stuff, and he was an early lean pioneer. I gave this out to all our manufacturing management staff at the time.

Thriving on Chaos – Tom Peters, 1987.

I am not a huge Tom Peters fan today, as I just think he shouts too much. But at the time, this book encouraged me, and our management team, to experiment with new business models – skill-based pay, flattening org structures, self-managed teams, and more. Our senior management team had a “book club” monthly on the implications of Peters’ writings in this book, and it helped us be more innovative.

The Goal – Eliyahu Goldratt, 1992.

This is an all-time classic on the principles of lean, and it is told in a light, humorous, and engaging manner of a story. And you can’t help but absorb the basic tenets. An easy read, hard to put down. I still recall the lessons of “Herbie”!

Built to Last – Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, 1994.

Similar approach to In Search of Excellence, but with better and deeper insights. Think “Cult-Like Cultures” and “Big Hairy Audacious Goals”. This book was read by our entire management team, and engendered lots of fruitful discussions.

Competing for the Future – Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, 1994.

The best strategy book I had ever read at the time, and it is still very relevant. These authors got me (and us) to think very hard about value propositions and what core competencies we needed to execute our strategy.

The Discipline of Market Leaders – Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, 1996.

This is about how to choose your customers, narrow your focus, and dominate your market. It applies very much today as it did in 1996. We used this in our Strategic Planning at the time to debate and refine our value proposition and business model, and I still refer to their concepts today.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree – Tom Friedman, 2000.

Though not strictly a business book, Friedman writes very effectively on deep subjects, and this clarion call on the impact of globalization is as good a book as I have read on the subject – and very thought-provoking.

Good to Great – Jim Collins, 2001.

Simply one of the best ever. Must read, very motivating.

Profit from the Core – Chris Zook, 2001.

A very influential strategy book on my thinking. Zook insists, from well-done research, that value and competitive advantage are best found in leveraging a well-defined core business. I spread this one around too at one of our strategy workshops.

Winning – Jack Welch, 2005.

I love Welch, and this is classic him – direct, candid, and inspiring. Our management team all read this, and it helped us with candor in communications, strategy formulation, people evaluation, and more. Great advice from one of the great CEO’s of all time.

Blue Ocean Strategy – Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, 2005.

Along the line of Competing for the Future, a very good treatise on how to create new market space and create new rules. Includes a very good methodology for how to go about this. Again inspired me to think out of the box.

Managing for the Long Run – Danny Miller and Isabelle Breton-Miller, 2005.

2005 was a good year! I just read this recently however, and it’s the best book I have seen on family businesses, strategy, values, and competitive advantage. Really helped me think through how to leverage what we have.

Made to Stick – Jim Heath and Dan Heath, 2007.

This may not have hit the best-seller list like some of these others, but it’s the best little book on the art of communication and persuasion that I have ever read. I learned how to tell a story that “sticks”.

The Game Changer – A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan, 2008.

Innovation is the name of the game today, and this is just a great book on the subject. Lafley was the CEO of Proctor and Gamble, one of the best modern innovators of today, and he and Charan share many specifics on how to embed innovation in culture and practices. Another book club selection for our management? Yep.

Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson, 2011.

I have read lots of business biographies, but this was the most fascinating, and full of implications for all of us. Courage, vision, insistence on excellence, and more. Well written.

Cheers, and happy reading!

Tim Hussey, President & CEO

February 2012 Regional Dealer Meetings

We just finished two weeks on the road meeting with our Hussey Dealer Network and Clarin Dealers / Reps. It was a great two weeks meeting with these very talented seating experts. Whenever I go out on the road and with our Dealers, I am once again reminded as to how fortunate we are to be aligned with such talented individuals who know how to sell our products. Our mission was to go out and energize our dealers with new Clarin Lecture Room Seating products, positioning strategies for Telescopic Bleacher Seating and Fixed Auditorium Seating, and educate them on our process for executing new Clarin Seating orders, samples, and various other aspects of doing business with Hussey Seating. A highlight for me was listening to presentations on our new Web site (www.husseyseating.com) and the importance of integrating social media as an integral Sales and Marketing strategy for our dealers and for Hussey Seating. This is the world we live in now and to not embrace the ability to get information about your Company, products,services, and expertise out there to so many people would be a lost opportunity. I am proud that Hussey Seating is leading edge when it comes to most everything we do, and it's great to see how we have embraced technology to help us be the #1 leader in spectator seating systems.

I had the pleasure of introducing our new MXP Telescopic Platform system. This is a new platform by Hussey Seating that is geared towards the professional and college / university sports market. It's a truly customizable telescopic platform offering that will serve the arena markets well. The MXP Platform allows us to fully integrate the Quattro Upholstered Chair systems directly onto the platforms. A full range of plush, comfortable auditorium style chair systems can now be either riser mounted or nose mounted to the deck system. We were excited to be able to give our dealers the next level of high end platform offerings to compliment the highly successful MAXAM26 and MAXAM Plus telescopic seating systems. We have had early success with MXP and have recently secured contracts for the arena seating at Penn State Bryce Jordan Arena and the new Bangor Events Center in Bangor, Maine. We are confident that our dealer network will find success in the College and University markets and help us grow our sales of this exciting new product.

We also showed the Hussey Seatway platforms which now allow our dealer network to sell into the performing arts market. Seatway platforms demonstrate our ability to pay very close attention to fit and finish and provide the US market with an elegant theatre style platform solution that is worthy of being put into any venue that requires flexibility, yet maintain a more furniture like appearance that blends seamlessly into the plush fixed auditoriums seats. Our dealers now have another level of telescopic seating to open up new opportunities and venture into markets where we want a stronger presence.

Our meetings were a success and I know that those of us who were involved are equally as energized to go back to North Berwick and execute on what we delivered. We appreciate our dealers time and commitment to Hussey Seating Company. We truly have the best seating experts in the world representing our company and our products.

Infectious optimism

As Tim Hussey noted in the previous blog post, we're in the midst of conducting Regional Sales Meetings across the US over the next two weeks, and after sessions in Philly and Atlanta this week I was absolutely blown away by the energy and optimism exuding from our dealers and reps. Our new Lecture Room seating products had a lot to do with it, sure - but these folks arrived with a serious bounce in their step, - and their upbeat demeanor was infectious.

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Seating experts in Philadelphia and Atlanta - and beyond

I am traveling with 5 Hussey sales and marketing staff this week, working with and training our Hussey dealers and reps on our new Clarin product range, as well as the entire breadth of the Hussey Seating product line. We had 36 dealers and reps at a regional sales meeting in Philadelphia yesterday, and 57 showing up in Atlanta tonight and tomorrow. More next week in Kansas City and Salt Lake City. It's very stimulating to be in the presence of these salespeople, and their energy and enthusiasm for Hussey products, including Clarin by Hussey, is infectious.

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Patriots going to the Super Bowl!

I was fortunate to be at Gillette Stadium yesterday for the win against the Ravens. Very exciting of course - we were standing for just about the entire game, and there was lots of noise in that stadium! The Patriots have been a model of how to take good talent, and mold it into a remarkable winning franchise.

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