By Kari Lomanno

When President Harry Truman was faced with the decision of whether to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, he carefully contemplated the issue, gave the authorization to go through with the action, then reportedly went to bed and slept soundly through the night.

After Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, had already become the richest man in the world, he sent a letter to a South African discount store chain owner asking to visit the merchant to learn his retailing secrets. He inspected the merchant’s stores, questioned his customers, talked with his employees and interviewed the merchant at length.

While Truman’s decision created heated controversy, he never second-guessed himself. And while Walton seemingly had no need to learn more about business after the kind of success he had achieved, he still followed one simple philosophy: “He who knows the most, and continues to learn the most, wins.”

These are just two of the tenets behind Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program (AMP), and two of the main themes in Mark Stevens’ “Extreme Management: What They Teach at Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.”

The AMP is an exclusive training program designed to teach senior corporate  executives to look at management in new ways. The program began in the fall of 1940 as War Training at Harvard Business School, a 12-month course designed to curb the shortage of trained industrial administrators and managers as America prepared to enter World War II. Harvard soon realized the need for a more intensive training effort, so it launched a special 15-week program for experienced business executives with a focus on hands-on, production-based instruction.
When the war ended, Harvard realized that the holistic, specialized training business executives had received would serve the business community just as well in peacetime, so in September of 1945, the new AMP began.

“Extreme Management” captures the essence of the modern AMP, and in less than 200 pages gives executives what nine weeks and $44,000 will give them at Harvard Business School. Through thought-provoking scenarios and informative testimonials from America’s top executives, many of whom participated in Harvard’s AMP, Stevens offers today’s business managers a way to change the way they do business.

 The book addresses such issues as leadership, decision making, employee motivation, competition, customer service and financing. Particular emphasis is placed on taking risks and looking for new approaches to problem-solving.

 In the chapter on building world-class organizations, for instance, General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch provides his philosophy for empowering employees and bridging the gap between management and subordinates:

 “In the old culture, managers got their power from secret knowledge: profit margins, market share, and all that. But once you share that information with everyone, it often turns out that the emperor has no clothes. In the new culture, the role of the leader is to express a vision, get buy-in, and implement it. That calls for open, caring relations with every employee, and face-to-face communication.”

 Stevens lists Welch’s six rules for successful leadership and describes a program Welch developed called Work-Out, which is a series of town hall meetings where employees and managers can talk openly about the company. These kinds of real-world applications give Stevens credibility as an author and provide the reader with concrete examples to the abstract concepts he introduces.

At times, the examples are even entertaining. In the chapter on “SWAT Team Service,” the CEO of a global consulting company provides a memorable anecdote to illustrate the importance of maintaining quality in business products:

 “‘I’ve been buying M&M candies for more than forty years,’ he said. ‘It’s a childhood addiction that has never been abated. Through the years, I’ve probably bought more than five thousand bags of M&M’s. And you know something, I’ve never had a bad one. Not one bag that was spoiled or stale or crushed or discolored. You can attribute this to great quality controls, but I’ve been managing businesses long enough to know that it takes more than that: The Mars family has made quality a cornerstone of their company. It is woven into everything management and employees do. It is a standard, a religion, and a force that over time has become second nature.’”

Stevens mixes the anecdotes with lofty management formulas such as “D times M times P is greater than Cost,” the “7-S Model” and “Evolution plus Revolution equals Solution.” While they seem intimidating, Stevens provides adequate explanations and examples to make them easy to understand.

“Extreme Management” is meant to be a quick read and an easy source of reference. While it is easy to read, the book’s organization makes it difficult to find key points later. However, the book is short enough to avoid a real problem.

I have never attended Harvard’s Advanced Management Program, and I know the book is no substitute for the real thing. But I am confident that Stevens has captured the essence of the program and will probably save business executives thousands of dollars.

 Kari Lomanno works for Inside Business, a weekly business journal in Virginia