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Beep! Beep!

Competing in the Age of the Road Runner

by Chip R. Bell and Oren Harari

Warner Books, 2000

Category: Strategy

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Beep! Beep!

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Overall (?)

rating 6 (6)

Applicability

rating 6 (6)

Innovation

rating 5 (5)

Style

rating 8 (8)

Level of Expertise (?)

rating 3 (3)

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  (6.0)

In this summary you will learn

  • Why your company needs to roll with the punches
  • Why your tried-and-true method could be an (Acme) time bomb waiting to explode
  • How to shift from Coyote to Road Runner thinking

Why you should read Beep! Beep!

Wile E. Coyote hovers in a hot air balloon over the road, waiting to drop an anvil on the unsuspecting Road Runner. Wile E. puts a grenade in the seat of a toy airplane and ... you know what happens. He becomes the victim of his own diabolical plans. The Road Runner wins every time. Chip R. Bell and Oren Harari’s book turns a cartoon classic into a wonderful metaphor for today’s fast-paced work environment. Organizations are changing their cunning competitive ways. Instead of behaving like Wile E. Coyote, they are becoming like the quick, agile, joyful Road Runner. In an amusing style, the authors illustrate their points with cartoons of the famous duo and plenty of plot scenarios and interesting tidbits of trivia. The "Birdseed" sections scatter tips to help you and your company make the transition to the wide-open desert of opportunity ahead. Those who grew up with Road Runner will relate to this book immediately. getAbstract recommends this book to Road Runner’s business fans or to anyone who wants to have fun while learning how to steer a company through the speedy new marketplace.

About the Authors

Chip R. Bell  is a senior partner with Performance Research Associates in Dallas, Texas. He has written or co-written 11 books, including Dance Lessons: Six Steps to Great Partnerships in Business and Life, with Heather Shea, and Customers as Partners, Managers as Members and Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service, with Ron Zemke. Oren Harari  is professor of management at the University of San Francisco. He wrote the best-selling Leapfrogging for Competition , and co-wrote Jumping the Curve. He writes a monthly column for Management Review and is a management expert on Time magazine’s interactive web site. Between 1984 and 1996, he was a senior consultant and highly-requested speaker with the Tom Peters Group.

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