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 Spiritual and Business-Savvy? Whodathunkit?
I work for an A/V company who does small trade shows and pharmaseutical companies. I ordinarally fall asleep during these presentations, but when Kenny hit the stage with his understated enthusiasm and wisdom about how the bottom lines of profit and spirituality can come together -- and make both bottom lines go up for all concerned -- I was transfixed.
All I do is run a sound board. I get a lot of free books from these shows, and to be honest I sell most of them on EBay.
I am keeping this one.
 This should be a best seller!! BUY THIS BOOK!!!! Read why.
I'm not ordinarily a fan of business books, but I fell in love with this story about a company with heart, soul and a strong sense of moral responsibility and community. If we all lived our business lives like The CEO and The Monk, there would be no Enrons and all our bottom lines would be healthy.
There are so many places in the book that pull you up short and make you think, like the Monk's recalling words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us." I felt energized reading this book, inspired to start all over again and make a difference. I am sharing this book with my staff. And, I've been buying copies and giving to friends who work in the corporate world. BUY THIS BOOK!!!!
 Spiritually, Very Average......
This book is "ok". If you use the track record of corporations to measure Key Span (Brooklyn Union), then what they've done is good, not great, but good. If you use a spiritual or moral measure, then what they've done is quite mediocre. The main accomplishment is that of the monk, Kenny Moore, who was able to foster direct and non-judgemental communication between the workers and management. This is a good thing and many companies would do well to learn from this example. Key Span does do a lot of charity work, but their motives for doing so, by their own terms of "enlightened self-interest", are just that, selfish. The company pressures average workers to give up their free time to volunteer for charity. The result is that Key Span gets publicity at the expense of their unpaid workers. This is PR on the cheap and takes unfair advantage of the already financially strapped workers. They hire social workers to aid the company in extracting money from customers who are unable to pay. On the surface it sounds good, but it's just a ploy to increase company profits by increasing collections. Much of the book is about the inside scoop on various Brooklyn Union/Key Span mergers and aquisitions, a bit boring. The rest is a lot of back slapping of both CEO and the Monk. There's very little investigative journalism here in terms of exploring contrarian points of view. What Key Span has done is just "ok", not great. They stand out not because of what good they've done, but rather because of what very bad other corporations have done. The bottom line, foster honest communication between management and the workers. The rest of the book is meaningless. It's the same old same old, the workers toil in order to make executives rich. Nothing new. That the CEO and the Monk can't see this is more telling than anything told in the book.
Highly Recommended
This book is great for anyone who is a CEO or owns their own business. Not only is it informative but it's entertaining as well.Thanks for the book Mom!!
Nice Guys (and companies) can finish first
Finally, good news from inside the Corporate World! As the media focus our attention on corporate wrongdoing, the show trials of the rich and powerful, stratospheric salaries of greedy CEOs, and the "unaccountability" of managers and Wall Streeters comes a heartwarming and inspiration story of a Fortune 500 company with a soul. The CEO and the Monk is the inside story of Keyspan's dramatic growth over the past decade, of its hands-on CEO, of the difficulties encountered as the "family" of a 100-year old, conservative utility absorbs the shocks of mergers and acquisitions and grows from $1 billion to $6 billion in revenues, tripling its workforce. All the while maintaining a clear focus on doing the right thing...and blowing the numbers out of the water while not losing its soul, as one financial analyst observed. Bob Catell, Chairman of Keyspan, one of the nation's leading energy providers, is the CEO in the title. He's a career employee whose soft-spoken style and ready smile hide the tough inner man who created a whole new company amidst the chaos of de-regulation. Tough, smart, caring and candid about what it took to achieve his vision, he points out this was the opposite of the "asset-lite" and high-flying Enron of the 1990s. Same industry, similar starting point, different leaders...much different results. Kenny Moore was a real monk who after 15 years left cloistered life in the monastery to rediscover himself and pursue a career in the corporate world. Despite the odds of succeeding in Corporate America - no MBA, no useful business experience, and a serious bout with life-threatening cancer and then a heart attack - Kenny signed on in HR and rose to be Corporate Ombudsman at Keyspan. He became the conscience of the company, but not without struggle and self-doubt. He took risks along the way - even brashly staging a mock funeral for key employees as the old Brooklyn Union "died" and the new Keyspan was a-borning. About the book: This a fast, enjoyable read, with three authors' voices leading you through the pages, with informative and lively stories about corporate and personal success behind the scenes. These are told in the first person by the CEO, Bob Catell, and the Monk, Kenny Moore. There's an interesting narrative thread to guide the reader as well, presented by the third story-teller, the skilled business writer Glenn Rifkin, a former New York Times reporter. This is a warts-and-all tale and belongs on the reading list for senior managers - and those who plan to be CEO one day. Hank BoernerManagement ConsultantCorporate Governance AdvisorRowan & BlewittMineola, NY March 10, 2004
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(based on 13 reviews)
