Chapter 2: General Managers. Where Do They Come From? Are general managers born? Are they made by developing in the process? Or are general managers automatically assigned to the top job? Is there a winning stereotype? Do all general managers have the same chances to succeed? Understand the type of manager you are. You will adapt quicker to situations, distinguish yourself from the pack, lead compellingly, and win over employees and management on your way to top performance.

Chapter 4: Your First 100 days -- More Important Than Anything Else

Do you feel confused?
Do you experience so much pressure that you feel lost at times?
Does it look like everything is important and needs to be done by yesterday?

Every beginning is tough. On the one hand, you face many unanswered questions and urgent, pending issues.

On the other hand, you have insufficient time and information to do a proper analysis of each.
At times, it seems and feels like a series of endless tests.

Plan well, put the right systems in place, and watch your effectiveness increase three-fold.

Chapter 11: Five Systems To Manage Performance

Is it difficult to manage performance in your company? Do you know the right parameters for managing performance?

Do you find it increasingly challenging to monitor performance?

Performance is one of the most critical and, at the same time, one of the toughest area to manage for companies. You need to identify the most important areas, then you need to set systems in place to measure each area.

Learn five most important performance metrics and you will learn how to:

• Act before your competitors, with the right level of competitive pressure, by identifying the future sales trends and assumptions.
• Maximize internal company efficiencies by setting up a well integrated mechanism to manage product flow.
• Improve the company’s financial performance by tightly managing cash flow.
• Stay on top of your competitive game by beating your internal and external competitors through benchmarking.
• Create a growing and sustainable return on investment year after year through managing your company’s business leverage.
  

Chapter 14: Ensure High Performance -- Set The Right Targets

How do successful general managers achieve targets?
They achieve them on time.
They achieve them in a timely fashion and don’t stretch their organization trying to catch up at the last minute.
They achieve them utilizing the initially planned resources.
They do all of the above consistently, year after year.

Success is measured against objectives, targets. The better you deliver your targets and the more consistently you do it, the more you will distinguish yourself from the pack.

Is delivery of targets so important?

Delivery is the most important measurement of success. Even if everything else fails around you, your boss dislikes you, and your people jump ship, your consistent delivery will still make the difference between being a good general manager and a great one.
You cannot deliver, however, if the targets to be delivered are wrong.

In this chapter, you will learn the importance of target-setting and learn systems for setting the right targets. You will see how to avoid the traps that compromise the performance of your unit and your personal success.

Performance is benchmarked by the delivery compared to the targets, by performance compared to the performance of similar business units within the company, and by performance compared to the competitive environment of your business unit.

Outperforming your internal competitors--the other general managers in your company--is more important than beating your competitors in the market.

Successful general managers consistently overachieve on their targets across all these different benchmarking areas.

Chapter 17: Seven Systems To Beat Your Targets Each And Every Time

Are targets in your company driven from the top down, with management allocating to the various business units what they need to achieve at total company level?

Do you and your management share the same understanding about the difficulty of achieving your targets, or does management believe it will be easier for you to hit your targets than you do?

Budgeting is the single most important business-planning process, because it states the business assumptions for a given period of time. A good budget includes at minimum:

• The objectives to be achieved and the resources to be allocated by the company for achieving those targets
• A detailed list of the assumptions upon which these objectives are based
• The investment rationale in terms of the human and promotional requirements for attaining the set targets
• Performance metrics for the milestones to be achieved, the time-frame within which each milestone is to be reached, and the results of meeting the milestones
• Contingency plans in case market, company, or product trends necessitate the change of investment strategy

Budgeting is also the main performance-monitoring tool, so it forms the basis on which bonuses and incentives are awarded and the metric for your personal career performance and advancement.