Double-Digit Growth: How Great Companies Achieve It--No Matter What.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: BookShelf - Brief Article - Book Review

Double-Digit Growth: How Great Companies Achieve It--No Matter What. By Michael Treacy. Portfolio, 224 pages. $27.95.

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"No excuses," a familiar advertising tag line from a few years ago, is one of the key underlying messages of Double-Digit Growth. Author Michael Treacy doesn't believe companies can legitimately blame the economy, competitors or unforeseen circumstances for their problems, which he claims is "a little like listening to an addict in denial."

The book shares a lot of thematic underpinnings with others focused on the top growth companies of recent years--stars like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Dell Inc., and Starbucks Corp. But Treacy, a chief strategist at the Boston-based firm of Gen3 Partners and a former management professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, co-authored the 1995 bestseller, The Discipline of Market Leaders, and clearly knows how to fashion a persuasive book around a few central themes.

In this case, he argues for...