Every Business Is a Growth Business.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Review

Ram Charan and Noel M. Tichy. Times Business Books, 342 pp.

In this paperback release of their 1998 hardback, Charan and Tichy exhort businesses to challenge their internal thinking. They trumpet a number of maxims, among them: no business is a mature business, growth must be sustainable and profitable, and growth is best achieved when it "is in the corporate mindset."

Charan and Tichy have a number of heroes that they draw from -- and use as examples. These include some of the best-known and most respected CEOs of the 1990s: Jack Welch at GE, Roberto Goizueta at Coca-Cola, Lawrence Bossidy at AlliedSignal, Eckerd Pfeiffer at Compaq. But some of the leaders in the book aren't household names, like John Trani, whom Welch picked in 1986 to guide GE Medical Systems' business. Trani expanded its global reach dramatically, and in 1996 moved to chief executive at Stanley Works, the old-line toolmaker, where he has been reshaping the company to develop new growth engines.

The authors harp on a few key concepts, such as looking at a company from the outside in to ensure proper attention to customer needs, and the notion of making a growth mentality "part of the genetic code" a company...