What Really Matters: Service Leadership, People and Values.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf - Brief article - Book review

What Really Matters: Service Leadership, People and Values. By John Pepper. Yale University Press, 305 pages. $26.

These are the types of book titles that make reviewers squirm. To think that one book could define "what really matters" sounds more than a bit presumptuous, and conjures up some kind of ode to personal idealism. In fact, why does a volume with a title like this qualify as a business book?

In this case, the rationale quickly becomes clear. It's an exhortation-cum-memoir by the retired CEO of Procter & Gamble, John Pepper, which uses many reflections and recountings of business decisions to underscore its points. Pepper, who is the board chairman at Walt Disney Co., was president, CEO and then chairman of P & G for 16 years, and had a key seat at the table during many of the company's important decisions in the past generation.

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Pepper divides the book into three parts: foundations for success, "staying in the lead," and "how we live our lives." Significantly, the final chapter takes up half of the book, and includes headings such as "a passionate sense of ownership," a personal model for living," and "a family...