|Producing sustainable competitive advantage through the |
|effective management of people |
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Impressive remarks

The author points out thirteen practices for managing people in order to achieve a competitive advantage. I am impressed by the way the author points out the importance of the workforce and how it is managed.

The importance:

As other sources of competitive success have become less important, what remains as a crucial, differentiating factor is the organization, its employees, and how they work. The author quotes Southwest Airlines as an example, which achieved competitive advantage from its very productive, very motivated, and by the way, unionized workforce. The author clearly points out, Culture, how people are managed, and the effects of this on their behavior and skills are sometimes seen as the “soft” side of business, occasionally dismissed. Even when they are not dismissed, it is often hard to comprehend the dynamics of a particular company and how it operates because the way people are managed often fits together in a system. Success, such as that achieved at Southwest, can be sustained and cannot readily be imitated by competitors. It is easy to copy one thing but much more difficult to copy numerous things. This is because the change needs to be more comprehensive and also because the ability to understand the system of management practices is hindered by its very extensiveness. It is really interesting to see how the “soft” side of business really provides sustainable competitive advantage with all his examples and explanations and how hard it is to master these practices.

Words of caution:
Last but not the least; I really appreciate his words of caution section. Unlike many authors