Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies by Charles G. Koch
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In 1961, Charles Koch joined his father's Wichita-based company, then valued at $21 million. Six years later, following his father's death, he was named chairman of the board and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc. Today, Koch Industries' estimated worth is $100 billion - making it one of the largest private companies in the world. Koch exceeds the S&P 500's five-decade growth by 27-fold, and plans to double its value on average every six years. What exactly does this company do and why is it so remarkably profitable? While you won't find the Koch name on your stain-resistant carpet, stretch denim jeans, the connectors in your smartphone or your baby's ultra-absorbent diapers, Charles Koch's Market-Based Management(R) system, intended to generate good profit, drove these innovations and many more. Good profit results from products and services that customers vote for freely with their money; products that help improve people's lives. It results from a culture where employees are empowered to act entrepreneurially to discover customer preferences and the best ways to satisfy them. Good profit is the earnings that follow when long-term value is created for everyone - customers, employees, shareholders and society. Readers will learn to: * Craft a vision for how a business can thrive in spite of disruption and ever-changing consumer values * Find and retain a workforce possessing both virtue and talent (the first being the more important) * Award employees with ownership and decision rights based on their comparative advantages and proven contributions, rather than job title * Motivate all employees to maximise their contributions with effectively structured incentives so employees' compensation is limited only by the value they create - not budgets or company-wide policy A must-read for any leader, entrepreneur or student, as well as those who want a more civil, fair and prosperous society, GOOD PROFIT is destined to rank as one of the greatest management books of all time.