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The vision retreat: A participant's workbook
The book is divided into three sections; concepts, patterns, and prescription. The concepts section outlines the mechanics of value migration and offers tools for analyzing the status of an enterprise within an industry. The second section provides an opportunity to develop skill in understanding how strategic advantage can be gained through recognition of recurring patterns of business and industry development. The final section focuses on the application of the values migration model to the reader’s enterprise. In the first chapter, Slywotzky defines two key concepts: business design and market value. Business design is how an enterprise chooses customers, defines and differentiates its offerings, determines what it will do and what it will outsource, allocates resources, approaches the marketplace, creates utility, and earns a profit. Market value is a measure of the ability of the business design to create and capture value. While market value is defined here in profit terms, it is the idea that business design must be built around customers’ priorities that is the key message of this book. The three phases of value migration are also outlined in the first section. They are: value inflow based on superior satisfaction of customers’ priorities using a new business design; stability when the business design matches most closely with customer priorities and the business designs of the competition; and value outflow when traditional activities cease to meet evolving customer priorities. Slywotzky makes it clear that an understanding of customer needs is not sufficient. To be truly strategic and able to project the direction of customers’ preferences, all the factors in their decision-making system must be understood. The second section contains a series of case studies. Each characterizes one of the seven patterns Slywotzky has identified by which value has migrated in some of the largest and best known industries. They include steel, airlines, pharmaceuticals, coffee, computer hardware, retailing, and computer software. The migration patterns are characterized as multidirectional migration, migration to no-profit, blockbuster migration, multicategory migration, integration to specialization, conventional selling to low-cost distribution, and conventional selling to high-end solutions. For administrators, and managers of academic libraries, the chapter on how to defeat institutional memory is probably the most important. Slywotzky warns against the narrow mental models that develop over time and make it difficult to conceive of an enterprise in ways other than past practice. While the aggressively for-profit focus of this book may prove a barrier for some, the concepts presented here have much to offer those seeking new ways of defining and conceptualizing the role and responsibilities of academic libraries in the 2lst centurySusan Jurow, Association of Research Libraries, 21 DuPont Circle, Ste. 800, Washington, D.C. 20036. The Vision Retreat: A Facilitator’s Guide, by Burt Nanus. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 35~. $19.95. ISBN 0-7879-0175-X. The Vision Retreat: A Participant’s Workbook, by Burt Nanus. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 70~. $11.95. ISBN o-7879-01 76-8. You are a busy administrator. Your college or university president decrees that every major unit is required to produce a vision statement and the option of non-participation is not debatable. Wondering if there is a ready-made, how-to-do
vision retreat guide just for libraries, you search the OCLC database and post an inquiry on your administrative listserv only to find that there is no guide designed especially for leading a library vision retreat. Based on Nanus’s Visionary Leadership; Creating a Compelling Sense of Direction for Your Organization (Jossey-Bass, 1992), The &ion Retreat: a Facilitator S Guide and The Vision Retreat: A Participant’s Workbook may be just the ticket to help you and your key library personnel plan a vision retreat, select a facilitator, and develop the vision statement that your president has ex cathedra ruled that you need. Stating that a vision retreat can go a long way toward breaking the “business as usual” mindset by shifting the spotlight on new possibilities and opportunities, Nanus offers very practical advice in the Facilitator S Guide. He defines the role of the leader as one who is the key administrator and is responsible for approving the design of the retreat. The leader must make it clear in advance whether he or she is fully committed to the conclusion of the retreat or is reserving the right to make the final decision. There are checklists, design options, ways to shorten the retreat if time is limited, and even sample invitations to send to participants. The ParticipantS Workbook has 23 exercises that build on each other, starting with a Vision Audit and concluding with the Vision Choice. There are worksheets with matrices for making choices. The prefaces to many of the worksheets use typical business examples and nomenclature. Users are referred to as customers and organizations are producers of products and services. Examples of some government and non-profit organizations also are used. If you do not like or are uncomfortable with language that calls users customers and organizations services or products, or think a vision retreat is the new flavor-of-the-month, and your president has not asked for your library vision statement, The Vision Retreat is not for you. But if you are in need, the two small volumes may do the job.-Bernard H. Holicky, The Library, Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, IN 463232590. Writing-Across-The-Curriculum and the Academic Library: A Guide for Librarians, Instructors, and Writing Programs Directors, edited by Jean Sheridan. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. xix, 240 p. ISBN O-3 13-29134-9. It has only been a decade or so since writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) programs have been present on most campuses. This work, which presents a compelling argument for librarians and writing center directors to cooperate in meeting the increasing challenges facing students, is a collection of chapters by various librarians and writing instructors. It provides an excellent overview of the history of WAC, provides librarians with an understanding of current composition theory, demonstrates the types of tools which librarians use in the various stages of the research process, addresses methods for bringing a collaboration between writing instructors and librarians to fruition, and suggestes ways in which they can establish their agendas in the academic program. The final section includes case studies from a variety of institutions. Academic librarians are fortunate to have a foot in the door of the research instruction arena, having participated in collaboration with various academic departments over many years. As Thomas G. Kirk, Jr., in the foreword, remarks, WAC directors are not so fortunate and may still find their work marginalized
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vision retreat guide just for libraries, you search the OCLC database and post an inquiry on your administrative listserv only to find that there is no guide designed especially for leading a library vision retreat. Based on Nanus’s Visionary Leadership; Creating a Compelling Sense of Direction for Your Organization (Jossey-Bass, 1992), The &ion Retreat: a Facilitator S Guide and The Vision Retreat: A Participant’s Workbook may be just the ticket to help you and your key library personnel plan a vision retreat, select a facilitator, and develop the vision statement that your president has ex cathedra ruled that you need. Stating that a vision retreat can go a long way toward breaking the “business as usual” mindset by shifting the spotlight on new possibilities and opportunities, Nanus offers very practical advice in the Facilitator S Guide. He defines the role of the leader as one who is the key administrator and is responsible for approving the design of the retreat. The leader must make it clear in advance whether he or she is fully committed to the conclusion of the retreat or is reserving the right to make the final decision. There are checklists, design options, ways to shorten the retreat if time is limited, and even sample invitations to send to participants. The ParticipantS Workbook has 23 exercises that build on each other, starting with a Vision Audit and concluding with the Vision Choice. There are worksheets with matrices for making choices. The prefaces to many of the worksheets use typical business examples and nomenclature. Users are referred to as customers and organizations are producers of products and services. Examples of some government and non-profit organizations also are used. If you do not like or are uncomfortable with language that calls users customers and organizations services or products, or think a vision retreat is the new flavor-of-the-month, and your president has not asked for your library vision statement, The Vision Retreat is not for you. But if you are in need, the two small volumes may do the job.-Bernard H. Holicky, The Library, Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, IN 463232590. Writing-Across-The-Curriculum and the Academic Library: A Guide for Librarians, Instructors, and Writing Programs Directors, edited by Jean Sheridan. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. xix, 240 p. ISBN O-3 13-29134-9. It has only been a decade or so since writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) programs have been present on most campuses. This work, which presents a compelling argument for librarians and writing center directors to cooperate in meeting the increasing challenges facing students, is a collection of chapters by various librarians and writing instructors. It provides an excellent overview of the history of WAC, provides librarians with an understanding of current composition theory, demonstrates the types of tools which librarians use in the various stages of the research process, addresses methods for bringing a collaboration between writing instructors and librarians to fruition, and suggestes ways in which they can establish their agendas in the academic program. The final section includes case studies from a variety of institutions. Academic librarians are fortunate to have a foot in the door of the research instruction arena, having participated in collaboration with various academic departments over many years. As Thomas G. Kirk, Jr., in the foreword, remarks, WAC directors are not so fortunate and may still find their work marginalized
July 1996 317