The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company (Your Coach in a Box) | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles G. Koch
Creator: Erik Synnestvedt
Publisher: Your Coach in a Box
Category: Book
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $10.97
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Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 436711
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 1596591463
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.409
EAN: 9781596591462
ASIN: 1596591463
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Absolutely Brand New & In Stock. 100% 30-Day Money Back. Direct from our warehouse. Ships by USPS. 1+ million customers served-In business since 1986. Happy Customers is Our #1 Goal. Toll Free Support
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Product Description
Charles Koch may very well be the most successful businessman people have never heard of. Under his leadership, Koch Industries has become a dynamic and diverse enterprise that Forbes called "the world's largest private company."
This groundbreaking audiobook includes the same material used by leaders and employees of Koch companies to apply Marker-Based Management (MBM) to get results. In it, Charles Koch outlines the unique management methodology developed and implemented by Koch Industries. Koch credits MBM for its 2,000-fold growth since 1967, with today having 80,000 employees in 60 countries and with $90 billion in revenues in 2006. MBM is a scientific approach to management that integrates theory and practice, and provides a framework for dealing with the ongoing challenges of growth and change. There really is a science behind success, and it can be applied to any organization.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 64 more reviews...
 Haven't read the book..... July 22, 2008
I've not yet read this book. BUT, working for Georgia Pacific before and after Koch bought and left his mark,,,,These principles DON'T work here. Sorry, wish I could say better. I've waited and waited. I've done what I could in my limited capacity to "Live the process". I don't have decision rights. Can't get anything fixed, and everything is run till fail. Fail it does. Often and repeatedly. I guess Charles is just waiting for us to fall on our face and can't get up, then he'll shut it down, tear it down for scrap, sell the land (which is still worth something I'm sure), and a new Casino will end up here.
When I get a few more nickels together I'll get the book. Then I can read how the Fairey Tale was supposed to end. :(
tHE PRINCIPLE OF STEALING FROM THE INDIANS July 7, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am so sick of nonsense books written by corporate thieves about the "secrets of success". Koch stole millions from American Indians. Google it, just google "Koch and Indian lands" The principle of wealth through theft is ancient. That's why "thou shall not steal" is one of the 10 commandments.
 Sparse Elegance May 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is not a self-help book. It is an excellent slim introduction to free market economics and economic thinking masquerading as a business book.
While I picked up the "Science of Success" to see how he applied economic thinking to running a business, I was blown away the authors clarity and elegance in describing economic thinking.
I also found his business system - MBM (Market Based Management) The Science of Human Action Applied to Organizations - to be interesting. It was not a how-to guide though.
 Don't Buy This If You Are Going To Work For Koch April 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I only say that because you'll receive a free copy once you sign on with the company. I bought the book after I accepted a job there and lo and behold I had two copies of The Science of Success.
As far as the book goes, it was pretty good, the only thing that it was really weak on were examples of how Koch Industries actually used MBM to make money. After having worked there I really can't tell you how they have used MBM to make money either because during the two day MBM training you only hear one example and you'll be left saying, "Why of course we made money off of that because we're in oil!"
Other than that it does a very good job of outlining the economic principles that have made up the Koch management structure. Each company within Koch is very nimble and small and we really weren't bogged down in bureaucracy (mostly just accounting rules) like most companies are. The book also gives a very good look into the culture at Koch which was the strongest asset and the best thing I took away from working there.
A Practical Business Classic and a Must-Read January 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Science of Success is going to be a business classic. If you're in business, especially if you want to make your business work better you need to read this book.
Check that. You need to read and re-read and re-read this book. And you need to try out what you learn in experiments in your workplace.
That was one of the first things I got from this book, the idea of seeing trials of new ideas as "experiments." It's a powerful concept because it immediately washes away all the "risk of failure" that makes it hard to try new things in so many companies.
Koch's idea is amazingly simple. When you try something new, you see your trial as an experiment. Then you measure the results and learn from them. Whatever you learn, you've succeeded.
It's like that old story about Edison trying a gazillion different things as a filament for the electric light bulb he was try to invent. Time after time he tried. And, one after another, the filaments he thought would work didn't. "I haven't failed," Edison told a person who questioned how he could stand all that failure. "I've found a gazillion things that don't work."
One reason this is a great book is that there are those incredible insight like that all through it. You find yourself thinking, "Wow. That sure makes sense." You reach for your highlighter. You drape the book in sticky notes.
The book is also great because it reminds you of basic concepts that you knew once. For example, you probably learned about "sunk costs" and "opportunity costs" in college.
Koch will remind you of the definitions, but he does something more and more important. He shows you how to use those concepts in your decision process. Let's see how he does that.
On page 33 he reminds you that a sunk cost is "an unrecoverable past expenditure." And he tells you "Such costs should seldom be taken into account when determining what to do in the future because, other than possible tax effects, they are irrelevant to what can be recovered."
The money you put into developing that new product? It's a sunk cost. It's not an investment. You won't get it back. That means that it's irrelevant to whether or not to kill the new product or put more money into marketing it.
Koch shows you how the economic concepts of sunk cost and opportunity cost ("the value of the most valuable alternative that must be foregone to undertake a given act") should affect your decision making.
Another reason this book is great is that it brings together a very intelligent business owner's lifetime study of economics and human behavior and how they apply to making a company work. This isn't an academic treatise either. Koch has used these principles to run his company, where he is the primary owner.
You many not be familiar with the name Koch Industries, but you surely know some of their brand names like Stainmaster, Dixie Cup, and Georgia Pacific. Koch Industries is the largest private US company. It got that way, in part, because Koch used the principles in this book to run the company. In 1960 Koch had revenues of about $70 million. In 2006 they were $90 Billion.
In other words, this is not just theory. Koch has actually, truly, really put his money where his ideas are. In The Science of Success, he lays out what he's learned over a lifetime of study, thought and, more important for you, experimentation. Here's how he's structured the book.
Chapter 1 is short history of Koch Industries. You'll learn about how the company evolved and get introduced to the experiments that worked and many that didn't.
Chapter 2 is about Market-Based Management (MBM), which is what Koch calls his system. That's something of a misnomer. He's not referring to "market-driven" management. "Market-based" refers to "based on free market principles." This chapter also introduces the Science of Human Action.
The Science of Human Action is "the study of how humans can achieve their ends through purposeful behavior." It's the action steps connected to economic principles and psychological truths.
In the chapters that follow, Koch defines five dimensions along which you apply MBM. They are Vision, Virtue and Talents, Knowledge Processes, Decision Rights, and Incentives. There is a wealth of good ideas under every single heading.
There are two downsides to this book. At times, Koch writes like the engineer that he is, but the ideas and concepts pull you right through the rough spots.
The other downside is a result of the value that's here. It took Koch a lifetime to write this book and you won't get more than a fraction of the potential value from it unless you read it more than once. I'm staring my fourth read.
No matter what business you're in, no matter where you are in your career, you should read this book. It's a new business classic, on a par with Peter Drucker's Managing for Results. It's got the same strength of intellectual underpinnings, the same solid logic, and the same rich simplicity. The biggest difference is that The Science of Success is written by a man who built a great company using the concepts he's writing about.
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