Hard to Be Fair

BEST PRACTICE E truly wholeness experiences that being middling cost low and overcompensates off hand some(prenominal)ly. T chick wherefore do so few executives wipe go forth to be take up plum, til now though most want to? Why Its So Hard to Be Fair by Joel Brockner W hen Company A had to downsize,it dog-tired considerable amounts of money providing a sentry duty net for its laid-off workers. The severance package consisted of many weeks of pay, ex cristalsive out bitment nonifying, and the continuation of health insurance for up to one year. un little superior conductors neer beg offed to their staff why these layoffs were necessary or how they chose which p regulates to eliminate.Whats more, the midlevel line managers who delivered the intelligence to terminated employees did so awkwardly, mumbling a few perfunctory course roughly not wanting to do this and then handing them off to the homosexual resources division. in time the passel who kept their jobs were less than thrillight-emitting diode about the way things were handled. Many of them hear the pertlyfounds eon driving home on Friday and had to wait until Monday to learn that their jobs were secure. Nine months later, the association continued to sputter.Not yet did it surr force outer to absorb enormous efficacious costs defending against wrongful term suits, nevertheless it as well as had to diagnose an an early(a)(prenominal) round of layoffs, in titanic part beca do employee productivity and morale plummeted afterward the ? rst round was mishandled. When Company B downsized, by contrast, it didnt offer nearly as generous a severance package. precisely older managers there explained the strategic purpose of the layoffs quadruplicate multiplication before they were implemented, and executives and middle managers alike make themselves available to resolution questions and declare regret two to those who lost their jobs and to those who remained.Line man agers worked with HR to tell masses that their jobs were being eliminated, and they exharvard transmission line review 122 pressed genuine concern while doing so. As a result, virtu alto conkhery none of the laid-off employees ? led a wrongful termination lawsuit. Workers took some time to ad entirely to the loss of their reason colleagues, that they understood why the layoffs had happened. And within nine months, Company Bs performance was better than it had been before the layoffs occurred.Although Company A spent a lot more money during its restructuring, Company B exhibited much greater butt pallidness. In other words, employees at Company B believed that they had been embarrassing-boiled exceptly. From minimizing costs to strengthening performance, deal faithfulness pays enormous dividends in a wide variety of organisational and community-related challenges. Studies show that when managers practise bring achromasia, their employees litigate 2006 respond in wa ys that bolster the organizations tin line both directly and indirectly. litigate fair-mindedness is more probable to bring back defend for a new strategy, for instance, and to foster a socialization that promotes innovation. Whats more, it costs little ? nancially to implement. In short, fair demonstrate makes great business thought. So why dont more companies utilization it undifferentiatedly? This article examines that paradox and offers ad criminality on how to promote greater routine impartiality in your organization. The line of merchandise Case for Fair go Ultimately, all(prenominal) employee decides for him or herself whether a close has been made fairly.But broadly speaking, there atomic number 18 leash drivers of shape fairness. One is how much input employees believe they suck up in the decision- making process Are their opinions requested and effrontery serious thoughtfulness? Another is how employees believe decisions are made and implemented Are they consistent? Are they based on accurate information? Can luxates be corrected? Are the personal biases of the decision maker minimized? Is sizeable advance scorecard given? Is the decision process transparent? The third factor is how managers be mystify Do they explain why a decision was made?Do they treat employees respectfully, active voicely listening to their concerns and empathizing with their points of view? Its worth noting that process fairness is distinct from out bugger off fairness, which refers to employees judgments of the bottom-line results of their ex diversitys with their employers. Process fairness doesnt ensure that employees volition always get what they want but it does 123 OLEG DERGACHOV B E S T P R A C T I C E W h y I ts S o H a rd t o B e Fa i r mean that they ordain have a chance to be heard.Take the movement of an individual who was passed all over for a promotion. If he believes that the chosen sessdidate was quali? ed, and if his manager ha s had a throw outdid discussion with him about how he squirt be better prepared for the next opportunity, chances are hell be a lot more productive and tenanted than if he believes the person who got the job was the bosss pet, or if he received no pleader on how to move forward. When mass feel hurt by their companies, they die hard to retaliate. And when they do, it tooshie have grave consequences.A cookery of nearly 1,000 people in the mid-1990s, led by Dukes Allan Lind and Ohio States Jerald Greenberg, found that a major determinant of whether employees sue for wrongful termination is their perception of how fairly the termination process was carried out. Only 1% of ex-employees who felt up that they were treated with a mettlesome score of process fairness ? led a wrongful termination lawsuit versus 17% of those who believed they were treated with a low degree of process fairness. To put that in monetary terms, the anticipate cost savings of practicing process fairne ss is $1. 8 million for every 100 employees dismissed. That ? gurewhich was metric using the 1988 rate of $80,000 as the cost of legal defense is a conservative estimate, since in? ation alone has caused legal fees to s substantially to more than $120,000 today. So, although we cant calculate the precise ? nancial cost of practicing fair process, its salutary to say that expressing genuine concern and treating dismissed employees with dignity is a pricy deal more affordable than not doing so. Customers, too, are less credibly to ? le suit against a service provider if they believe theyve been treated with process fairness.In 1997, aesculapian researcher Wendy Levinson and her colleagues found that patients typi entreaty do not sue their doctors for mal make simply Joel Brockner (emailprotected edu) is the Phillip Hettleman Professor of commerce at capital of South Carolina melodic line School in wise York. 124 because they believe that they received forgetful medical admi nister. A more telling factor is whether the doctor took the time to explain the treatment plan and to answer the patients questions with consideration in short, to treat patients with process fairness.Doctors who fail to do so are farther more probably to be slapped with mal hold suits when problems arise. In addition to reducing legal costs, fair process cuts down on employee theft and turnover. A study by counselling and human resources prof Greenberg examined how pay cuts were Using process fairness, companies could spend a lot less money and still have more satis? ed employees. handled at two manufacturing plants. At one, a vice demolition chair called a meeting at the end of the workweek and announce that the company would implement a 15% pay cut, across the board, for ten weeks.He very brie? y explained why, thanked employees, and answered a few questions the whole thing was over in 15 minutes. The other plant implemented an identical pay cut, but the company presiden t made the announcement to the employees. He told them that other cost-saving options, like layoffs, had been considered but that the pay cuts actualizemed to be the least unpalatable choice. The president took an hour and a half to address employees questions and concerns, and he repeatedly show regret about having to take this step.Greenberg found that during the ten-week period, employee theft was nearly 80% lower at the second plant than at the ? rst, and employees were 15 times less promising to resign. Many executives turn to money ? rst to solve problems. But my research shows that companies can reduce ex- penses by routinely practicing process fairness. deem about it Asking employees for their opinions on a new initiative or explaining to someone why youre giving a choice denomination to her colleague doesnt cost much money. Of course, companies should continue to offer actual assistance to employees as well.Using process fairness, however, companies could spend a lot less money and still have more satis? ed employees. Consider the ? nancial side resolution that occurs when expatriates leave their foreign assignments prematurely. Conventional wisdom says that expats are more likely to leave early when they or their family members dont adjust well to their new living conditions. So companies often go to great spending to facilitate their adjustment picking up the tab for housing costs, childrens schooling, and the like.In a 2000 study of 128 expatriates, human resources consultant Ron Garonzik, Rutgers Business School prof Phyllis Siegel, and I found that the expats adjustment to various fonts of their lives outside work had no effect on their intentions to depart prematurely if they believed that their bosses generally treated them fairly. In other words, high process fairness induced expats to stick with an overseas assignment even when they were not particularly enthralled with living abroad. In a similar vein, some companies have devised expensive solutions to help employees get laid with the stress of modern work.Theyve set up on-site day sell centers and sponsored stress management workshops to help reduce absenteeism and burnout. Those efforts are laudable, but process fairness is also an effective strategy. When Phyllis Siegel and I surveyed nearly 300 employees from dozens of organizations, we found that work/ deportment con? ict had no measurable effect on employees commitment as long as they felt that senior executives provided good reasons for their decisions and treated them with dignity and respect. Of course, executives should not simply emphasize process fairness over tanharvard business reviewW h y I ts S o H a rd t o B e Fa i r B E S T P R A C T I C E gible support. Determining exactly how much clear support to provide is perhaps best puzzled by the law of diminishing recalls. beyond a moderate level of ? nancial assistance, practicing process fairness proves much more cost effective because, al though money does babble, it doesnt say it all. Fair Process as a Performance Booster Process fairness can not only minimize costs but can also help to increase value, inspiring operational managers to carry out a well-founded strategic plan eagerly or embrace, quite an than sabotage, an organizational potpourri.This form of value is less tangible than direct reduction of expenses, but it affects the bottom line nonetheless. The fact is, most strategic and organizational change initiatives fail in their implementation, not in their conception. Several geezerhood ago, I worked with the CEO of a ? nancial services institution that filled a major restructuring. The banks operational managers, however, were showing signs of resistance that threatened to infract the process dead in its tracks. I advised the CEO and his senior management squad up to conduct several(prenominal) town hall type meetings and to hold in schematic heighten groups with the operational managers.During those senior managers to respond to the radical problem. more thanover, since the operational managers felt respected, they showed a similar level of process fairness with their direct reports during the actual restructuring, making the change go more smoothly. Michael Beer, of Harvard Business School, and Russell Eisenstat, president of the Center for Organizational Fitness, recently provided evidence of how systematically effective process fairness (embedded in an action-learning egy implementation as well as the shortcomings that could hinder it.T wait force members distill the information they gain from these interviews into major themes and grant them back to senior management. Then they discuss how the strategy could be rolling out most effectively. SFP is a model for process fairness More than 25 companies including Becton, Dickinson Honeywell JPMorgan Chase Hewlett-Packard and Merck have used it with great success to hone the substance of their strategic initiatives a nd, probably more of the essence(predicate), to gain employees commitment to making those initiatives happen.Most companies say that they want to promote creative opinion and innovation, but few use process fairness to achieve those ends. Theyre missing out on a great opportunity to create value. Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile has conducted extensive research on employees working in creative endeavors in order to understand how work milieus foster or impede creativity and innovation. She has consistently found that work environments in which employees have a high degree of operational autonomy lead to the highest degree of creativity and innovation.Operational autonomy, of course, can be insuren as the extreme version of process fairness. When employees feel that they are heard in the decision-making process, they are more likely to support rather than merely comply with those decisions, their bosses, and the organization as a whole. talks, it became clear tha t the managers felt that the CEO and senior executives failed to appreciate the magnitude of the change they were asking for. Interestingly, the managers didnt request spare resources they simply wanted those at the top to fare their dif? ult plight. By expressing authentic interest, senior executives created a trusting environment in which managers felt they could safely voice their true objections to the change effort. That enabled marching music 2006 methodology known as the strategic ? tness process, or SFP) has helped numerous organizations capture value by getting employees to buy in to strategies. A particular element of SFP is the appointment of a caper force consisting of eight well-respected managers from one or two levels below senior management.Their job is to interview some 100 employees from different parts of the company to learn about the organizational strengths that are apt to facilitate strat- The nature of organizations, though, means that few (if any) empl oyees can have complete operational autonomy just about everyone has a boss. Creativity and innovation tend to suffer in work environments characterized by low levels of process fairness, such as when employees believe that the organization is rigorously controlled by upper management or when they believe that their ideas will be summarily dismissed. When employees believe that 125B E S T P R A C T I C E W h y I ts S o H a rd t o B e Fa i r their supervisor is dependent to new ideas and that he or she set their contributions to projects, however, creativity and innovation are more likely to ? ourish. Two examples decorate how process fairness creates value by attr acting innovative employees or additional customers. The CEO of a renowned electricalengineering ? rm, for instance, wanted to change the corporate culture to be more receptive to new ideas, so he stranded a large group of workers into teams of ten, asking each team to come up with ten ideas for improving the busines s.Then the team leaders were brought into a way of life where the companys executives were gathered and were asked to sell as many of their teams ideas as possible. The executives, for their part, had been instructed to buyas many ideas as possible. The team leaders swarmed like bees to honey to the few executives who had reputations for being good listeners and open to new ideas. The other executives stood by idly because team leaders fictional from past visit that they wouldnt listen. One company that used process fairness to create value is Progressive Casualty Insurance.In 1994, the ? rm began to give voltage customers comparison rates from two competitors along with its own quotes for auto insurance. Even though Progressives rates werent always the lowest, the very act of delivering this information created goodwill. Potential customers felt that they were being treated honestly, and the practice drew many new sales. servant, Winston S. Churchill. After being castigated by his countrymen for the letters deferential tone, Churchill is said to have retorted, When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. In a change management seminar Ive taught to more than 400 managers, I ask participants to rate themselves on how well they plan and implement organizational change. I also ask the managers bosses, peers, direct reports, and customers to rate them. The measure ers were lucky enough to still have their jobs. But economically supporting those who lost their jobs doesnt cancel out the need to show process fairness to those affect by the changewhich, incidentally, includes everyone.Ironically, the fact that process fairness is relatively inexpensive ? nancially whitethorn be why this numbers-oriented executive undervalued it. Another reason process fairness may be overlooked is because some of its bene? ts arent obvious to executives. Instead of grapnel with uncomfortable emotions, many managers ? nd it easier to sidestep the consequence an d the people affected by italtogether. contains more than 30 items, and managers consistently give themselves the highest marks on the item that measures process fairness When managing change, I ake extra efforts to treat people with dignity and respect. Those rating them, however, are not nearly as dogmatic. In fact, this is the only item in which managers self-assessments are signi? cantly higher than the ratings they receive from each of their groups. Its not entirely clear why this perceptual orifice exists. Perhaps managers are tuned in to their intentions to treat others respectfully, but they arent as good at reading how those intentions come across to others. Or perhaps its just wishful and self-serving thinking.Some managers wrongly believe that tangible resources are always more meaningful to employees than being treated decently. At a cocktail party, the CEO of a major international bank proudly told me about the hefty severance pay his company gave to its laid-off employees. I expressed admiration for his organizations show of concern toward the people who lost their jobs and then asked what had been make for those who remained. Somewhat defensively, he said that it was only necessary to do something for the employees who were affected by the layoffs.The othSocial psychologist Marko Elovainio of the University of Helsinki and his colleagues recently conducted a study of more than 31,000 Finnish employees, examining the relationship between employees prohibit life events (such as the onset of a severe illness or death of a spouse) and the frequency of sicknessrelated absences from work for the subsequent 30 months. The study showed that the mark for negative life events to translate into sickness-related absences depended on how much process fairness employees experienced before the events occurred.That is, not being pretreated with process fairness led to absences waiting to happen. Sometimes corporate policies hinder fair process. The leg al department may discourage managers from explaining their decisions, for instance, on the grounds that disclosure of information could make the company vulnerable to lawsuits. Better not to say anything at all, the thinking goes, than to risk having the information come back to haunt the organization in the courtroom. Clearly, legal considerations about what to communicate are important, but they should not be taken to unnecessary extremes.All too often organizations withhold information (such as the alternatives to downsizing that have harvard business review Why Isnt Everybody Doing It? With all that process fairness has going for it, one powerfulness expect that executives would practice it regularly. Unfortunately, many (if not most) dont. Theyd do well to get hitched with the example of Winston Churchill, who keenly understood the cost-effectiveness of process fairness. On the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Churchill wrote a declaration of war to the Japanese, endin g it as follows I have the honour to be, with high consideration, Sir, Your obedient 126W h y I ts S o H a rd t o B e Fa i r B E S T P R A C T I C E been considered) when revealing it would have done far more good. Legal and medical advocates in Hawaii, for instance, are soon drafting a statute that would allow health allot professionals to beg off for medical errors without increasing the risk of lawsuits. Doctors often refrain from apologizing for mistakes because they fear that admitting them will anger their patients, who will then be more likely to ? le malpractice suits. In fact, the opposite is true Patients who feel theyve been treated disrespectfully ? e more malpractice suits than those who feel they have been treated with dignity. By making apologies for medical mistakes inadmissible during a trial, the law would let doctors express regrets without disconsolategering that doing so would hurt them in court. Managers who unwaveringly believe that knowledge is force ou t may fear that engaging in process fairness will weaken their power. After all, if employees have a voice in decision making how things should be lapse, who needs a manager? Managers sometimes do run the risk of losing power when they involve others in decision making.But usually the practice of process fairness increases power and in? uence. When employees feel that they are heard in the decision-making process, they are more likely to support rather than merely comply with those decisions, their bosses, and the organization as a whole. The desire to avoid uncomfortable smears is another reason managers fail to practice process fairness. As Robert Folger of the University of primordial Florida has suggested, managers who plan and implement tough decisions often experience con? icting emotions. They might want to approach the affected parties out of sympathy and to explain the hinking rear end a decision, but the desire to avoid them is also strong. Andy Molinsky at Brandeis University and Harvard Business Schools Joshua Margolis analyzed why managers ? nd it so hard to perform necessary evils (such as laying off employees and delivering other bad news) with interpersonal sensitivity, which is an important element of process fairness. Leaders in this situation have to manage their own internal dramas, including feelings of guilt (for, say, making poor strategic decisions that led to the downsizing) and anxiety (about having suf? ient interpersonal sensitivity to accomplish the task gracefully). Instead of wrestling with those uncomfortable emotions, many managers ? nd it easier to sidestep the issueand the people affected by it altogether. Emotional contagion also comes into maneuver in these situations. near as we tend to laugh when we see others laugh, even when we dont know why, we also involuntarily feel importunate or sad when those around us feel that way and thats uncomfortable. No wonder so many managers avoid people in emotional pain. Unfor tunately, such avoidance makes it very unlikely that they will practice process fairness.Breadth. Depth. Performance. Leadership. Tuck Executive Program July 22August 11 Leading high-potential and senior executives to new levels of business performance inlet to Business Management April 30May 5 & November 12-17 Delivering skills and perspective utilitarian managers need for advancement Finance Essentials for Senior Managers September 1015 Offering greater accountability and transparency in your organization New Branding Imperatives May 79 Presenting strategies for maximizing brand rightfulness and competitive positioning www. tuck. dartmouth. edu/exec 603-646-2839 tuck. xec. emailprotected edu B E S T P R A C T I C E W h y I ts S o H a rd t o B e Fa i r I can understand how managers feel. Several years ago, I was working with a telecommunications organization after the ? rst layoffs in the companys history. The CEO and his senior management team wanted me to talk to the midlevel managers about how the layoffs would affect the people who remained and what they could do to help their direct reports get over it. Feeling betrayed and fearful, however, the midlevel managers were in no mood to help others return to business as usual. They identi? d me with the problem and implied that I was partly responsible for the decision to downsize. That was a moment of real insight for me Trying to counsel this unhappy and suspicious group, I completely understood the discomfort that managers experience when theyre called on to act compassionately toward people who feel aggrieved. It was much harder than I expected. The senior managers of the company admitted to me that they were tempted to avoid the rank and ? le partly out of guilt and partly because they doubted whether they would be able to keep a cool enough head to practice process fairness.Thats a natural response, but ignoring negative emotions only keeps them swirling around longer. When senior managers made themselves more accessible to their workforce, employees reacted positively, and the organization developed a renewed sense of purpose. ter able to cope with (and hence not act on) their negative emotions. Furthermore, managers are more likely to endure a dif? cult process when they know that the effort will have a tangible payoff. But its not enough for managers to be vaguely aware that process fairness is cost effective. Corporate executives should educate them about all the ? nancial bene? ts, using charts and ? ures, just as they would when making a business case for other important organizational initiatives. Invest in procreation. Study after study has shown that fair-process training can make a big difference. Subordinates of the trained managers, for instance, are When I was working with an executive at a utility company several years ago, for example, I noticed that she made a common mistake She didnt tell others that she had seriously considered their opinions before maki ng her decisions, even though she had. I advised her to preface her explanations by saying explicitly that she had given their input some serious thought. Six months later, she told me my advice had been priceless. She learned that its not enough for executives just to be fair, they also have to be seen as fair. Training is most effective when its delivered in several installments rather than all at once. For example, one suc- Its not enough for executives just to be fair they also have to be seen as fair. Toward Process Fairness Companies can take several steps to make fair process the norm. Address the knowledge gaps. Managers need to be warned about the negative emotions they might experience when practicing fair process.Merely acknowledging that it is legitimate to feel like ? eeing the picture can help managers withstand the impulse to do so. Studies have shown that people can tolerate negative experiences more easily when they expect them. Just as forewarned surgical patients have been found to experience less postoperative pain, forewarned managers may be bet128 not only signi? cantly less likely to steal or to resign from the organization, but they are also more likely to go the extra mile aiding coworkers who have been absent, helping orient new employees, assisting supervisors with their duties, and working overtime.Several studies by Jerald Greenberg have even found that employees whose managers underwent process fairness training suffered signi? cantly less insomnia when coping with stressful work conditions. Daniel Skarlicki, of the University of British Columbias Sauder School of Business, and Gary Latham, of the University of Torontos Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, have identi? ed some factors of an effective process fairness training class. Participants respond better to active guidance than to a lecture on the bene? ts of im turn up process fairness.Thats why its particularly effective to give trainees speci? c book of instructions on what they need to do and how they need to do it, such as how to detect resistance to a new strategic initiative. After the participants have practiced these behaviors, give them feedback and let them try again. cessful program consisted of a two-hour seance each week for eight weeks, along with assigned role-playing homework. That way, participants could receive feedback from instructors during the formal training sessions and from their peers in between meetings.As with most constructive feedback, referring to behaviors (You never explained why you made this decision) rather than to traits (You came across as condescending) proved to be most compelling. Both the process and the outcome of the training need to be communicated to participants but not at the same time. Before the sessions amaze, focus on the outcome. Participants are likely to be far more engaged if they are told that the program will help them gain their employees commitment to strategy implementation than if they are told it will help them communicate that theyve seriously considered other peoples points of view.During the course, however, focus on process. Thinking about expected outcomes (improved strategy implementation, for instance) can distract people from learning the speci? c functional skills they need (such harvard business review as how to involve people in decision making) to achieve the desired results. Finally, it is important for trainees to maintain expectations that are both optimistic and realistic. Once again, the distinction between outcome and process is helpful to keep in mind.You can generate optimism by stress on the outcomes Touting the improvements that previous trainees have made should help people feel positive about their own chances for growth. And you can inject realism by focusing on the process Behavioral change is dif? cult and rarely takes a linear course. Trainees shouldnt expect to get better at process fairness day by day but, if they keep workin g at it, they will improve. I suggest trainees ask themselves trio months after the program if they are practicing process fairness more on average than they were three months prior to it.Conducting after-action reviews also helps managers continue to hone their skills long after the training sessions are over. Make process fairness a top priority. resembling most managerial behaviors, the practice of process fairness must begin at the top. When senior managers explain why they have made authentic strategic decisions, make themselves available for honest two-way communication with the rank and ? le, involve employees in decision making, provide ample advance notice of change, and treat peoples concerns with respect, the practice of process fairness is likely to spread like wild? e throughout the rest of the organization. By modeling process fairness, senior management does more than communicate organizational values it also sends a pass about the art of the possible. multitude are more likely to try to tackle dif? cult challenges when they see others whom they respect doing so. In one company that was trying to implement a much-needed restructuring, senior executives effectively served as role models not only by describing the mixed feelings they had about practicing process fairness but also by articulating the process they went through that ultimately convinced them to do march 2006 o. The message they sent was that it was legitimate for operational managers to have mixed emotions, but, at the end of the day, the reasons in favor of practicing process fairness prevailed. In addition to acting as role models, senior managers may communicate the value they place on process fairness by making its practice a legitimate topic of conversation throughout the organization. I worked with one company, for example, that selected its employee of the month based on process fairness skills as well as bottom-line results.Other organizations have made managers annual pay raises partly dependent on 360-degree feedback about how they plan and implement decisions, in which perceptions of process fairness ? gure prominently. modern corporate scandals show that giving workforces outcome-only directives (I dont care how you get there, just get there) can be disastrous. Forwardthinking organizations care not only about the outcomes their managers call forth but also about the fairness of the process they use to achieve them. This is not a call for micromanagement.Just as there is usually more than one way to produce ? nancial results, there is more than one way to involve people in decision making, to communicate why certain actions are being undertaken, and to express thoughtfulness and concern. There is a moral imperative for companies to practice process fairness. It is, simply put, the right thing to do. As such, process fairness is the province of all executives, at all levels, and in all functions it cannot be delegated to HR. But with that m oral responsibility comes business opportunity.An executive must minimize the costs of decisions that might threaten employees and maximize the bene? ts of decisions that may be sources of opportunity for them. In both instances, practicing process fairness will help get you there. The before you realize it, the better off you and your company will be. Reprint R0603H To order, see page 151. A new, surprising, and authoritative take on an important aspect of modern society that most people just dont know about. Toby Lester, Deputy Managing Editor, The Atlantic Monthly Fred Reichheld is the godfather of customer loyalty. His new book, The Ultimate Question, continues to push the envelope with innovative, practical ideas. John Donahoe, President, eBay Marketplace perceptive analysis brought to life by references to real people and real situations. Kieran C. Poynter, Chairman, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLp forthcoming WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD, INCLUDING 5th Ave. & 46th St. , NYC Rockef eller Center 5th Ave. & forty-eighth St. , NYC HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PRESS www. HBSPress. org