Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Win in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term

As a disclaimer up-front, I worked for Dave Cote throughout his Honeywell career as part of the global Communications team. I didn't write this book, but I lived through it and helped support the communication around many of the concepts he covers within its pages as they rolled out real time.Dave has a distinctive style. He's a no-nonsense business leader who leavens his commentary with storytelling and humor. If you sat through one of his business meetings, you never failed to learn something. He not only focused on the most important issues at hand, but he was always teaching. He said Honeywell was the "thinking company," and you can see why when you read through the numerous lessons. Whether you're trying to figure out how to manage inventory and customer satisfaction at the same time, build an M&A strategy that actually works from conception to integration, or pick your successor through one of the most rigorous processes you'll ever see a company follow, Dave provides a ton of insights. As I read the book, I couldn't help thinking it's one of those books you probably need to re-read and then refer back to.The Honeywell story under Dave is a compelling one. When Dave arrived at Honeywell in February 2002, the culture wars he talks about were real. People still thought in terms of which part of the company they came from -- the red side (legacy Honeywell) or the blue side (AlliedSignal) ... or neither (Pittway). The technology cupboard was relatively bare. The M&A record was disastrous, with most people urging the company to simply not do it. There were real pockets of strength and some good leaders, but the performance culture wasn't there in most places. Dave didn't tear everything apart when he arrived, but rather he rebuilt the company one piece at a time -- "brick by brick" was a common phrase used to describe his approach, and it applied. Dave kept his priorities simple and consistent. Goals didn't change every year. How you did things, as defined by the 12 Behaviors he introduced, was as important as what you did. And Dave finally settled the longstanding debate over who wrote the performance review (the manager, not the employee) and whether the review should be accompanied by the merit increase decision (yes!). Dave always said it was much harder for the manager to gloss over a difficult performance review when the pay increase was low or zero -- it forced candor into the conversation and hopefully a better outcome for all involved.Just as a sports team starts with fundamentals before introducing more complexity into its game plan, so did Honeywell under Dave. He introduced the Honeywell Operating System (HOS) to standardize and improve the way the manufacturing plants ran, and then introduced Functional Transformation to standardize and improve the way the support functions ran -- better service, lower costs. He introduced HOS Gold to help all businesses with a blueprint to run better while developing new growth vectors. All while this was happening, Dave transformed Honeywell into a truly global company -- not just a bunch of expatriates parked in far-away offices, but local-for-local operations capable of taking on local competition.The measure of any leader isn't just what they accomplish during their tenure but what follows. The selection of Darius Adamczyk as Dave's successor was both innovative and data-driven. Dave gave a lot of thought as to how best to proceed. He read the literature and he looked at what many other companies had done. He noticed what led to successful outcomes and what didn't, and he devised a plan that made sense for Honeywell. Rather than pick the leader who would do everything his way, he picked the leader who could think independently, blaze his own path and handle whatever the future would bring.Ultimately, while the book is crammed with insights and lessons from an accomplished CEO, more important, it's an invitation to think hard about the way you do things, and don't accept that you can't achieve contradictory purposes at the same time. You can win now and win later, but it comes from doing the mental work up-front and then driving the necessary rigor in execution. As Dave would say, anybody can talk -- the trick is in the doing.

Finished the book today feeling energized and satisfied. One of the things I really appreciated was that as I read through the different concepts and the associated anecdotes, I heard the same voice I heard on those many quarterly town halls and leadership meetings. Dave is true to his character at every turn. The real-life anecdotes really help bring home the key points - which are logically and clearly organized and presented.Like others, I lived much of this during my time at Honeywell (2007-2018). However, I had no idea of how difficult things were at the beginning. By 2007, Honeywell was rounding the bend toward consistently good results. Then the recession came and instead of slashing the company to the bone, we stayed on the gas, operating with greater caution and frugality to be sure, sticking to our plans and emerged even stronger. It was an exhilarating time to be there.And shout out to the many great leaders I encountered at Honeywell - John Hakanson, Mark Levy, Todd Rief, and especially Rhonda Germany Ballintyn for her great leadership and teaching an entire organization the importance of sound product management and marketing. But that could be the subject of a book of its own.

Having worked at Honeywell during most of the time described in this book; I can say, first hand, that the author changed a culture and how it did business to bring it from the verge of extinction to becoming one of the best run companies in the world. This book is inspiring on many levels and is like a manual to success. Honeywell went through some tough times and Mr. Cote would not accept failure or the status quo. I bought four additional copies and handed them out at the company where I currently work. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to clearly understand what it takes to build and earn success both long and short term.

I read (or start reading and put down) many business books. But this is probably one of the best I've read as far as immediately being able to incorporate these practices into my own leadership style. This is such a great and valuable prospective that you rarely get from an industry leader. Immediately - I have started working on my Executive Summaries and realizing - THEY ARE BAD! Because a lot of times I'm not sure what the question was that was asked by my executives OR what I need from them. Immediately, I started asking my boss more questions about my our projects and doing more research on how to do our projects right. Second, I let people delegate up. I never realized this! I thought - well, if I'm not willing to do this, how can I expect my staff to? But that doesn't allow people to grow. I really liked the part of the book where he talked about his transition with Darius Adamczyk, especially when he talked about methods they used to build trust. I can use that right away in my relationships with my co-workers. Overall, the insights he gave for short-term versus long-term gains were easy to understand. The book is really well written even when it deals with complex business strategies. I'm a big fan. (Full disclosure, I work for Vertiv where David Cote is currently Executive Chairman, but that didn't influence this review in any way and, after reading this book, I'm buying more Vertiv stock.)

I am a very entrepreneurial, small business owner and I have struggled with thinking about longer term issues, when very focussed on short term client deliverables. I used Dave Cote's book to explore how I need to create paths for both long term and short term objectives -- namely making sure to ensure time reserved for the long term and not being too focussed only on the immediate "what do I have to do today".His writing also gives a really great glimpse into a huge company with really important challenges that can make your head spin.There is humor and just some great insights that I really enjoyed.Also a great gift for clients, which is what I am considering this holiday season.

Excellent book, well worth the money

One of the best strategy and operations management books so far.

Brilliant book, full of very useful insight into running high performance businesses

First of all i would suggest to anyone who is interested to understand how a corporation works or can work, to read this book. I find this book simple and entirely different from similar CEOs books I have been reading in the past years. This book is about a bottom up approach, about company culture and respect, it’s about simple processes and approaches that I have been experiencing sometime in the opposite direction in other global companies.Certainly Mr Cote wrote a success story of Honeywell that he did manage to bring from a critical situation to be a successful global company. Read the book, analyse the real life examples that are given and if you are above 45 you will certainly recall what globalisation, internet, hi-tech meant just 20 years ago and see how they have been managed at Honeywell (company that until June i just knew by name and by some products used in the business where I work).I have been working from late ninety for a successful American Corporation and many things that Mr Cote pointed out in his book were just done almost in the opposite way with the opposite results of Honeywell...therefore I would have never expected to read a book from an American CEO telling things so pragmatically that, when they were told years back in the organisation I have been working they were simply ignored.This book has been written for CEOs but I would strongly suggest to anyone who want to know something more on how successful organisations can be driven to win.If you are below 40, don’t just say that’s an old stuff not applicable in our days.....the opposite, what is written is ageless it’s the behaviour that those people growing up in a company put in what they do: passion, respect, leadership.