The tried-and-tested rules so many business have lost sight of that determine lasting success - and how to put them into practice.

The messages of Enterprise Rules are hugely important. Organisations that manage to provide meaning to employees, satisfaction to customers and a net contribution to society can expect to prosper in the long term. This has been known for a long time, ever since the great Quaker entrepreneurs of the 19th century; but the focus of much contemporary enterprise has become distorted by an over-emphasis on short-term financial gains and reward without performance. The result is that many value-creating enterprises are undermined, customers are short-changed, people are exploited and the community impoverished. Many managers seem to have forgotten that they are mainly dependent on the skills and motivation of their staff and commitment of customers for their success.

Don Young draws both on the best research on what builds high performance and also on a lifetime of his and colleagues' hard and sometimes comical experience of success and failure. In a very readable way, he has blended experience with a rich understanding of the economic, financial, organisational, psychological contributions to building high achievement. This is topped by a profound examination of the positive and negative aspects of organisational politics and drawn together in practical guidance of how to plan and implement sustainable performance improvement.