Jeremy Eden - Low-hanging fruit 77 eye-opening ways to improve productivity and profits: [Summary]

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Cover design: Michael J. Freeland

Copyright 2014 by Jeremy Eden and Terri Long. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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As co-CEOs of Harvest Earnings Group, we are asked all the time how it works to jointly run a company. Our answer is that being co-CEOs works great! You have heard that two heads are better than one? It turns out that it is true. People who run a company or a division should always check their egos at the door. When you co-run a company with someone you respect, the ego checking comes naturally. We are each others voice of reason. People tell us we are amazingly simpatico, but sometimes one of us is the yin to the others management yang. What can we say? It works for us, and, if it didnt, Harvest Earnings and Low-Hanging Fruit would not exist.

We feel that this would be the spot where we would normally thank our families for waiting patiently for dinner to be put on the table as we slaved over the book. But that would be untrue. No dinner was delayed in the making of this book. However, we would like to thank our spouses, Nancy Marder and Joe Long, whose never-ending support allows us to chase our dreams! In addition to that never-ending support, Nancy graciously helped by using one of her superpowers: editing. She is almost scary in her ability to spot a grammatical error, a typo, or even an extra space. But after a long day as a law professor, who wouldnt love to come home and proofread this book? And Joe did get most of those aforementioned dinners on the table and, along the way, offered helpful tidbits like, Just pick a cover design already!

And thanks to Terris wonderful kids, Joey and Lily, for providing lots of fun stories to distract us from the task at hand. Whether on the soccer field, on the stage, preparing college applications, or just plain hanging out, you brighten the days. We would also like to acknowledge Jeni and her husband, Todd, who should move to Chicago immediately.

No acknowledgment would be complete without a very special thank you to Jeremys parents, Burt and Judi Eden. They are amazing in the true sense of the word. They have taught humor, passion, curiosity, and love through example! They are our biggest supportersfrom frequent e-mails giving us great ideas to the most thorough, cheerleading-leavened critique of an early draft of this book.

Thanks to Jeremys sister, Amy, and Terris brother and sister, Ben and Jan, for reading drafts and giving us perspective. Amy, a social worker, and Jan, a psychologist, told us that even in their decidedly nonbusiness worlds, the book is relevant! And thanks to Jan for showing us that our chapters were sticky, but please stop telling Terri, You cant get this wrong (see Chapter 71)!

We have also had the good fortune through the years to have many wonderful colleagues and friends. You know who you are. An extra-special thanks to Anirudha, Beth, Carol, Gordon, Henry, Jim, Karl, Malcolm, Marie, Mary Anne, Mick, Ralph, and Richard, Robin, Roxann, Sara, Shannon, Shawn, Steve, and Yoram.

Thanks to Bill Gladstone, founder of Waterside Productions, and to Richard Narramore, our managing editor at Wiley, for robbing us of the ability to say we were rejected as many times as J. K. Rowling! You believed in us right away. We would also like to thank the Wiley team of Lauren, Melissa, Peter, and Tiffany.

Thanks to the CEOs and executives of so many of the worlds great companies for trusting us to help their teams put into practice what you will read in this book. We have worked with so many wonderful people that naming just a few seems impossible. If we were at the Academy Awards, loud music would definitely be drowning us out to get us off the stage.

So as our last but definitely not least acknowledgment, we would like to recognize the people who come to work every day with the goal of making their companies better and their customers happier. We want to thank the literally thousands of managers with whom we have worked over the years who accomplish that goal. We learn so much and have so much fun working with you. It is our goal to make sure you learn and have fun, too!

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.

Peter Drucker

We have written this book out of frustration that you likely share.

We have had the great fortune of working with many successful CEOs of great companies who wanted to give life, not just lip service, to the phrase, Our people are our most important asset. When we work with their employees, up and down the organizational chart, in countless locations, and with every function, we hear, Finally, someone is going to listen to our ideas to make our company better. We are always struck by the palpable relief they feel.