cover image The Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family

The Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family

Jeff Benedict. Business Plus, $25.99 (231pp) ISBN 978-0-446-57859-2

Honesty, integrity and dedication to family and church may be old-fashioned values, but Benedict shows here that they jibe with tremendous success in the cutthroat world of business. In a conversational narrative, Benedict relates the stories of seven Mormon business leaders-five CEOs (including those of Dell Computers, JetBlue and Deloitte & Touche), one CFO (of American Express), and the former dean of Harvard Business School-to discover how these devout professionals tackle modern workplace problems. In order to meet the challenge of ""winning and winning cleanly,"" Benedict doesn't proselytize, but rather draws practical rules from his subjects' stories and actions, such as ""Compete within your power alley,"" ""Own the high ground"" and ""Don't put yourself in a position to be tempted."" He also shows what advantages stem from the tenants of a Mormon lifestyle, such as tithing, abstaining from drugs, avoiding work on the weekend, volunteering for Church leadership positions and raising large families. With the exception of a late chapter collecting his subjects' 9/11 experiences (which includes the unfortunate section title, ""Losing $150 Million in One Day""), Benedict's point is clearly and entertainingly explicated: do you need to be Mormon to succeed in business? No, but it doesn't hurt.