Beat Yesterday

The greatest challenge facing business managers all over the world is not to achieve success. We all know of individuals, groups and organizations who have achieved amazing success since the turn of the century. However, many times these people achieved incredible results only to fall way, way back down. The greatest business challenge is not to achieve success. The greatest challenge is to sustain success over the long term. BEAT YESTERDAY: A Business Novel is filled with practical insights business managers all over the world can use to perform better today than they did yesterday, and better tomorrow than they do today. The primary topics in the book are leadership, branding, innovation, personal effectiveness and teamwork. BEAT YESTERDAY is the story of a frustrated middle-aged guy who is fighting every day to keep alive his purpose at work. The main character, Steve Clark, has been a high school math teacher and soccer coach for nineteen years. Much of his early idealism has worn off after years of grading papers and dealing with apathetic students. Forty-six years old and fifteen pounds overweight, Clark finds himself stuck in a dead-end job with nowhere to turn. What still stirs within him is the reason he got into high school teaching in the first place: to explain practical ideas students can use to achieve success and sustain it over the long term of their careers. Early in the story, Clark meets Tom O'Brien, the senior director of operations for a division of Clocks-For-All, Inc., an international company. Their worlds get turned upside-down as Steve helps Tom accelerate his impact within his company and Tom helps Steve spread his ideas to other business people through the formation of The Best Yesterday Club. Throughout the book, Steve struggles in applying his ideas effectively at home. His behaviors remind the reader it is not enough to know what to do. The key is to actually do what you believe in. In the climactic speech at the end of the book, Steve Clark teaches eleven shortcuts that can generate great short-term results, but will ruin the long-term performance of an individual, group and organization. He also explains the importance of mastering basic processes and the impact those approaches can have on generating long-term success.