HESKETT, J(ames) L(ee) 1933-

PERSONAL:

Born May 8, 1933, in Cedar Falls, IA; son of Gail Stewart (a farmer) and Leone (Stein) Heskett; married Marilyn Louise Taylor (a teacher), July 13, 1955; children: Sarah Louise, Charles Taylor, Benjamin. Education: Iowa State Teachers College (now University of Northern Iowa), A.B., 1954; Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, M.B.A., 1958, Ph.D., 1960.

ADDRESSES:

Home—233 Prospect St., Belmont, MA 02178. Office—Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02163. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and author. Ohio State University, Columbus, assistant professor, 1960-63, associate professor of business organization, 1963-65; Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston, MA, associate professor, 1965-69, professor of business logistics, 1969—, became UPS Foundation Professor of Business Logistics and Baker Foundation Professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration, senior associate dean for educational programs, 1980-83. Logistics Systems, Inc., president, 1968-69. Has served as consultant to industries in North America, Latin America, and Europe. Has provided consulting services to Hamilton Consultants. Has also served as director of Cardinal Distribution, Distribution Centers, Inc., Community Music Center, Boston, MA, Equitable of Iowa Companies, First Security Services Corporation, Instituto Panamericano de Alta Direccion de Empresa (IPADE) Business School (Mexico), INCAE business school (Costa Rica), and The Window Shop, Inc. Member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Business Logistics and the International Journal of Service Industry Management. Member of board of directors of Office Depot, First Security Services Corporation, Limited Brands, and Intelliseek. Member of the advisory boards of the ING Group (North America) and MacTemps. Military service: U.S. Army, 1954-56; served in Europe.

MEMBER:

Society of Logistics and Engineers (director), American Marketing Association, American Association of University Professors, National Council on Physical Distribution Management, American Society of Traffic and Transportation, Transportation Research Forum (board of trustees).

AWARDS, HONORS:

M.A., Harvard University, 1970; Alumni Achievement Award, University of Northern Iowa, 1971; John Drury Shehan Award, National Council on Physical Distribution Management, 1974; Marketing Educator of the Year Award, Sales and Marketing Executives International, 1992.

WRITINGS:

(With Donald Peery Cottrell) Supplement to Education for Business, Chapman, Evans & Delehanty (New York, NY), 1962.

(With Gayton E. Germane and Nicholas A. Glaskowsky, Jr.) Highway Transportation Management, McGraw (New York, NY), 1963.

(With Robert M. Ivie and Nicholas A. Glaskowsky, Jr.) Business Logistics: Management of Physical Supply and Distribution, Ronald Press (New York, NY), 1964, 2nd edition published as Business Logistics: Physical Distribution and Materials Management, Ronald Press (New York, NY), 1973.

(Editor) Business Logistics, Appraisal, and Prospect (papers from the Business Logistics Forum), Stanford University, Graduate School of Business (Stanford, CA), 1965.

(With others) Case Problems in Business Logistics, Ronald Press (New York, NY), 1973.

Marketing, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1976.

Student Resource Manual to Accompany Marketing, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1976.

(With Roy D. Shapiro) Logistics Strategy: Cases and Concepts, West (St. Paul, MN), 1985.

Managing in the Service Economy, Harvard Business School Press (Boston, MA), 1986.

(With W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Christopher W. L. Hart) Service Breakthroughs: Changing the Rules of the Game, Free Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(With W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Christopher W. L. Hart) The Service Management Course: Cases and Readings, Free Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(With John P. Kotter) Corporate Culture and Performance, Free Press (New York, NY), 1992.

(With W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger) The Service Profit Chain: How Leading Companies Link Profit and Growth to Loyalty, Satisfaction, and Value, Free Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(With W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger) The Value Profit Chain: Treat Employees like Customers and Customers like Employees, Free Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor of articles to business, marketing, and transportation journals such as Harvard Business Review and Managing Service Quality.

SIDELIGHTS:

J. L. Heskett's many years at Harvard Business School and in the playing field of corporate America have made him an expert on business management. Heskett has authored a series of books to help businesses learn how to satisfy customers, maintain profits, and reduce employee turnover. In Service Breakthroughs: Changing the Rules of the Game, Heskett and coauthors W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Christopher W. L. Hart examine corporate strategies used by successful companies to set themselves apart from the vast assortment of corporations in America. In this work, the authors begin to probe the value of meeting consumer needs to keep customers loyal to a business. Heskett and his coauthors use real-life examples of some of the best American corporations to prove just how much this strategy actually pays off.

In his work Corporate Culture and Performance, Heskett and coauthor John P. Kotter continue this line of thought, but focus more intently on the "culture" of corporations, examining the business practices, values, ethics, attitudes, and standards of different corporations in relation to their varying success rates. Using empirical evidence drawn from four major studies conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Heskett and Kotter conclude that a corporation with a strong culture is not necessarily guaranteed success. A successful corporate culture, they assert, is one that is adaptable and has sound leaders. The authors believe that a good corporate leader has "an insider's power base and an outsider's objectivity [and] continuous support at all levels of management," wrote Theodore B. Kinni in Industry Week. "The liberal use of case studies and statistical evidence make this a well-grounded starting point," concluded Kinni. Fortune magazine's Brian Dumaine felt that the book "could have used more discussion of how tough it is to change a culture," but also described it as "essentially a fine, meaty book." Dumaine also added that "if you're looking for a guide to understanding and changing your culture, you're not likely to do better."

Heskett wrote The Service Profit Chain: How Leading Companies Link Profit and Growth to Loyalty, Satisfaction, and Value, with Sasser, Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger. The book links the bases of his previous two books: customer satisfaction and loyalty and corporate culture. The authors provide an in-depth examination of the integral relationship between a company's productivity of useful goods and the satisfaction and loyalty of its customers. This book brings the customer's viewpoint into focus, helping to solidify the author's previous and continued claims about customer satisfaction. In a review of The Service Profit Chain for Booklist, Barbara Jacobs related that while the idea of the customer coming first is not revolutionary in itself, "the equations, formulas, research, and just plain common sense that three Harvard Business School professors apply to the process of creating a lifetime customer is definitely worth attention."

The Value Profit Chain: Treat Employees like Customers and Customers like Employees, also coauthored with Sasser, Jr. and Schlesinger, is a sequel to The Service Profit Chain and brings the ideas of these authors full circle. In this book, the authors conclude that a successful business is one that treats its employees with the same respect it offers its customers, and treats its customers as if they were as integral a part of the business as its employees. They offer a threefold formula for continued success: sound performance of "leadership and management, culture, and values, and vision and strategy," as stated by Jacobs in a Booklist review. However, Jacobs concluded that while "much of [the book] is stated in jargon, it is only when describing organizational excellence, wherever it exists, that the narrative loses its didactic style and becomes almost lyrical—and comprehensible to the average businessperson." A Publishers Weekly reviewer also noted that this book will appeal "mainly to academics and business professionals" but observed that "there are a few nuggets that will appeal to a broader audience, like the fact that the greeters near the entrance to Wal-Mart stores were originally put there to reduce shoplifting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 1, 1997, Barbara Jacobs, review of The Service Profit Chain: How Leading Companies Link Profit and Growth to Loyalty, Satisfaction, and Value, p. 1273; December 1, 2002, Barbara Jacobs, review of The Value Profit Chain: Treat Employees like Customers and Customers like Employees, p. 634.

Business Book Review, 1997, review of The Service Profit Chain, p. 104.

Choice, 1986, review of Managing in the Service Economy, p. 178.

Fortune, May 4, 1992, Brian Dumaine, review of Corporate Culture and Performance, p. 119.

HR Magazine, November, 1992, David S. Gold, review of Corporate Culture and Performance, p. 14.

Industry Week, October 15, 1990, Sue Gibson, review of Service Breakthroughs, p. 24; September 7, 1992, Theodore B. Kinni, review of Corporate Culture and Performance, p. 27.

Journal of Marketing, January, 1988, review of Managing in the Service Economy, p. 146.

Publishers Weekly, February 24, 1997, review of The Service Profit Chain, pp. 75-76; November 18, 2002, review of The Value Profit Chain, p. 51.

ONLINE

Hamilton Consultants Web site,http://www.hamiltonco.com/ (January 30, 2004), "Faculty Allies: James L. Haskett."

Harvard Business School Web site,http://pine.hbs.edu/ (January 30, 2004), "Faculty and Research Directories."

Harvard Business School Working Knowledge for Business Web site,http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (January 30, 2004), James L. Heskett, "What's Driving the 'New Marketing?'"

Means Business Web site,http://www.meansbusiness.com/ (January 30, 2004), summary of Corporate Culture and Performance.*