Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia are fellow Certified Management Consultants; they look at the future of organizations, one eye on the bottom line, the other on the people, to come up with a focused - and balanced - vision of the successful enterprise of the twenty-first century.

At first glance, the concepts of "Lean" and "Meaningful" appear to occupy opposite sides of the corporate spectrum. Lean and mean? In the current parlance, yes. Profitable? Not too likely as the power shifts from employER to employEE.

You've likely already read a number of books and articles observing the demise of the lifetime (and even multi- generational) work at a single employer and the transition to employees as a kind of general contractor, with full control over their careers. Some observers even go so far as to suggest that individuals eventually will be selling shares in themselves, becoming a "franchise" similar to that of an athlete or perhaps a Martha Stewart.

What Herman and Gioia have done in "Meaningful" is to articulate for savvy employers what they must do to keep these newly-independent franchises (the ones they want, that is) in their productive employ.

Chapter 3 "Becoming Lean" starts out: "Lean is an attitude." Indeed. And for a woefully large number of organizations now afflicted with corporate anorexia, WHAT an attitude!

In chapters 6 through 19 Herman and Gioia present more than 200 mini-cases as examples of organizations illustrating the impressive bottom-line value in practicing one or more of their "10 Elements of Meaningfulness;" each chapter concludes with Key Concepts, and Action Plan and End Notes for reference.

As in "Intellectual Capital" above, "Lean and Meaningful" pays an extra dividend at the back. Chapter 20 "Getting Started" offers a practical approach to the daunting task of changing a corporate culture that no longer works. This final chapter is followed a list of additional reading; resources with full contact information, including Web site addresses; and their "piece de resistance", one-page commentaries on the concepts of this book by the likes of Jim McCann, CEO of 1-800-FLOWERS and Perry D. Odak, President and CEO of Ben & Jerry's.

Visit the book's Web site at www.leanandmeaningful.com and click on the address below to purchase it at a discount from Amazon.com: