Being No. 2

FORMER HEWLETT-PACKARD CEO CARLY FIORINA seriously erred by not hiring a "strong, capable" COO to help manage the company through the Compaq merger. That's one of the insights you will take away from "Riding Shotgun: The Role of the COO" (2006, Stanford Business Books). Hopefully, you'll also take away from this book a greater understanding of when companies would be well advised to create a COO position, what a COO's role is and who might best be a COO. This is not an academic exercise, although

one of the book's authors, Nathan Bennett, is a management professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. (His co-author is Stephen A. Miles, a partner in the leadership practice at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.) "COOs occupy a position that is unique structurally, strategically, socially, and politically," the authors assert Significantly, this book provides the opportunity to learn about the COO not only from the authors but also, through example, from IBM's Sam Palmisano, Dell's Kevin Rollins and other COOs past and present

-JOHN S. MCCLENAHEN