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Chapter 1, Service Growth (10 pages), considers the development of the service economy across several segments, including professional, business, government, and education. The author reviews trends in service growth and explains the factors that predict continued growth in service jobs, including the aging population's need for services, customer demand for sophisticated services, and market expectations for technology-based service improvement. He explores how a service enterprise can maximize resources such as employees, knowledge, and technology, and suggests that there are two approaches to service leadership-strategic differentiation and operational excellence-each of which is explored in subsequent chapters.

In Chapter 2, Strategic Differentiation (40 pages), the author explores one of the two basic approaches to service leadership: creating strategic differentiation. This approach is focused on the creation of innovative service offerings. Chang defines core and supplemental service elements and how services have a life cycle, much like products. He reviews methods for idea generation and provides an in-depth look at the "DeepThink" approach. He explains how to achieve success by using DeepThink within a virtual team structure. He considers key issues in determining which ideas to pursue, such as financial viability and marketplace success, and outlines a stage-gate process to address the five main issues in service innovation. He looks at the importance of customer satisfaction and retaining learning from the innovation process. He describes the responsibilities of service enterprise leaders and concludes with practical insight for managers. The chapter includes two appendices for implementing a DeepThink methodology and one appendix on evaluating financial viability.

Having explored one approach to service excellence (strategic differentiation through innovation) in Chapter 2, Chang explores his second approach in Chapter 3, Operational Excellence (49 pages), which focuses on improving work productivity. He explores how managers can improve service speed, quality, and cost through a combination of the Lean principle and Six Sigma methodology. He reviews web-based tools for customer relationship management, enterprise resource management, and project management tools, and provides real-world examples of each. He explores emerging web services used by companies like Amazon.com and provides an in-depth analysis of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the important implications for managers. He shares insight into the implementation of programs that improve business operations and outlines practical steps and key considerations. The chapter includes an appendix on the using Lean Six Sigma as a service model.

In Chapter 4, Take Charge-Conclusions (16 pages), the author summarizes the knowledge, skills, and values that he considers essential to service leadership. He reviews the foundational skills and capabilities that are essential to all service professionals. He presents a Three-Decker Knowledge Architecture that outlines twelve additional skill sets that are critical for advanced leadership. He considers a model for leadership and provides a list of ten habits for successful service professionals. He frames the challenges facing the service industry in six dimensions: inside, outside, present, future, local, and global, and summarizes research on global economic growth. He explains the importance of satisfying the five key stakeholders and maps his two paths to service excellence to each stakeholder. He concludes with an overview of his "Take Charge" model for service professionals and leaders to achieve service excellence.