Coauthored by top Nordstrom salesman Patrick McCarthy and based on veteran journalist Robert Spector's exclusive, in-depth interviews with the Nordstrom family, senior executives, directors, and salespeople, The Nordstrom Way offers the first inside, uncensored book about this much admired - and much feared - retail powerhouse.

Working at Nordstrom is not for everyone. The authors describe a hotly competitive "Darwinian" culture where 35,000 employees are given freedom to either think and act like entrepreneurs or pass into extinction.

In the course of their analysis, the authors isolate practical lessons that readers can apply to both their professional and personal lives, including becoming "other-centered" rather than "self-centered," valuing the nobility of service, finding and bonding with customers, serving and keeping those customers, and giving frontline people the freedom to make decisions.