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Finally a book that provides commonsense
fad-free advice about how companies can change, grow, and
achieve high performance.
A team at McKinsey & Company set out
to discover why some companies were able to change and grow
to higher performance levels while most others got bogged
down. Their extensive research led to a surprising conclusion:
the make-or-break factor is not top management but a
new breed in the middle: Real Change Leaders. They're
middle managers and business professionals who are breaking
the mold of "good management" with a unique combination
of tough performance standards and a fresh sense of how
to inspire and motivate the workforce -- skills uniquely
in touch with the needs of today's marketplace and company
growth plans.
For a change effort to be successful, people
throughout the organization need to learn new skills and
behaviors. Real Change Leaders tells the story of
how this is taking place through the eyes of the people
who are making it happen -- middle managers on the front
lines, responsible for doing things like increasing revenues,
developing new products, changing the ways customers are
served, and improving financial performance. Examples include:
How the UNOCAL Los Angeles plant reduced
total operating costs by 20 percent while making layoffs
"out of bounds."
How real change leaders at General Electric
Motors set the basis for increasing return on total capital
from 0 to over 20 percent in three years.
How Compaq's operation in Scotland brought
the production cost of a computer down by two-thirds and
redefined every aspect of manufacturing from the workplace
to the role of supervisor.
These and other performance improvements
profiled in Real Change Leaders happened not from
the decree of the CEO alone but through intense, imaginative
efforts "down the line." The results show what
can happen when middle managers become real change leaders
and are given free rein to do real work. Instead of the
stereotypical report writers and information transmitters
reviled in the business press, they assume a new role: the
energizing linchpin between customers, employees, and senior
executives.
This is a book of immense value for both
senior executives and middle managers. For senior managers
it shows how companies are tapping this new source of leadership
capability and how these lessons can be implemented by their
own company. For middle managers, Real Change Leaders
shows how to assume a new role, one that will enable them
to produce at higher levels and enhance as well as keep
their jobs.
Real Change Leaders is the result of
a unique collaboration by a seven-person McKinsey &
Company team. Jon R. Katzenbach is a director of McKinsey
in Houston, Texas, and the co-author of the internationally
acclaimed bestseller The Wisdom of Teams. A leader
in McKinsey's organization change work for over twenty years,
he provides professional counsel and help to the leaders
of dozens of corporate change situations.
Steven Dichter, a principal in New York,
is the founder of the McKinsey Change Center, a research
and leadership development arm of McKinsey focused on helping
companies bring about major change in the skills and performance
of the workforce. Marc Feigen and Quentin Hope are leaders
in the center. Frederick Beckett and Timothy Ling are principals
in the firm's Los Angeles office, and Christopher Gagnon,
the team leader, is a principal in the New Jersey office.
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