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In the craze to create leaner, meaner, and more flexible organizations,
many companies impose change programs that actually cast them adrift. This book
offers a clear vision of why your company needs to be transformed and a concrete
process for making it happen. The Transformation Imperative
shows why change initiatives like reengineering, continuous improvement, and employee
empowerment, when implemented by themselves, are not enough to achieve dominance
in today's rapidly evolving business environment. Only when change programs are
deep and fully integrated across the organization can an enterprise truly be transformed.
And the alternative to transformation, says the author, is certain destruction.
Drawing on the research efforts of Manufacturing 2000, a collaborative
project between leading multinational companies and the International Institute
for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland, The Transformation Imperative
presents useful tools and a practical framework for analyzing, implementing, and
measuring change programs as well as for linking big-picture strategy with the
nuts-and-bolts of change management. Vollmann poses four
key questions that managers must ask of every transformation initiative:
- Is it integrated with the long-term goals of the company?
- Is
it consistent with the company's culture?
- Is it
feasible based on available resources -- and could they be applied better elsewhere?
- Is
it desirable for all who must implement it?
The
Transformation Imperative offers challenging concepts and sound advice for
any company setting its sights on real change, not just "better sameness." Thomas
P. Vollmann is professor of manufacturing management and associate director of
the Manufacturing 2000 project at IMD International in Lausanne, Switzerland.
He is the author of eleven books, including The New Manufacturing Challenge
and Benchmarking Environmental Performance.
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