Management Alert: Don't Reform—Transform!

I never give them hell.
I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.

Harry Truman

Preface

When I was asked to write a relatively short piece about key changes in management of today's enterprises, there appeared, at first glance, a large array of topics.

Upon reflection, the choices narrowed to just two.

The first and most important influence on the success or failure of a business is the top power holder.

A business organization, by definition, is not a democratic institution.

The buck begins and stops at the CEO level.

That's where full understanding of the new world situation must begin.

There also resides the ultimate responsibility for strategy, action, and results.

CEOs and their executive teams must change their ways, adapt faster, act differently, and perform better.

But they can't do it alone.

Thus, the second most important topic must be about people: the managers and the employees.

They also must undergo a revolution, carefully orchestrated and implemented by top management through new organization, better training, and broader empowerment

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The material for this book was gathered from personal experience as a consultant to many diverse corporations and through direct contacts with CEOs.

I also strongly believe in continuous gathering of information and clues of change by scanning hundreds of magazines, newspapers, and business and trade publications from all over the world.

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My message is a sincere attempt to help the reader adjust better to the fast-changing philosophies, strategies, and operations of a business.

Michael J. Kami

• Publisher's Message

• Preface

• The New CEO

  • Recommendations to The CEO

    • 1. Forget the past

    • 2. Think globally

    • 3. Internal change must be drastic

    • 4. Base your business on knowledge and information, not on things

    • 5. Form partnerships

    • 6. Create an information-based organization

    • 7. Reduce organizational levels

    • 8. Compress time

    • 9. Concentrate on core competencies in your business

    • 10. Prepare personnel for change in global markets and activities

    • 11. Empower your employees

    • 12. Manage talent

    • 13. Practice global benchmarking

    • 14. Consider reengineering

    • 15. Redefine your quality standards

    • 16. Act outside-in rather than inside-out

  • Traits of the New CEO

    • Global strategist

    • Knowledgeable technologist

    • Astute diplomat

    • Leader

    • Are these superhuman characteristics?

  • Speed, Change, and Stress

    • Executives must be psychologically prepared for new realities of rising management pressures

      • Work together and achieve higher objectives

      • Develop multicultural understanding

      • Must see the things invisible, anticipate change and love it

      • Must acquire knowledge through a lifelong, continuous program of learning and self-renewal

      • Must become computer literate to understand and intelligently access databases

      • Must be at ease in personal communications and capable of effective and fast resolution of conflicts

      • Must have the coaching and teaching ability to transfer and exchange personal knowledge …

      • Must be prepared for constant travel

      • Must adapt rapidly to unexpected changes in schedules, priorities, and results

      • Must develop flexible minds

    • A personal, thoughtful self-analysis is essential

  • The Role of Intuition in Top Management Decisions

  • Global Executive Ignorance

    • Staying Current

    • Staying Open

  • Focus and Flexibility

  • Real World Awareness

  • Decentralization and Horizontal Organization

    • The Horizontal Organization

    • How the Horizontal Organization Functions

      • Organize around a process, not around a task

      • Emphasize flow

      • Assign ownership of processes and process performance to a team

      • Link performance and evaluation to the satisfaction of the customer

      • Teams must have the ability, responsibility, and authority to make decisions

      • Concentrate on team building

      • Maximize contact with the outside world

      • Reward team performance, not individual performance

      • Horizontal organization is geared to a well-defined aim and a measurable outcome

  • Long-Range Plans

    • The New Process of Long-Range Planning

      • Set a few basic assumptions

      • Establish desirable internal goals and objectives that are not cast in concrete

      • Teams from all parts of the business must propose many innovative action programs

      • We must calculate the costs and devise means of reversibility

      • Three distinct alternatives of actions and policies

      • Specifically identify flexibility as a major management objective

      • Summary

    • Communicating Goals and Strategies

      • Objectives and policies proclaimed by top management must be realistic and credible

      • It takes honest face-to-face and one-on-one personal communication

      • When the grass roots realize that someone upstairs really listens …

  • Key Measurements

  • Benchmarking and Reengineering Revisited

    • Benchmarking

    • Reengineering

  • Cost Management

• People

  • Introduction :: a major demographic revolution is changing the American work force and workplace

  • Addressing the Workplace Revolution

    • Understand cultural diversity

    • Train for entry-level

    • Train for multi-skilled tasks

    • Hire and manage older workers

    • Conclusions

  • Knowledge Workers

    • The Knowledge-Dependent Society

    • Actions

  • Corporate Loyalty

  • Costly Personnel Turnover

    • There are three parts to the solution

      • 1. Pre-hiring investment

      • 2. Training

      • 3. Internal culture and job conditions

  • Job Satisfaction

    • Flexible Policies

    • Challenge and Reward in Flat Organizations

  • Teamwork

    • What Is Employee Involvement?

    • Pros and Cons of Self-Managing Teams

      • Pros for the Workers

      • Pros for the Company

      • Cons for the Workers

      • Cons for the Company

    • Recommendations

  • Job Training

    • Follow a thoughtful and thorough review of the needs and potentials of your work force

      • Review the educational and technical skills of every employee

      • Determine the levels of competence necessary for minimum and good performance

      • Prepare a gap analysis

      • Professionally design teaching and training methods for groups and individuals

      • Reallocate budgets to accommodate the necessary funds

      • Prepare a psychological profile of every employee to determine whether your workers are team players

      • Follow a thoughtful and thorough review of the needs and potentials of your work force-7

      • Don't neglect a continuous, organized, unbiased feedback …

    • Committing to Change

• Final Comments

  • The determinant of a business success or failure depends on several factors, in a pyramidal form

    • The ability of the big boss to change their thinking, habits, and perception of the future

    • The willpower of the CEO to acquire additional knowledge …

    • The team's ability to communicate and implement the necessary changes

    • The application of enough resources

    • The determination and perseverance to make the changes a continuous way of life

  • Executives have a responsibility
    
    All businesses face global competition, new technologies, new societies, and changing markets and customers
    
    Some companies will succeed; some will disappear.
    
    Economically, it's a zero-sum game; for every winner there must be a loser.
    
    But for millions of people, it's their life, their future, and their children's future.
    
    Executives have a responsibility to provide secure employment and hope for advancement for their people.
    
    Without them, owners and shareholders have no revenue, no profits, and no future.

• About the Author

• The Management Master Series

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence;

it is to act with yesterday’s logic”. — Peter Drucker

The shift from manual workers
who do as they are being told —
either by the task or by the boss —

TO knowledge workers
who have to manage themselves ↓

profoundly challenges social structure …

“Managing Oneself (PDF) is a REVOLUTION in human affairs.” …

“It also requires an almost 180-degree change in the knowledge workers’ thoughts and actions from what most of us—even of the younger generation—still take for granted as the way to think and the way to act.” …

… “Managing Oneself is based on the very opposite realities:
Workers are likely to outlive organizations (and therefore, employers can’t be depended on for designing your life),

and the knowledge worker has mobility.” ← in a context

“More than anything else,

the individual
has to take more responsibility
for himself or herself,
rather than depend on the company.”
continue ↓

“Making a living is no longer enough
‘Work’ has to make a life .” continue

… finding and selecting the pieces of the puzzle

The Second Curve

These pages are attention directing tools for navigating a world moving relentlessly toward unimagined futures.

What’s the next effective action on the road ahead

It’s up to you to figure out what to harvest and calendarize
— working something out in time (1915, 1940, 1970 … 2040 … the outer limit of your concern) — nobody is going to do it for you.

It may be a step forward to actively reject something (rather than just passively ignoring) and then working out a plan for coping with what you’ve rejected.

Your future is between your ears and our future is between our collective ears — it can’t be otherwise.

A site exploration: The memo THEY don't want you to see

What needs doing?

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