Organizational transformation

For years "risk management" has been characterized chiefly by caution--preventing the business from doing things that would create exposure. Although...

While management skills can improve service systems, a manager is better off if he or she first has a clear understanding of the operating characteristics that set one service system apart from another. This author offers one view of services, which, if followed, results in a “rational approach to the rationalization” of services. His view, […]

Beneath the general principles, attitudes, and ideals of “human relations” lie the actual tactics and day-to-day techniques by which executives achieve, maintain, and exercise power. In the current enthusiasm for “democratizing” business procedures, these hard, practical devices tend to be overlooked. Yet they exist just the same—and, in many ways, do not depart substantially from […]

Five strategies to help leaders strike the right balance between saying nothing and saying too much.

What do IBM, Texas Instruments, Owens Corning, and Duke Power have in common? They’re all redesigning their organizations around their core processes—and reaping enormous benefits as a result.

When the author launched what would become Marico as a division within his family's business, Bombay Oil, it was with product innovation: Instead of selling...

Soft management does not mean weak management, says William Peace in this 1991 article. It means candor, openness, and vulnerability, but it also means...

Continuous improvement at Toyota Motor Company is now a business legend. For three decades, Toyota enlisted its employees in a relentless drive to find faster, more efficient methods to develop and make low-cost, defect-free cars. The results were stupendous. Toyota became the benchmark in the automobile industry for quality and low cost. The same, however, […]

The typical large business 20 years hence will have fewer than half the levels of management of its counterpart today, and no more than a third the managers. In its structure, and in its management problems and concerns, it will bear little resemblance to the typical manufacturing company, circa 1950, which our textbooks still consider […]

Spinouts rarely take off; most, in fact, fall into one or more of four traps that doom them from the start. Some companies spin out ventures that are...

By the time Greg Summe joined EG&G in 1998, the company badly needed to shed the weight of past glories and rediscover the technological innovation that...

What holacracies have in common with 18th-century pirates.

As Bob Salinger, CEO of Tidewater Corporation, a manufacturer of luxury power boats, surveyed the damage, the words of Morris Redstone, Tidewater’s reorganization leader, rang in his head: “You better come down here immediately, Bob. Ken Vaughn’s gone nuts. He’s broken a computer and trashed his office. It looks like a wild bull just stormed […]

Even the best-designed systems can’t overcome faulty relationships.

A wounded-but-wiser AT&T veteran recounts how one of the world’s biggest and best-known companies became one of its most battered—and explains how others can avoid that fate.

How the most innovative companies capitalize on today’s rapid-fire strategic challenges—and still make their numbers.

In appraising performance, designing pay systems, and in organizing and planning work, managers make assessments about the size and importance of jobs. Whether the assessments are accurate deeply affects how well the organization runs. But what do we mean when we say that one job is bigger than another? Bigger in what sense? One way […]

Agile isn't just for tech anymore--it's transforming how organizations hire, develop, and manage their people. The lead article in this package discusses...

Developing a new product involves trial and error, but beyond a certain point, redesign becomes wasteful. A practical and proven tool, the Design Structure Matrix, can help streamline the way a company innovates.

Years ago, while visiting friends in the United States, I happened to see the classic children’s film The Wizard of Oz. Near the end, Dorothy at last appears before the all-powerful wizard—a terrifying image of smoke and light. Only when her dog, Toto, tugs at a curtain over to one side does she see a […]