Book Description
Famous "Work-Out" change-management tool explained by the people who helped develop it.
GE's legendary Work-Out program played a key role in the company's phenomenal success over the past decade and has been implemented in many other organizations. Now three executives and consultants who developed the original Work-Out approach at GEoften working directly with CEO Jack Welchdiscuss the inner workings of Work-Out and their experiences at successfully implementing the program at GE.
Filled with effective assessment and decisionmaking tools, The GE Work-Out provides concrete and realistic guidance for anyone who wants to implement Work-Out and break down bureaucracy and hierarchy within an organization.
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GE's legendary Work-Out program played a key role in the company's phenomenal success over the past decade and has been implemented in many other organizations. Now three executives and consultants who developed the original Work-Out approach at GE often working directly with CEO Jack Welch discuss the inner workings of Work-Out and their experiences at successfully implementing the program at GE.
Customer Reviews:
Sound advice for delivering speed, simplicity, and solutions.......2005-01-07
'Work-Out' is the famous organizational process that General Electric, the greatest industrial firm in the world, used to bust bureaucracy - fast.
At its core, Work-Out is a simple, straightforward concept for cutting out bureaucracy and solving organizational problems - fast. Large groups of employees and managers - from different levels and functions of the organization - come together to address issues that they identify or that senior management has raised as concerns. In small teams, people challenge prevailing assumptions about "the way we've always done things" and come up with recommendations for dramatic improvements in organizational processes. The Work-Out teams present their recommendations to a senior manager in a "town meeting", where the manager engages the entire group in a dialogue about the recommendations and then makes yes-or-no decisions on the spot. Recommendations for changing the organization are assigned to "owners" who have volunteered to carry them out and follow through to get results. That's Work-Out in a nutshell.
Work-Out can be applied to almost any type of problem. It was first used at GE to harvest the low-hanging fruit of OVERGROWN BUREAUCRACY by getting unnecessary and unproductive work out of the organizational system - e.g. reduce meetings, reports, and approval levels. They asked what procedures didn't make sense? Where were they wasting time? What activities seemed to add little value? Some of the bureaucratic procedures were expense reimbursements, making travel arrangements, obtaining office supplies, updating personnel data, taking education courses, upgrading software, and more. But also in the core functions, bureaucracy was found: filling out forms for deals, preparing presentations for approval meetings, keeping track of customer data, obtaining approval for materials purchasing, overwhelming amounts of extra analysis to justify various investments or initiatives. Some of the results were e.g. that expense accounts did not need multiple approvals, people could purchase approved software without going through the IT department, and a pre-deal process was established to see if deals were worth pursuing before going through all the analytics.
Work-Out has been successfully adapted to any type of organization - public or private, commercial or non-profit, large or small. In all of these organizations, no matter what the issue, the process remains much the same.
1. Bring together the people from the organization who know the issues best
2. Challenge them to develop creative solutions
3. Decide on the solutions immediately in a public forum
4. Empower people to carry them out
Despite its massive impact on GE and other firms, Work-Out is not a snake oil or magic elixir. It is a simple set of concepts, tools, and experiences. When stripped to its essence, Work-Out allows people to get some obstacles out of the way so they can do their work better. In many firms, that alone would be a significant gain.
The real merit of this book is the practical approach. If you are - as I am - struggling with the challenges of continually keeping our organizations lean, then this book can help you. It contains many inspiring worksheets, action plans, tools, and hands-on case studies.
The authors of this book helped GE create Work-Out. So don't expect theoretical contributions. Only sound advice.
Co-author Dave Ulrich is one of my favourite HR experts. I can recommend many of his books, e.g. `Results-Based Leadership' and `Delivering Results'. To him, HR is about delivering business performance and organizational capabilities. Cause if you don't, you'll soon be out of business. The tricky part is balancing the soft and hard part of HR. Dave Ulrich has many good concepts to make that happen. This book is not a bad place to start, if you'd like to pick his brains...
Peter Leerskov,
M.Sc. in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business
Packed Wiyh Knowledge!.......2004-05-02
There's no denying the effectiveness of the Work-Out system at General Electric (GE). This book is a straightforward and comprehensive introduction to what Work-Oout means and how it helped GE achieve such astonishing results under Jack Welch, who introduced it. This clear, well-organized book makes it possible for any executive or manager to apply at least some elements of the work-out program in any organizational context. We do caution you, however, that the Work-Out program as portrayed here demands a great deal of commitment and moral fortitude from leaders. Empowerment may be effective, but it is rarely comfortable for the powers that be. Just ask "Neutron Jack."
Good Idea - Bad Book.......2003-12-19
I completely agree with the reader who said that this book could have been written much more effectively. It is nearly 400 pages and should have been no more than 25 to 50. Most issues or thoughts in this book while being solid are explained in far far too painful of detail with a great deal of redundancy. This made reading the book extremely wasteful of my time.
Perhaps the authors should have a "Work Out" on improvement of their materials.
Great. Lots of first-hand tips to turnaround a large company.......2003-03-28
Unlike other books on Six Sigma that focus on variation reduction, statistics and other tools, this book is full of practical examples of techniques and implementation tips. The focal point of the book is on the process of generating the turnaround in a large conglomerate such as GE. In this case the aspects of organizational behavior constitute THE critical success factor (rather than statistical/other tools). Workout has undoubtedly been fundamental for generating the cultural transformation in GE. This book is addressing these organizational behavior aspects in a pragmatic manner presenting a detailed road-map from planning all the way through implementation.
Most examples deal with administration/bureaucracy and I would have expected to read more on operational aspects such as value chain improvement in a Production/Logistics environment.
This book is a must for top managers that search for a generic methodology to translate their vision into reality.
Very Bad Buy.......2002-12-05
This is one of the worst books I've ever purchased. The ideas in this book could be fully explained in no more than two or three pages. I bought it relying on the CV's of the authors but it turned out to be a true dud. It rehashes the same ideas over and over and over and over. It's for the braindead.
Book Description
This casebook was developed to provide practice problems for students using The Financial Management of Hospitals and Healthcare Organizations, Third Edition. For each quantitative concept, there are tow problems—-a practice problem, and a self-quiz problem. Each problem comes with a detailed solution. The workbook also features one comprehensive case so that readers can apply what they've learned to a practical real-world setting.
Average customer rating:
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The Organization in Crisis: Downsizing, Restructuring, and Privatization (Manchester Business and Management Series)
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishers
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Binding: Paperback
 General
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Book Description
The Organization in Crisis brings together a team of leading international researchers and practitioners to study the implementation and impact of organizational changes such as downsizing, restructuring and privatization.
The text provides a unique combination of research, theory and practice, and not only examines key issues associated with organizational change, but also suggests how such changes can be better managed in the future. Specific topics considered include the new employment relationship and its implications for careers, how organizational changes are affecting manager's views of their working lives, ethical issues in downsizing, and best practices for organizational renewal and revitalization. A range of case studies provides world-wide examples of initiatives being undertaken by leading-edge firms.
Together, the contributors capture the global nature of the difficulties confronting organizational leaders and highlight the need for creative solutions.
Customer Reviews:
Problems with Pronunciation.......2004-06-08
I'll admit it: I purchased this techno-tome in an effort to impress one of the girls in the IT shop at work. She'd been unresponsive to my normal (and myriad) charms and I placed the blame (wrongly) on my inability to speak her language. A few witty anecdotes from this book got me a first date, but my inability to pronounce the authors' names kept me from rounding first. Shameful!
Cases in IT management - Variety is essential.......2000-04-25
This book has a good collection of interesting and easy to understand case studies. Unlike many case study books this does not suffer from containing a lot of overhead data. It is a good companion text for a course in IT Management. The editors offer a variety of cases in terms of both subject matter and context. It has cases from different countries covering a range of industries and organizations (both private and public sectors). The focus, however, is largely operational and tactical issues. Even though the questions at the end of many cases are well formulated, a few cases could benefit from the editorial support in bringing out the readers' creativity. All in all, it is a useful book.
Average customer rating:
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Business Organizations: Cases, Problems, and Case Studies
D. Gordon Smith , and
Cynthia A. Williams
Manufacturer: Aspen Publishers
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Binding: Hardcover
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Amazon.com
What does it take to run a global company during this age of international competition, technology, and downsized work forces? In The New Global Leaders, Manfred F.R. Kets De Vries and Elizabeth Florent-Treacy provide some answers by examining the lives and work of three of Europe's most storied business leaders: Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group; Percy Barnevik, architect of the merger that created the ABB engineering conglomerate; and David Simon, who resurrected British Petroleum. The authors find that each of these leaders succeeds with charisma and a managing philosophy that centers on speed, openness, and a disdain for bureaucracy. "As organizations go through a global 'revolution,' they require the leadership of a significantly different kind of CEO," write the authors. "Leaders at the helm of the corporations of the future will need the capacity to step out of their own comfort zone and adapt to other realities."
While the book is a bit obsequious at times, it's easy to read and understand. Common among all three executives is their simple and direct style. Simon, for example, is a zealot about meeting benchmarks. His slogan is "Performance, reputation, and teamwork." The book shines because it's three biographies and three business histories in one. Managers at companies of any size can benefit from the experiences of Branson, Barnevik, and Simon. --Dan Ring
Book Description
Spend some time with three of today's most noted business pioneers and share their secrets for achieving international success. The New Global Leaders takes readers into the private worlds of Asea Brown Boveri's Percy Barnevik, Virgin founder Richard Branson, and British Petroleum titan David Simon to provide rare and candid profiles of how these charismatic leaders have redefined organizational growth and development in the latter 20th century. The authors were granted unprecedented access to these men and the results are as fascinating as they are informative. Readers are treated to personal interviews with these very powerful and very different personalities, each of whom provides a behind-the-scenes account of how he put his company on the global map. Sharing their philosophies, visions, and strategies, they exemplify leadership in an age of rapid and relentless change and provide new models of success for our post-industrial era.
Customer Reviews:
A Good Read!.......2004-06-03
Authors Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries and Elizabeth Florent-Treacy idealistically foresee a new era where visionary, innovative CEO's will lead a new type of employee. Through insightful interviews, they position Richard Branson of Virgin, Percy Barnevik of ABB and David Simon of British Petroleum as icons of the modern, improved CEO. Certainly, Branson and Simon seem to be valid role models and their leadership of European global companies presents interesting alternatives. Although it is not reflected in this 1999 book, today Barnevik's reputation is tarnished in the wake of a 2002 severance pay scandal and problems that BusinessWeek refers to as "the mess at ABB." For good or ill, this book will provoke you to ask if emphasizing a leader's charismatic ability to motivate distracts attention from critical core business issues. Despite their varied outcomes, these charismatic visionaries created family-like corporate cultures and inspired their employees. Thus, they demonstrated that the new economic era requires a new type of leader. Whether they together constitute a composite of that leader is another question. We recommend this solid book to management students and to upcoming executives.
Delivering shareholder value is not enough.......2000-06-29
Well written, easy to read. Hard acts to follow. You will get to know three successful business leaders. What are their background, childhood, education and career? What happened to their companies when they were leading them? Interviews with each one of them in which many questions are answered that you probably would have asked. The companies are large, global and successful. There is a lot to learn. It is not a cookbook. The authors make a useful summary but when you reflect about what the three persons have done there are not only many things they all did but also many things they did differently. I bought the book because it was listed under the heading "business ethics" in an Amazon search. The book is not directly about ethics. It is useful in that context as it shows that these three leaders through their actions demonstrate having moral convictions. Part of that conviction is to deliver shareholder value but also strong feelings of responsibility for the environment and social issues. Furthermore they have been able, with a lot of hard work, to impart this concept on all of the employees. All three believe that employees become much more motivated and loyal to the organisation when they feel that they are working towards goals in addition to shareholder value. One also becomes convinced that they do not set these wider goals as a public relations exercise or a clever way to motivate people to work harder. These leaders are totally sincere in what they say and what they do.
A great study of leadership and business philosophy.......1999-08-05
The book gives valuable insight into the way these three ground-breaking European leaders think about business, and how they successfully manage global organizations. The book clearly illustrate the different personal traits of the subjects (the builder, the transformer, and the integrator), and ecourages the reader to challange the pros and cons of the different philosophies. The book reads very much like a case study, and provides an excellent but basic overview over the global marketplace and on how to be able to draw on the ideas implemented by these great leaders.
Inspiring vignettes of innovative leaders.......1999-06-16
Growth on a global stage is the only way to sustainable success. It is an enormous challenge to grow let alone accomplish it globally. This book provides tangible object lessons on how these leaders have done it. If first-hand learning is best, then these stories approximate that construct.
This is an engaging and usefull guide to a difficult act.
A brillant leadership study........1999-05-09
A brillant leadership study from M.F.R. Kets de Vries and E. Florent-Treacy. The New Global Leaders is the success stories of three global leaders : " Richard Branson (founder and head of the Virgin Group), Percy Barnevik (mastermind behind the merger of ASEA and Brown Boveri to form ABB), and David Simon (former CEO of British Petroleum) all looked for ways to create a greater sense of purpose for their employees while putting in place the structure necessary for a global organization."
With case studies and interviews, this book has been built around the personal development of these world-class global leaders and the evolution of their companies.
As stated by Kets de Vries and Florent-Treacy," we first discuss the values that provide a foundation for excellence and a new psychological contract in vanguard companies such as Virgin, ABB, and BP and then show how these values can be translated into practice in any organization."
I highly recommend this brillant study.
A detailed and succesful study about ABB and Percy Barnevik see "ABB the Dancing Giant/K. Barham & C. Heimer".
Book Description
Like other big city school systems, Chicago's has been repeatedly "reformed" over the last century. Yet its schools have fallen far short of citizens' expectations and left a gap between the performances of white and minority students. Many blame the educational establishment for resisting change. Other critics argue that reform occurs too often; still others claim it comes not often enough.
Dorothy Shipps reappraises the tumultuous history of educational progress in Chicago, revealing that the persistent lack of improvement is due not to the extent but rather the type of reform. Throughout the twentieth century, managerial reorganizations initiated by the business community repeatedly altered the governance structure of schools-as well as the relationships of teachers to children and parents-but brought little improvement, while other more promising reform models were either resisted or crowded out.
Shipps chronicles how Chicago's corporate actors led, abetted, or restrained nearly every attempt to transform the city's school system, then asks whether schools might be better reformed by others. To show why city schools have failed urban children so badly, she traces Chicago's reform history over four political eras, revealing how corporate power was instrumental in designing and revamping the system. Her narrative encompasses the formative era of 1880-1930, when teachers' unions moderated business plans; previously unexplored business activism from 1930 to 1980, when civil rights dominated school reform, and the decentralization of the 1980s. She also covers the uneasy cooperation among business associations in the 1990s to install the mayor as head of the school system, a governing regime now challenged by privatization advocates.
Business people may be too wedded to a stunted view of educators to forge a productive partnership for change. Unionized teachers bridle at the second-class status accorded them by managers. If reform is to reach deeply into classrooms, Shipps concludes, it might well require a new coalition of teachers' unions and parents to create a fresh agenda that supersedes corporate interests. This study clearly shows that, in Chicago as elsewhere, urban schooling is intertwined with politics and power.
This book is part of the Studies in Government and Public Policy series.
Book Description
Game theory has come to dominate industrial organization economics, but business strategists continue to debate its usefulness. So far, empirical work on the application of game theory to business strategy has been too limited to force a consensus. As a (partial) remedy, Games Businesses Play uses detailed case studies of competitive interaction to explore the uses and limits of game theory as a tool for business strategists.
Because they are analytical rather than descriptive, the case studies are not typical teaching cases. The cases are paired with customized game-theoretic models that cover a wide range of commitment decisions, from short-run commitments such as price to longer-run commitments such as capacity expansion and reduction, product and process innovation, and battles for market share. A variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques are used to test the models' predictions on case data. In addition the book sheds light on a number of other issues important to strategic management, including the resource-based view of the firm and the emergent theory of dynamic capabilities.
Customer Reviews:
Not user friendly.......2001-08-03
Writing in a intuitive and straightforward way is not one of mr Ghemawats talents, at least judging from this book. His intention when writing this book seems to have been to encourage fellow academics to use the case study method to explore the usefulness of game theory and bring it closer to practitioners.
My backgound is that I have roughly 50 academic credits in economics (mostly financial) and I have read some introductory level game theory texts, and I was at a loss when looking at the game theoretic models that Ghemawat uses. I understood most of the analytics though and there is some pretty interesting material covered in this book. But I don't think the general reader of strategy literature will get that much out of it.
If you have a strong background in micro economic theory/game theory and like seeing it applied on business, you'll probably get a huge kick out of reading this book. Ghemawhat is very careful to report how the models are set up and adapted to the situation. Great stuff if you happen to like that sort of thing.
Before reading it, I had a huge over-belief in what game theory could accomplish, but after reading this book I have a much more realistic view of its limitations (in applied business strategy at least).
Games Busineses Play : Cases and Models.......1999-12-28
Pankaj Ghemawat applies the Harvard Business School concept of case studies to game theory. Ghemawat's intent is to demonstrate that game theory is applicable to business strategy. Overall Gemawat makes a strong case for the practical aplication of game theory to business strategies. The book is useful for teaching graduates and undegraduate students a practical use of game theory. The writing style is somewhat clunky but rereading each case 3 or 4 times is worth the effort. The calculus and statistics is somewhat complex for a non-specialist , however the basic ideas are presented clearly. Overall this is a challenging book that presents game theory in a more sophisticated manner than found in the customary introductory books that rely on the cook book recipe presentation.
Applied game theory for managers and economists.......1997-11-17
The author applies his breadth of practical and academic experience (ex-McKinsey consultant and Harvard Business School Professor) to create a range of practical case studies in applied game theory. There's a good balance here - the economists will like the theoretical rigor but it's still accessible to the general reader. Useful either as an introduction to game theory for managers, or a source of case examples for the more advanced student.
Book Description
This casebook provides 50 real cases on leadership and related issues in organizational behavior. A wide variety of industrial, international, and business settings with diverse protagonists are used, exposing readers to real-world problems. Features a flexible presentation, designed to be used independently or in conjunction with the author's Level Three Leadership, 2/E. Offers accompanying CDs with video clips for several cases that provide additional insight into the situations and key players. Includes views of the personal lives of the managers profiled, helping readers get behind the scenes of today's business leaders. Ideal as a reference for Human Resources management or other management professionals.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting cases and informative learning!.......2003-04-09
I rarely ever rate textbooks, but I find this one particularly interesting and helpful to my work and education (Master's program).
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