Chapter 14 Cascading Must-Win Battles at Carlsberg

Abstract

In 2001, Carlsberg became the fourth largest brewer in the world – but that world was increasingly competitive. This chapter explores how Carlsberg's top management team translated its vision into a few critical priorities, their must-win battles – and then cascaded these throughout the organization to create the alignment, energy, and motivation to realize its goals. At the core, its approach was creating not only shared priorities intellectually, but also a strong culture of cooperation. Five key factors underpin Carlsberg's significant improvements in market position and financial returns: (1) walking the talk, (2) communicating constantly on many levels, (3) maintaining a solid grip on reality, (4) embedding the agenda in the core processes of the organization, and (5) the personal commitment and ownership of the CEO.

Citation

Malnight, T. and Keys, T. (2007), "Chapter 14 Cascading Must-Win Battles at Carlsberg", Hooijberg, R., (Jerry) Hunt, J.G., Antonakis, J., Boal, K.B. and Lane, N. (Ed.) Being There Even When You Are Not (Monographs in Leadership and Management, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 245-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3571(07)04013-8