Search results

Head count reduction, downsizing, and the elimination of middle management jobs—“Is that all there is?” To many middle managers, Peggy Lee's classic ballad rings painfully true today. The good news is that a growing number of folks‐in‐the‐middle are defying that image and making a big difference in the growth and performance of their colleagues and their companies. We call them Real Change Leaders (RCLs), and you can learn a lot from them.

Every great company is distinguished by special attitudes of its employees. For example, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Marriott and other leaders elicit superior commitment from their people, and use it to sustain innovation and overall excellence. Such companies have found that pride is more powerful than money. It is what motivates people to form emotional attachments. Intrinsic pride – the kind that comes from the emotional high of having done a job well – is the most lasting and powerful motivating force, especially at the front‐line of an organization. There are management approaches and disciplines that can create this kind of pride, and can be used to drive organizations to higher levels of performance. This article, by management thought leader Jon Katzenbach, formerly of McKinsey & Co. and now founder and senior partner of Katzenbach Partners LLC, provides a blueprint for how to make pride a strategic asset.

The survival of many organizations depends on teams capable of engendering superior innovation in business processes. Successful teams always have two things in common. They are strongly committed to a shared purpose and specific performance goals.

The economic downturn requires prudent cost reductions, yet only 10 percent of companies sustain cost reductions after three years. Some of the most successful cost cutters have learned to engage their workforce to embrace both the rational and emotional arguments for taking action and to focus on what the company is and will become. This paper aims to investigate this issue.

The task of securing employee commitment to cost reductions is not easy, and requires paying close attention to six principles which this paper introduces. This is referred to as the motivating cost discipline (MCD) approach.

In the example application of the MCD approach, costs were cut by 30 percent with employee satisfaction and price lifted 20 percent.

The six principles offered are collected from observing best practice in the field.

This paper shows that beyond the mandate to an immediately lower cost structure, it is also possible to motivate people in positive ways that produce emotional as well as rational commitment.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is possible to get more costs out sooner and realize benefits that are more lasting; the secret is fully engaging employees in the cost cutting process, which this paper helps to do.

As the dot‐coms crumble and the cash machines that funded them merge, suddenly all the urgency about finding and keeping the best people seems so … not urgent. That means you might not need to race out to buy the books in this Stack. All of them advocate working to change an entire organization to make it employee friendly—an “employer of choice” in the lingo—which now seems so … too much work. And as for the idea that companies exist for the workers, we think that went out with socialism.

“In today's environment, a company that is a loose amalgamation of business units or a mere federation of regional subsidiaries is at a crippling disadvantage in its competitive marketplace.”

No matter what the organization's activity, or country, the better the decisions of its managers and leaders, the more likely that the organization will thrive.