The Manager's View

Use Cross Functional Teams to Implement Organizational Change Culture change may be necessary for organizations to adapt to changing environments. If old value networks (processes, procedures, communication channels and protocols) govern, then survival in a changing market place becomes more difficult. Old value networks are a dilemma that is the result of dated value networks becoming part of a “hard wired” approach to problem solving within the industry. These are “hard wired” in the sense that they are part of the culture and very difficult to change. "Hard wired" often times prevent the ability for organizations to innovate. Most companies require innovations to create new revenue and profit streams for growth and long term success. Innovation is needed for developing new products or finding new markets for current products. Either approach requires new strategies and is based on innovative thinking. For new ideas to be incorporated into the “muscle”...

Understand the Reasons Customers Buy Products To develop a successful marketing strategy requires a solid understanding of the market, the customer and the job a customer hires a product to do. Clayton Christensen gives the example of milk shakes being used in the morning as a breakfast substitute for people on their drive to work and in the afternoon as a reward mothers gave to their children after school. In his example the milk shake had been “hired” to do two different jobs by two different customer groups. Clearly price alone could not describe the different jobs the product was “hired” to do nor could it describe the value of the product to either group. In the case of milk shakes characteristics that would need to be included would be the availability of the product and price as it relates to alternative products. To measure the considerations a customer must make regarding the purchase of a product it is important to use a process that measures what is inf...

Tie Culture Change to Business Outcomes  By Gary Randazzo As a manager you may find that your organization has flaws that are hampering performance. These flaws may have become a “hard wired” part of the organization’s culture and to move the organization forward you need to shift or remake the culture. Larry Bossidy, former chairman of Honeywell International, writes that most organizations attempts to change culture fail because they are not tied to improving business outcomes. Culture is the result of management practices and philosophy that is developed over time. Everyone in the organization knows the culture and most abide by the attitudes and approaches that define the path to success in the organization. I can recall working in a very successful, very large newspaper organization that was entering into the commercial printing business. They were making some headway but not the kind of growth they had envisioned. The newspaper was located in a...