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Title: Navigating Change: How Ceos, Top Teams, and Boards Steer Transformation (Management of Innovation and Change Series) by Donald C. Hambrick, David A. Nadler, Michael L. Tushman ISBN: 0-87584-784-6 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: January, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Lessons from Paul A. Allaire of Xerox
Comment: "Successful corporate transformation depends on effective decision making and leadership from three distinct but inter coonected entities: the CEO, the top management team, and the board of directors. The CEO is the executive who has overall responsibility for the conduct and performance of the firm; clearly his or her mindset, imagination, and behavior will have a defining effect on corporate adaptation. Ultimately, however, senior leadership is a shared endeavor, extending beyond the CEO to other top executives. Thus, the senior management group, widely referred to as the top management team, also has a central role in formulating and executing corporate transformation. The top management team is not simply an aggregation of individual executives. Rather, the dynamics and complementarities that exist within the team greatly influence corporate outcomes. Finally, the board of directors has legal responsibility for the governance of the firm...All three of these leadership entities are critically important to effective corporate adaptation under conditions of turbulence. This book examines all three, including their interconnections to one another and, particularly, their roles in designing and navigating effective corpotate change" (from the Preface).

In this context, in Chapter 6, Paul A. Allaire, chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation, discusses in depth the role of the senior management team in bringing about a major transformation at his company. He argues that "Effective teamwork harnesses creativity and unleashes brain power; it leads to better solutions, better decisions, and improved business results through more effective implementation." In this invaluable article, after describing the centrality of teamwork at Xerox, and teamwork at the CEO level-the top management team, he concludes with some lessons from experience on what works and what doesn't work as following:

* Self-managed senior teams don't work.

* Remotely located teams work less well than teams in physical proximity.

* Laissez-faire or consensus leadership doesn't work.

* Ill-defned team objectives, processes, and rewards hamper performance.

* Teamwork starts with the CEO.

* Total Quality Management tools and processes can enhance teamwork.

* Roles, responsibilities, and expectations must be clarified.

* An effective governance process must be in place.

* Outside counsel and assistance helps.

* Teams need to be explicitly launched and then maintained over time.

Finally, Allaire writes that "Those are my insights on teams at the senioe executive level. I should also point out that there is no free lunch. No matter how deep your commitment, teamwork does have some negative aspects. Teams are time-consuming. You utilize more of the time and energy of top management than if you dictate a solution or a direction. You also run the risk that a tendency toward groupthink may develop...Continuous improvement means a continuous team approach to solving problems and staying on the right course. Team members need to know how valuable their contribution is. That's why at Xerox we not only teach teamwork, we celebrate it."

Strongly recommended.

Rating: 5
Summary: PIVOTAL ROLE OF TOP LEADERSHIP IN MAKING CHANGE SUCCESSFUL!.
Comment: The authors show three types of leadership create and execute corporate change: the CEO, the top executive team, and the board of directors. This collection of twenty essays (chapters) discusses the circumstances and qualities needed for achieving change including: the qualities for being an effective CEO; the keys areas of tension related to turbulent periods; achieving teamwork at the top; the role of healthy conflict; need for the board to get involved in strategy; and key factors enhancing board creativity.

This book provides some important insights into both the process of change and organizational leadership. One comes away from this book with a clear appreciation for the pivotal role of top leadership in any successful effort to transform an organization. Recommended. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

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