Jumping the Curve

"Given the quantum changes in market conditions and societal structures, is it reasonable for us to conclude that we can remain in our familiar, traditional roles as we manage our enterprises?"

"Not only is the company different; the world is different too."

"Motivation, on the other hand, is about desires, goals, interests, incentives, and needs. When we say someone is motivated, we usually mean he or she is ready to work vigorously toward some goal."

"See change as presenting opportunities."

"Managerialism is exhausted. It has degenerated to a set of operating principles and business priorities that no longer fit the current stage of social and business development."

"Leaders today are challenged to deal with new realities in ways that are radically and qualitatively different from anything they have known."

"The essence of looking a customer ahead is a continual focus on tomorrow's markets, technologies, and customers."

"The focus on tomorrow's customer does not preclude the importance of continuous improvement efforts."

"The emphasis now must be on genuine productivity."

"Looking a customer ahead drives the organization toward a healthy obsession about being first to market."

"In business environments, complaining about the negative consequences of a mediocre but predictable culture often seems preferable to plunging into the ambiguity and uncertainty of innovation."

"The concept of deliberately making success obsolete is alien and unsettling."

"To meet responsibilities to today's customers and investors, a leader must insist that today's products and processes be perfected."

"The essence of vigilance involves grabbing opportunities and creating the future, regardless of what current competitors are doing."

"Successful innovative companies eschew a traditional reliance on market research for management decisions."

"They allow few, if any, information elites and tolerate even fewer sacred cows."

"Pragmatically, upheavals in the environment require major change in organizational structures and processes."

"The diffusion of information technology helps knowledge-based activities and organizational intelligence attain strategic importance."

"Organizational memory has value in reminding people about what has been learned in the past that is useful for today."

"Leveraging knowledge renders hierarchy and giantism, with all the attending layers of management and rules, as less essential for organizational effectiveness."

"Collaboration is the heart of business success today. Collaboration means more than an individual sharing insight with coworkers."

"Prioritize Efforts That Lead to Mass Customization, Slenderized Marketing, and Individualized Customer Sets."

"Paperless systems represent tangible efforts to generate innovative and creative environments by freeing time and resources so that people's attention can be focused on activities that customers would find valuable."

"By necessity, organizational designs are becoming inclusive, permeable?even unstructured and shapeless. "

"An organizationwide commitment to a core philosophy and purpose provides people with solid frame of reference. Within that context, diversity of ideas provokes creative conflict and innovative decision making."

"The organizing principle insists on nothing less than the strategic management of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction."

"Is ensuring differential employee experiences just? Is it fair? Unequivocally, yes."

"Simply pronouncing the existence of new values and priorities does not mean that they will be executed, even if there seems to be genuine collective enthusiasm or them when they are introduced."

"The first job of the leader is to begin a revolution of minds by clarifying the core purpose, underlying philosophy, and overarching perspective of the organization."

"Leaders must be prepared to spend time and effort in demonstrating their commitment to an inclusivity that is both genuine and results-based."

"View human resources as a strategic activity, not as a function."

"Effective leaders have always recognized that they must deal with different individuals in different ways: discrimination, in its classical sense, is needed."

"The goal ensuring differential employee experience is nothing less than the maximization of organizational and individual performance."

"While rights represent a core element of democracy, we have become a rights-happy society, and this condition has led to two pernicious developments in our culture."

"Based on the assumption that the business exists to serve a customer, the organizing principle views the guarantee as the primary driver of the entire business."

"Quality is the total experience that a customer has with the organization."

"Redefine the goal of "quality" in a way that acknowledges that the customer is the final and most important arbiter."

"Responsibility to others becomes a responsibility to self. It is in that spirit that the organizing principle of taking responsibility through guarantees is presented."

"Everything that occurs in the organization "backs into" the guarantee."

"For a 100 percent standard to exist, everyone?managers and employees?must have the power to invoke the guarantee on the spot, and to take actions they deem necessary in order to honor it. "

"For an organization to be successful, indeed to survive, delivering on an unconditional guarantee of complete satisfaction requires listening."

"Most guarantees today are prisoners to so many financial and legal restraints that they have little impact on either the organization's management processes or its customers."

"The power of taking responsibility through guarantees reflects broader social trends that are unfolding."