When it comes to sustained success, vision matters more than strategy. Scores of studies have proven this statement, and millions of business leaders believe it. Yet few executives understand what vision is. They embrace the idea, but ignore the implementation - a disconnect that threatens companies striving for growth in a volatile marketplace. Organizational expert Mark Lipton argues that this "believing-doing" gap exists because today's fast-paced world demands short-term fixes-pressuring executives to make tactical decisions that ultimately create larger strategic problems down the road. But Lipton shows that vision has more substance than leaders think-and that it is an essential factor in building scalable organizations that last for the long haul.Based on extensive research and real-world consulting work with executives implementing the scaling process, "Guiding Growth" provides fresh examples of established and new firms that have developed powerful growth visions. Moving beyond token 'mission statements', Lipton outlines a step-by-step process for establishing an actionable vision, presenting it to the company, and embedding it into the organizational fabric. Illustrating how visions become guiding forces for day-to-day behaviour and overall company direction, "Guiding Growth" reveals how companies can stay their course, even as they grow.Mark Lipton is Founder of the consulting firm Lipton & Co., which specializes in organizational growth. He is Professor of Management and Chair, Human Resources Management and Organizational Change Management at the Milano Graduate School, New School University, in New York City.
Mark has been engaged in executive-level organizational consulting for over thirty-five years. He works directly with CEOs and other executives one-on-one, with divisional teams and with entire organizational systems to develop unique solutions for managing growth and facilitating change.
One distinctive characteristic of his approach is the way in which he supports clients' long-term strategy by helping them harness the significant impact of a well-defined and fully-implemented vision. Mark's extensive depth of experience with the often-challenging concept of organizational vision has had an important and positive impact on the sustained growth and lower resistance to organizational change his clients experience.
A Professor of Management at the Milano Graduate School of The New School in New York City, he is also Director of The Tenenbaum Leadership Initiative, a highly-focused executive development program targeted specifically to CEOs of Non-Profit organizations who are directly replacing the organization's founder. He has developed executive leadership development programs for global corporations, foreign and domestic governments, non-profits and NGOs, as well as working closely with entrepreneurs as they scale their enterprises. His coaching skills are engaged by C-level executives across all three sectors of the economy.
He holds a Ph.D. from the School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he also taught. Prior to his academic appointments, he held senior management positions in both the corporate and government sectors.
His most recent book, Guiding Growth: How Vision Keeps Companies on Course, was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003 and has subsequently been translated into a number of foreign languages.
Mark's research and opinions on management and strategy have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Management Consulting, Optimize, Executive Excellence, and Organization Development Journal, among others.
Mark is a commentator on management, leadership and organizational strategy issues for ABC World News This Morning, CNBC, Bloomberg Radio, and public radio's Marketplace.
A sample of recent clients to whom he has provided consulting support include Deloitte, JetBlue, The D.E. Shaw Group, Citibank, Landor Associates, American International Group, NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation, The Ford Foundation, UNICEF, UNDP, CARE, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, American Thoracic Society, National Association of Specialty Food Trades, American Heart Association, Statkraft Group (Norway), and U.S. Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (regulators of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), Barnard College, Bank Street College of Education, Stevens Institute of Technology, New York University, and Mass Art Institute.
Much of his work in executive development with foreign NGOs has been made possible, in part, through grants from the Ford, Rockefeller, Mott and Charles Revson Foundations.
He sits on a number of non-profit boards and is currently Chairman of the Board of Isabella Geriatric Center, one of New York State's largest not-for-profit continuum-of-care institutions serving the elderly and disabled in New York City.
In the Winter of 2009, he was the Erik Erikson Visiting Scholar-in-Residence at The Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. His research at Austen Riggs, which is now the centerpiece of a new book currently in development,examines how and why some entrepreneurs behave in ways that are counterproductive to the success of their organizations.
