Leading Corporate Transformation: A Blueprint for Business Renewal (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) [Hardcover]

Robert H. Miles (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787903272 | ISBN-13: 978-0787903275 | Publication Date: June 4, 1997 | Edition: 1

The definitive guide to successful corporate transformation

?The framework Bob Miles illustrates in his new book has been the key tool Symantec has used to start the shift from being a technology-driven to a customer-driven company. Business leaders facing a variety of corporate transformation challenges will benefit from this important executive briefing.? -- Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr., chief executive officer, Symantec Corporation

The distillation of a stellar twenty-year career, Leading Corporate Transformation is consultant Robert Miles's reply to executives who want to be able to rise to the most pervasive challenge facing them today: how to achieve fundamental transformation without exposing the organization to unacceptable risk. Here, in the form of an executive briefing, are the expert guidance and tools you need to meet a variety of corporate transformation challenges, whether you are trying to reposition a successful company, revitalize a failing one, merge different businesses and cultures, or manage a leadership succession process. These insights are relevant not only for senior executives, but also for managers at all levels of an organization undergoing fundamental transformation. If you are a leader who must effect organizational change, you will want to keep this book close at hand.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Miles, a well-known consultant and author (Corporate Comeback, LJ 11/1/96), has created a clear, useful, much-needed guide to corporate transformations. Part 1, an expansion of the issues raised in Chapter 1, of Corporate Comeback, details the four basic elements for leading a corporate transformation?generating energy and support for the transformation, developing a vision, aligning the internal organization to support that vision, and creating a process architecture to carry it out. This information, by far the most useful here, is sorely lacking in similar books. Part 2 recounts how this general framework was successfully adopted by four companies?Southern Company, National Semiconductor, Norrell Corporation, and PGA Tour. A detailed appendix on the strategic visioning process is worth the price of the book alone. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.?Michael R. Leach, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Although critics have referred to the corporate transformation movement as simply the current management fad, Miles has had success with it. He was on the management team that helped turn around National Semiconductor, and he has written about that experience in Corporate Comeback (1996). Here he looks at four different transformation challenges as he describes his experiences in helping revitalize not only National Semiconductor but also Norrell Corporation, Southern Company, and the PGA Tour. In an introduction that takes the form of an executive briefing, Miles explains that such changes "demand" a transformational leader, and that they require enormous energy and must be "vision led," system based, and comprehensively implemented. David Rouse

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (June 4, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787903272
• ISBN-13: 978-0787903275
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,172 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Corporate Transformation Framework.", May 18, 2000

By 

Turgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leading Corporate Transformation: A Blueprint for Business Renewal (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) (Hardcover)

"Corporate transformation challenges come in many forms and confront executive leaders with an array of vexing questions: How can I help my company, which is at the top of its competitive game, sidestep complacency and energize people to redirect their efforts and reposition their organization? How can I lead my company, which has lost its way and greatly depleted its resources, to revitalize itself for competitive excellence? How can our recently merged companies or functions overcome business and cultural differences? Or, more simply, now that I am in a position to do so, how can I effectively take charge of my organization and help people develop a new agenda to lead us through the next phase of its development? These questions, and more, have found successful resolution through the framework for leading corporate transformation described in this book (R. H. Miles)."

In this context, in the first part of this book, Robert H. Miles offers a framework for leading corporate transformation. This framework, as stated by Miles, identifies the major/required tasks that a leader-indeed, that leaders at all leves in the organization-must perform to achieve successful transformation without exposing the corporation to unacceptable risk :

I. Generate Energy for Transformation

* Confront reality

* Create and reallocate resources

* Raise the bar

* Model desired behaviors

II. Develop a Vision and Business Success Model

* Develop a strategic vision

* Model business success

* Analyze the total system: current vs. vision states

* Identify the gaps

* Focus on a few transformation initiatives

III. Align the Organization

* Restructure

* Implement infrastructure

* Reshape the culture

* Build core competencies

IV. Create a Transformation Process Architecture

* Educate and involve

* Create coordination and feedback mechanisms

* Communicate progress

* Fill transformation skill gaps

According to R. H. Miles these elements of the framework provide not only a platform for launching a corporate transformation, but also for managing transitions from one phase of transformation to the next en route to the vision state.

I highly recommend.

2.0 out of 5 stars I did not like, July 12, 2008

By 

marcos maciel - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Leading Corporate Transformation: A Blueprint for Business Renewal (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) (Hardcover)

If you are looking for structured and useful ideas this may NOT be the best book on turnarounds. What I saw in this book? Lots of " cases" but few useful ideas to apply in my job.