Customer Reviews

Red Zone Management

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Red Zone Management is based on a football analogy for the last 20 yards that lead to a touchdown. This is make it or break it time for a team. According to the author, Dutch Holland, businesses are increasingly facing their own red zones. For a business what constitutes are red zone? It is activities that can lead to extraordinary profit or loss. These situations fall outside the scope of daily business management. Here is a list of red zone situations:

Changing competitive strategy

Mergers and acquisitions
Reengineering work processes
Implementing enterprise solutions (ERPs)
Implementing e-Business solutions
Changing culture

What are the types of behaviors that cause red zone initiatives to fail? Here is Holland's list:

Lack of high quality executive support
Lack of comprehensive and detailed up-front planning
The organization is too narrowly involved
Inappropriate delegation for critical leadership responsibilities
Undisciplined and incomplete project management

Red Zone Management covers the general topics of the red zone in the first half of the book. Each business red zone gets a chapter in the second half of the book. Each of these chapters covers a company that failed in this red zone and one that succeeded. In addition each of these chapters covers the roles that senior management needs to play for this particular red zone.

If your company is in the red zone or will be in one soon this book can tip the scales in your favor to succeed in the red zone.

Red Zone Management is a new creative and comprehensive treatment of a complex and seldom understood subject. Dutch uses a football analogy and setting to capture the readers interest in describing the risk, strategy, complexity and rewards of managing a business in the critical high risk areas of: changing corporate strategies, re-engineering, enterprise solutions, e-business solutions and most importantly and the least understood area of culture change. The book binds the reader to a dual encounter between Super Bowl Participants and business competitors, describing the strategies and risks of playing in the Red Zone. Being an active participant in both arenas at various times, I could not put the book down until I had finised reading it. The book is packed with case histories of business success and failures with comments for why the outcome was as it was.

In the past while being involved in a major merger, my company successfully utilized the principles described by Dutch. The results were that the whole was greater the the sum of the parts--a success for the shareholders

The Red Zone is a dot-to-dot understanding of how to succeed AND fail installing large scale change. The points are clear, examples insightful, and the author's presentation style refreshing. There is custom advice by type of organizational change being introduced: enperprise systems, e-business, re-engineering.. If you want more assurance of converting your change energy into points on the scoreboard, I would suggest you read this one.

Dutch scores with this great manual on not just recognizing Red Zones, but on how to plan, communicate, motivate and execute successfully in them given today's unforgiving and full speed environment.

He has done a terrific job capturing what team members urgently need to know and while pointing out what they need to challenge and he has put it in an easy to read and understand format.

This book has joined my short list of must read's for teams that I lead on high risk/high reward projects.

I strongly encourage you to read this book!

Red Zone Management is a down-to-earth explanation of why so many organizations, faced with making a step change to reach the next level, fall flat on their faces and end up in worse shape than they were before. Organizations that "fumble the ball" in the red zone often see momentum swing to their competition, leading to potentially irrecoverable losses. This book will help an organization's leaders recognize the red zone--and play to win.

"Dr. Holland's book provides practical guidelines for identifying when you are in "the Red Zone," and how to lead your team to victory when the chips are down. This is a "must-read" for managers committed to successfully running and changing their organization."

Walter E. Natemeyer, Ph.D.
President
North American Training and Development, Inc.

If you start with the Introduction chapter to Red Zone Management by Dutch Holland, Ph.D., you will encounter the color commentary of a crucial moment in a Raiders versus Giants football game, with the Giants in the "red zone." By just reading this first page, you will have discovered the basic concept behind red zone management. However, if you continue with the remaining chapters, which I suggest, you will chuckle at the almost "Dilbertesque" profile of an unsuccessful red zone maneuver in chapter one, and you will become intrigued by the real-life red zone maneuvers of high-profile businesses in the six red zone management game plans that comprise the bulk of the book.

In dissecting this sports metaphor, Dutch Holland has provided us with a well-written and insightful approach to managing the daunting challenges that can decisively determine an organization's future. When faced with the prospect of great gain or failure, seasoned managers inherently know the right approach to be taken. Red zone management allows these managers to use their inherent skills to verify the intent, goals and process of the effort within a structured approach.

By conceptualizing the red zone metaphor as outlined in the book, we, as managers, can develop the specific game plan and team roster needed to attain the desired positive outcome. I was personally very interested in the changing culture game plan, since I believe that this is one of the most important, yet one of the most difficult red zones for any organization. With Holland's suggested game plan, one can visualize how the desired outcome could be reached.

These days, we are constantly inundated with new books on the topic of management. However, Red Zone Management rises above the rest. It should be required reading for all managers, both to familiarize junior managers with the red zone management concept as well as to fine tune the inherent red zone management skills of senior managers.

Red Zone Management is a down-to-earth explanation of why so many organizations, faced with making a step change to reach the next level, fall flat on their faces and end up in worse shape than they were before. Organizations that "fumble the ball" in the red zone often see momentum swing to their competition, leading to potentially irrecoverable losses. This book will help an organization's leaders recognize the red zone--and play to win.

Dr. Holland explains the "Red Zone" (RZ) concept so thoroughly that the non-sports oriented reader clearly understands the concept and realizes how RZ relates to corporate profitability. The piercing focus of RED ZONE identifies intense conditions that are either big gains or big losses for a company's momentum and market condition.

Six common RZ maneuvers (for example, e-business) are presented with details as to how RZ principles are applied for implementation. Dr. Holland pulls no punches in emphasizing how tough it is to accomplish Red Zone (RZ) success because of lack of RZ management experience and the necessity for specificity. He notes that traditional conflict resolution and crises management techniques don't work and goes on to clearly explain RZ principles that do work with reinforcing summaries.

Here is a book with helpful insights to deal with issues faced in every corporation,if you are re-engineering the whole company or a small unit that is floundering.