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Highlighted Phrases Stave Zaffron & Dave logan offer a set of simple rules to show how leaders and their companies can prosper even when the odds are stacked against them. What should leader do during the depression period? Main Task to recognize that people normally have an unconscious, gut level idea of where they and their company are The defa ult future how it is deeply rooted in peoples assumptions, hopes, fears and past experiences. Leadership identifies the default future, discuss, analyze it and reimaging in effect rewriting the future. Good times as challenging, in the sense that people ride the wave of optimism Bad times give us fear and anxiety about whats going to happen (Extra emotional content) Leadership- get people in communication about the future that they see coming at them. Default future consists of our expectations, our fears, our hopes, our predictions, ultimately base on our prior experiences. People make decision based on things that happened in the past. Project those decisions into future. Who they are? What they can do? What they cant do? Lack of Individual and corporate performance Instead of cutting budget, reveal this default future, put it up on the table with people. Communicate about it and seeing in their interaction new opportunities and new possibilities. People expand their perspective on what is going on, see new pathways to what they could create People want to get related to reality and they are empowered when they do. Leaders open up the channels of communication and feel comfortable who take the risk of inviting people to think about the picture theyre looking at. Business leaders face today is how to stay competitive amid constant turbulence and disruption. Any company that has made it past the startup stage is optimized for efficiency rather than for strategic agility- ability to capitalize on opportunities and dodge the threat with speed and assurance. Old ways of setting and implementing strategy are failing us. Hierarchical structures and organizational processes we have used for the decades to run and improve our enterprises are no longer up to the task of winning in this faster moving world. Companies used to reconsider their strategies only rarely. Today any company that isnt rethinking its direction at least every few yearsas well as constantly adjusting to changing contextsand then quickly making significant operational changes is putting itself at risk. What they do not do well is identify the most important hazards and opportunities early enough, formulate creative strategic initiatives nimbly enough, and implement them fast enough. (URGENCY) Limits of hierarchy and conventional change management. (two structures in one organization) Hierarchies and standard managerial processes, even when minimally bureaucratic, are inherently risk-averse and resistant to change. Part of the problem is political: Managers are loath to take chances without permission from superiors. Part of the problem is cultural: People cling to their habits and fear loss of power and staturetwo essential elements of hierarchies. And part of the problem is that all hierarchies, with their specialized units, rules, and optimized processes, crave stability and default to doing what. they already know how to do.

Leading Out of the Downturn

Rob Norton 21/07/2009

The Big Idea: Accelerate

John P. Kotter