20 Questions for Business Leaders -Part 2
The entire history of management ideas can be seen as a series of answers to a few pragmatic queries.
by Art Kleiner and Nancy A. Nichols

https://www.strategy-business.com/feature/20-Questions-for-Business-Leaders?gko=e2585&utm_source=itw&utm_medium=20180222&utm_campaign=resp

An interesting article. Over the next three postings, I’ll summarize three of the questions. I urge going to the article to get a fuller picture.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT CHANGE?

Change works best in small groups.

In small groups, people learn collective self-awareness. Kurt Lewin, Edith and Charles Seashore, 1930–46

Your culture is your ally.

Identify and promote a critical few people, attributes, and behaviors that point in the right new direction. Jon R. Katzenbach and others, “Stop Blaming Your Culture,” s+b, 2011, and “The Critical Few,” s+b, 2014

Only the paranoid survive.

Disrupt your own success, or someone else will. Andy Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996

Systems change in nonlinear ways.

You have leverage if you recognize the accelerating and balancing feedback in system dynamics. Can you ride the waves of change around you? Jay Forrester, Industrial Dynamics, 1961; “The Prophet of Unintended Consequences,” s+b, 2005

Changing a company is like running a campaign.

Articulate the urgency, set goals, organize a team to lead change, win hearts and minds, and roll out the new regime. John Kotter, Leading Change, 1996

Be agile.

Strategic responsiveness is the ability to sense new risks and new opportunities in the business environment and to quickly craft a response to those pressures.

USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, “The Agility Factor,” s+b, 2013

PwC’s Technology Industry Advisory Practice, “Agility Is Within Reach,” s+b, 2015