Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done

Description

The level of complexity in most organizations today is staggering-and it's only getting worse. There are so many choices to be made, people to involve, processes to manage, and facts to analyze, it's impossible to get things done. And in today's hypercompetitive world, that can be fatal. Yet complexity doesn't happen on its own. Managers unwittingly create it, often through well-intended decisions. In Simply Effective, Ron Ashkenas provides a playbook for regaining control, focused on the four major causes of complexity: -Constant changes in organizational structures -Proliferation of products and services -Evolution of business processes -Time-wasting managerial behaviors The author provides a diagnostic for identifying how these causes of complexity are affecting your organization-and presents practical tactics for combating each one. Ashkenas also explains how to craft a strategy that will make simplification an ongoing driver of your company's success-no matter where you work in your organization. Abundant examples from companies like ConAgra Foods, GE, Cisco, Zurich Financial Services, and Johnson & Johnson illuminate his points. A crucial resource in today's overly complex age, Simply Effective should be required reading for everyone on your management team.

Ron Ashkenas is a Managing Partner of Robert H. Schaffer & Associates (RHS&A) where he consults to CEOs and senior executives on leadership, organization transformation, and post-merger integration. He was a member of the team who worked with then-CEO Jack Welch to develop GE's leadership development approach, and is the co-author of three books drawing from that experience: The GE Work-Out (with Dave Ulrich and Steve Kerr), The Boundaryless Organization (with Dave Ulrich, Steve Kerr, and Todd Jick), and The Boundaryless Organization Field Guide. He is also the co-author of Rapid Results (with Robert H. Schaffer and other members of the firm). He speaks and gives seminars to organizations worldwide, and has been on the faculty of executive education programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, the Kellogg School at Northwestern, and the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve.