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What Leaders: Really Do - .
What Leaders: Really Do - .
What Leaders: Really Do - .
Really Do . . .
Article by John P. Kotter, HBR
Group F
Kshitij Ahuja • Rakshit Bansal • Sai Kiran
Saurabh Guglani • Somya Agarwal • Tushar Bhagheria
Overview
• A balance is needed
• Creates visions/strategies
• Not planning
• Strategic thinkers
• Inductive (Patterns, relationships to
explain)
• Make ideas better
Vs. Planning and
Budgeting
• Management process
• Obsolete (Long/Short term)
• Burdensome
• Unexpected
• Combo is Best bet
• Vision provides constraints
• Reality check on direction setting
• Essential vs. irrelevant
Setting Direction:
Case Study
Lou Gerstner at American Express
• President of TRS-arm of AE in 1979
• Challenges : a)Credit cards by many banks b)
Lot of financial cos. in traveler’s checks
business
• Crafted a vision and saw potential to become
a dynamic and potential firm
• Focused on global marketplace, affluent
customer of AE, served with top products.
• Gerstner Method/Vision:
• Questioned business principles & mental models.
• Instituted entrepreneurial culture.
• Results:
• New markets, products and services.
• Card and travel services combined for corporate
clients.
• Am Ex 5th largest direct mail merchant in US.
• Other unique products and services.
• TRS net income rose by a compounded annual rate
of growth of 18%.
• Outperformed many high tech/growth companies
Organizing and Staffing .
..
• Organization – linkage/interdependence
• Challenge for change as one
• Alignment problem
• Managers organize
• To achieve precision and efficiency
• Requires complex decisions
• Suitable staffing, training, communicate
plans, authority, etc.
Vs. Aligning People
• Communication problem – not design problem
• Involves talking to many people
• Bosses to peers, peers to bosses
• Even suppliers and customers
• Anyone who can help vision and strategies
• Credibility needed to carry vision to employees
• Leads to Empowerment at all levels
• Have same target
• Lower-level can initiate actions
Aligning People: Case Study
Chuck Trowbridge and Bob Crandall at
Eastman Kodak
• Problem high costs,low profits
• Changes
• Chuck Trowbridge, GM met everyone imp. to
business-crucial area of engineering &
manufacturing head Bob
• Vision: to become a world class manufacturing
Operation & to create a less bureaucratic and
more decentralized organization
• Bob set up no. of ways to empower vision and to
align to it-weekly, monthly, quarterly meetings
• Results
• Appeared within 6 months, more after a
year
• Successes: message more credible: more
people on board
• Quality of one main product line improved
• Defects per unit went down
• Costs on another product line down
• Deliveries on schedule increased
• Inventory levels dropped
• Productivity more than doubled
Motivating People Vs.
Controlling and Problem Solving