Consider the Warner-Lambert Co. in the early 1980s. In 1979, Warner-Lambert told Business Week that it aimed to be a leading consumer-products company. One year later, it did an abrupt about-face and turned its sights on health care. In 1981, the company reversed course again and returned to diversification and consumer goods. Then in 1987, Warner-Lambert made another U-turn, away from consumer goods, and announced that it wanted to compete with Merck. Then in the early 1990s, the company responded to government announcements of pending health-care reform and re-embraced diversification and consumer brands. Between 1979 and 1998, Warner-Lambert underwent three major restructurings -- one per CEO. Each new CEO arrived with his own program; each CEO halted the momentum of his predecessor. Continue
17. Don't be afraid to look for ideas in unusual places. Don't just read your own industry's trade journals. Cast a wide net for insights -- sometimes the breakthrough idea lies in the triumphs of a completely different industry.
When Rob McEwen, took over an underperforming gold mine in northwestern Ontario, he assumed a tough situation: The gold market was depressed, the mine's operating costs were high, and miners were on strike. His breakthrough - an unprecedented move to make his company's proprietary information public and launching a contest to develop the mine over the Internet - came from learning about the Linux operating system and the open-source revolution. Continue
18. Finally, ask yourself who do you really want to prevail, you or your organization? You'd be surprised by the difference.
Consider this: Jim Collins and his team at Stanford Graduate School of Business and asked, what makes a good company great? They started with 1,435 good companies, examined their performance over 40 years, and then identified 11 companies that became great.Here's one thing they found: The CEOs who took their companies from good to great were largely anonymous -- a far cry from the celebrity CEOs we read about. Collins believes this is more a matter of cause and effect than an accident. There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results. Why? First, when you have a celebrity, the company turns into "the one genius with 1,000 helpers." It creates a sense that the whole thing is really about the CEO. And that leads to all sorts of problems - especially if the person goes away or if the person turns out not to be a genius after all. Continue
What do you think? What are your own tips and tactics for taking the lead? Don't forget to Sound Off! below:
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