Building Strategy from the Middle

Building Strategy from the Middle PDF

Author: Steven W. Floyd

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2000-03-15

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1452221847

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

For much of its history, the academic literature in strategy has focused on the actions and decisions of top managers. The argument of Building Strategy From the Middle is that rapidly developing technologies and competitive dynamics heighten needs for enhanced organizational competencies, which puts a premium on new ideas generated at the operating level and creates a shift in the strategic responsibilities within organizations. Strategic leadership now occurs not only at the top, but at all levels of the organization. This ground-breaking new book reframes the perspective taken in most strategy research in two key ways: by describing organizational renewal from a middle-level perspective and by reconceptualizing the theoretical basis for strategy process research. Part I of the book (Foundations) reviews the existing literature on the strategy process, including recent literature on strategic change renewal. Part II (New Theoretical Horizons) builds the theoretical basis for a middle level perspective, focusing on knowledge development, social network analysis, and organizational trust. Part III (Middle Level Perspective) moves from synthesizing existing research toward the development of a model for conducting research from a middle-level perspective.

Building Strategy from the Middle

Building Strategy from the Middle PDF

Author: Steven W. Floyd

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2000-03-15

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0761906452

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The U.S. Navy SEAL Guide to Nutrition was originally developed for Navy SEAL trainees to help them meet the rigorous demands of the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community. This comprehensive guide covers all the basics of physical well-being as well as advice for the specific challenges encountered in extreme conditions and mission-related activities. With a special emphasis on nutrition and healthy eating, everyone will benefit from these tried and true methods of guiding your body to peak physical condition.Topics covered include: The relationship between energy expenditure and energy intakeBody size and body mass indexEnergy-providing macronutrients and micronutrientsWhen and how much to drinkHealthy snackingNutritional considerations for endurance activities and strength trainingFood for the fieldCompiled by physicians and physiologists chosen for their intimate knowledge of the NSW and SEAL community, this manual is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to boost his or her health, nutrition, and general well-being.

The Messy Middle

The Messy Middle PDF

Author: Scott Belsky

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0735218072

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING BOOKS OF 2018 BY INC. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST STARTUP BOOKS OF ALL TIME BY BOOKAUTHORITY The Messy Middle is the indispensable guide to navigating the volatility of new ventures and leading bold creative projects by Scott Belsky, bestselling author, entrepreneur, Chief Product Officer at Adobe, and product advisor to many of today's top start-ups. Creating something from nothing is an unpredictable journey. The first mile births a new idea into existence, and the final mile is all about letting go. We love talking about starts and finishes, even though the middle stretch is the most important and often the most ignored and misunderstood. Broken into three sections with 100+ lessons, this no-nonsense book will help you: • Endure the roller coaster of successes and failures by strengthening your resolve, embracing the long-game, and short-circuiting your reward system to get to the finish line. • Optimize what’s working so you can improve the way you hire, better manage your team, and meet your customers’ needs. • Finish strong and avoid the pitfalls many entrepreneurs make, so you can overcome resistance, exit gracefully, and continue onto your next creative endeavor with ease. With insightful interviews from today’s leading entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and executives, as well as Belsky’s own experience working with companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber, and sweetgreen, The Messy Middle will outfit you to find your way through the hardest parts of any bold project or new venture.

Playing to Win

Playing to Win PDF

Author: Alan G. Lafley

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 142218739X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

Leading Change from the Middle

Leading Change from the Middle PDF

Author: Jackson Nickerson

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2014-05-09

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 0815725221

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Bookshelves abound with theoretical analyses, how-to guides, and personal success stories by famous corporate leaders, public officials, even athletic coaches, expounding on how to lead from the top. But what about those in the middle who are increasingly tasked with trying to reshape, reorient, or recreate the capabilities of an organization? Leading Change from the Middle takes you on the journeys traveled by Kurt Mayer, an information technology executive in the Department of Defense trying to build a new IT system in record time with limited resources, and Stephen Wang, a mid-level leader in city government trying to build a capability for supporting commercial agriculture. Kurt and Stephen have to navigate complex organizational and stakeholder landscapes in which they often have few decision rights and few resources—a common scenario for mid-level leaders. One succeeds; one does not. While following Kurt and Stephen, the book introduces a new approach for increasing the likelihood of successfully leading change. This new approach breaks down into three core strategies: First, identify all relevant stakeholders and partition them into four categories: superordinates, subordinates, customers, and complementors/blockers (those who control needed resources but over whom the leaders have no authority). Second, for each stakeholder category, identify Communications, Strategies, and Tactics (referred to as CoSTS). Third, don’t stimulate negative emotions that make people DEAF—Disrespect, Envy, Anger, and Fear—to efforts to produce change. As the book follows the journeys of Kurt and Stephen, it walks through the details of each strategy. In presenting this material in a concise, accessible, and applicable format that translates theory to practice, Nickerson provides an important service for leaders trying to build extraordinary capabilities for their organizations—from the middle.

Deep Dive

Deep Dive PDF

Author: Rich Horwath

Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group

Published: 2009-08

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1608320332

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Get competitive by learning to think strategically.The inability to set good strategy can sink a company¿and a leader¿s career. A recent Wall Street Journal study revealed that the most sought-after executive skill is strategic thinking, but only three out of ten managers have this skill set.Horwath explains the three keys to strategic thinking, breaks them down into simple, attainable skills, and gives you practical tools to apply them every day, providing managers with a clear path to mastery of the three disciplines: 1. Acumen¿generate critical insights through a step-by-step evaluation of your business and its environment2. Allocation¿focus your limited resources through strategic trade-offs 3. Action¿implement a system to guarantee effective execution of strategy at all levels of your organization Based on new research with senior executives from 150 companies and the author¿s experience as a thought-leading strategist, Deep Dive is the first book to focus on the most important level of strategy¿you. Armed with this knowledge and dozens of effective tools, you can become a truly strategic leader for your organization.--Rich Horwath is the president of the Strategic Thinking Institute, a former chief strategy officer, and professor of strategy at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. As a thought-leading strategist, he has worked with such giants as Adidas, Amgen, and Pfizer. He is the author of four books and more than fifty articles on strategic thinking and has been profiled in business publications around the world, including Investor¿s Business Daily.

Escaping the Build Trap

Escaping the Build Trap PDF

Author: Melissa Perri

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Published: 2018-11-01

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1491973765

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs

Making Strategy

Making Strategy PDF

Author: Colin Eden

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2013-04-04

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 1446265196

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book approaches strategy-making in a way that is designed to assist most organizations develop strategy appropriate to their size, purpose and resources. It provides a much-needed guide to the strategy-making process by: elaborating the key concepts and theories of strategic management; by illustrating through case vignettes the issues inherent in the process of strategy-making; and by providing extensive and detailed practical guidelines on the methods, techniques and tools employed in the case vignettes. Key themes explored are: the crucial significance of political feasibility; the role of participation; emphasis on stakeholder management; thinking about alternative futures within the overall process of stra

Fit for Growth

Fit for Growth PDF

Author: Vinay Couto

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1119268532

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A practical approach to business transformation Fit for Growth* is a unique approach to business transformation that explicitly connects growth strategy with cost management and organization restructuring. Drawing on 70-plus years of strategy consulting experience and in-depth research, the experts at PwC’s Strategy& lay out a winning framework that helps CEOs and senior executives transform their organizations for sustainable, profitable growth. This approach gives structure to strategy while promoting lasting change. Examples from Strategy&’s hundreds of clients illustrate successful transformation on the ground, and illuminate how senior and middle managers are able to take ownership and even thrive during difficult periods of transition. Throughout the Fit for Growth process, the focus is on maintaining consistent high-value performance while enabling fundamental change. Strategy& has helped major clients around the globe achieve significant and sustained results with its research-backed approach to restructuring and cost reduction. This book provides practical guidance for leveraging that expertise to make the choices that allow companies to: Achieve growth while reducing costs Manage transformation and transition productively Create lasting competitive advantage Deliver reliable, high-value performance Sustainable success is founded on efficiency and high performance. Companies are always looking to do more with less, but their efforts often work against them in the long run. Total business transformation requires total buy-in, and it entails a series of decisions that must not be made lightly. The Fit for Growth approach provides a clear strategy and practical framework for growth-oriented change, with expert guidance on getting it right. *Fit for Growth is a registered service mark of PwC Strategy& Inc. in the United States

Strategy as Practice

Strategy as Practice PDF

Author: Paula Jarzabkowski

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2005-09-09

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1446230562

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

`An important and extremely welcome addition to the strategic management field. In this book the author builds on the work of an emerging community of scholars to lay out theoretical and methodological underpinnings of an activity-based framework for applying the practice lens to strategy′ - Academy of Management Review `Paula Jarzabkowski has astutely signaled an agenda for future scholarship that will no doubt fuel the continued growth of this subfield′ - Organization Studies `Pioneering work. As the first book in the new strategy-as-practice field, it offers readers both innovative models and exemplary field research′ - Richard Whittington, Professor of Strategic Management, Said Business School, Oxford ′Extends and develops the emerging fields of strategy and practice as well as activity theory. It also demonstrates empirically, using University settings, how activity theory is itself bounded by the wider contexts of organisation, embedded routines and the heavy hand of history′ - David C. Wilson, University of Warwick `An insightful book that would be of use to people interested in the actual practices of strategy and strategizing′ - Organization Bridging the gap between what managers actually do and organizational strategies, this book provides an activity-based framework for studying strategy as practice, with empirical evidence to illustrate the dynamics of this framework in real terms.