A renowned corporate transformation expert describes the key elements of his Rapid Transformation Framework, which has been embraced by the likes of Amazon, Intel and President Barak Obama. In a wide-ranging interview, he argues that the biggest obstacle to change in any organization is mindset - both the leadership mindset and the mindset of employees. Transformation cannot succeed, he argues, without engaging company insiders and focusing on two things: inside-out alignment (i.e. having the mission resonate with insiders) and outside-in alignment (being completely obsessed with your customers.) Once embraced these principles make change incredibly empowering, not something to be feared, he says. That's because they promote growth - for both individuals and organizations.

Eager to stay ahead of fast-changing markets, more and more high-tech companies are going outside for competitive advantage. Last year in the United States alone, there were 5,000 high-tech acquisitions, but many of them yielded disappointing results. The reason, the authors contend, is that most managers have a shortsighted view of strategic acquisitions--they focus on the specific products or market share. That focus might make sense in some industries, where those assets can confer substantial advantages, but in high tech, full-fledged technological capabilities--tied to skilled people--are the key to long-term success. Instead of simply following the "buzz," successful acquirers systematically assess their own capability needs. They create product road maps to identify holes in their product line. While the business group determines if it can do the work in-house, the business development office scouts for opportunities to buy it. Once business development locates a candidate, it conducts an expanded due diligence, which goes beyond strategic, financial, and legal checks. Successful acquirers are focused on long-term capabilities, so they make sure that the target's products reflect a real expertise. They also look to see if key people would be comfortable in the new environment and if they have incentives to stay on board. The final stage of a successful acquisition focuses on retaining the new people--making sure their transition goes smoothly and their energies stay focused. Acquisitions can cause great uncertainty, and skilled people can always go elsewhere. In short, the authors argue, high-tech acquisitions need a new orientation around people, not products.

The continued success of technology-based companies depends on their proficiency in creating next-generation products and their derivatives. So getting such products out the door on schedule must be routine for such companies, right? Not quite. Behnam Tabrizi, a Consulting Professor of Engineering Management in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Engineering Management at Stanford University, and Rick Walleigh, a partner at Ernst & Young LLP, recently engaged in a detailed study--in which they had access to sensitive internal information and to candid interviews with people at every level--of 28 next-generation product-development projects in 14 leading high-tech companies. They found that most of the companies were unable to complete such projects on schedule. And the companies also had difficulty developing the derivative products needed to fill the gaps in the market that their next-generation products would create. The problem in every case, the authors discovered, was rooted in the product definition phase. And not coincidentally, the successful companies in the study had all learned how to handle the technical and marketplace uncertainties in their product definition processes. The authors have discerned from the actions of those companies a set of best practices that can measurably improve the definition phase of any company's product-development process.