Again and again, senior managers fall into four behavioral traps that thwart organizational change. The behaviors are difficult to recognize and reverse because they serve to protect egos and prevent anxiety-but executives can overcome them. First, managers fail to set proper expectations. When they announce major directional changes or new goals, they don't spell out credible plans or specify who's accountable. Second, they excuse subordinates from the pursuit of overall goals, allowing people to remain preoccupied with their own units. Third, executives essentially collude with staff experts and consultants by going along with a deeply flawed contract: The experts agree to deliver and implement a "product" (a new system, for instance) but don't include measurable gains as part of the deal. Fourth, managers wait while associates overprepare. After challenging their employees to make needed improvements, they accept the response "Yes, but first we have to..." Finish the sentence: Train our people. Set up focus groups. Bring in Six Sigma. And so on. The best way to confront the traps is to conduct small personal experiments that rapidly produce tangible results, incur little risk of failure, and are confined enough to demonstrate a clear link between trial and outcome. For example, one iron plant addressed quality problems by targeting five areas for improvement, setting clear and measurable goals for each, and holding team leaders accountable for outcomes. All five experiments succeeded and were extended to the rest of the plant. Quality problems eased up within 100 days and virtually disappeared a few months later.

For decades, CEOs have been looking for the holy grail of corporate transformation, asking, "What is the best way to transform my company? Which model should I use?" Management consultants and academics have been working overtime to supply the answer. They haven't succeeded, however, because the search is a futile one. Every organization is unique. Leaders can adopt ideas that have worked elsewhere, but they need to create their own one-of-a-kind change model through experimentation, learning, blueprint creation and, most of all, a strong focus on results.

In big organizations, traditions and territoriality often keep people in different product groups from working together. Siemens may have found an answer to this problem: managers need to feel they have "permission" to collaborate across divisions.

This fictitious case study by Idalene F. Kesner, the Frank P. Popoff Professor at Indiana University, and Sally Fowler, assistant professor at Victoria University, explores the issues that arise when the wires get crossed between a team of consultants and their key client. The client is the CEO of a newly-merged company; the consultants have been hired to help knit together the two former companies' policies and cultures. Unfortunately, the client's impression of the current status of the new company and the consultants' assessment of the situation facing them are vastly different. In 97605 and 97605Z, John Rau, Charles Fombrum, Robert H. Schaffer, and David H. Maister advise the consultants and the client about their options, offer their perspectives on what makes a good client/consultant relationship, and discuss the difficulties that face newly merged companies.

This fictitious case study by Idalene F. Kesner, the Frank P. Popoff Professor at Indiana University, and Sally Fowler, assistant professor at Victoria University, explores the issues that arise when the wires get crossed between a team of consultants and their key client. The client is the CEO of a newly-merged company; the consultants have been hired to help knit together the two former companies' policies and cultures. Unfortunately, the client's impression of the current status of the new company and the consultants' assessment of the situation facing them are vastly different. In 97605 and 97605Z, John Rau, Charles Fombrum, Robert H. Schaffer, and David H. Maister advise the consultants and the client about their options, offer their perspectives on what makes a good client/consultant relationship, and discuss the difficulties that face newly merged companies.

Most corporate improvement efforts have negligible results because they focus on activities, not results, and there is no explicit connection between action and outcome. "Results-driven" approaches offer greater potential for improvement because they focus on achieving specific, measurable goals. By committing to incremental change, managers not only can see results faster but also determine more quickly what is working and what isn't.

This article, first published in 1974, answers one of management's most important questions: Why do so few organizations reach their productivity potential? The author answers that most executives fail to establish expectations of performance improvement in ways that get results. To set high goals that employees respond to and are accountable for, managers must invest their own time and energy. The first step is to set a modest, measurable goal concerning an important organizational problem. If this goal is met, management uses the success as a springboard for more ambitious demands.

Almost all managers escape some job-induced anxieties by retreating into time consuming activities that entail fewer threats than more challenging executive activities. Much of executives' job anxiety is produced by three tasks: streamlining daily routines, meeting demands to improve performance, and getting subordinates to achieve better results.