Recapturing the Growth Track

This book answers the question virtually every manager and most CEOs are asking: Why doesn't this organization perform better? To re-energize their companies, CEOs must understand the source of their inconsistent behavior by examining their true driving values, working with managers and employees to raise and resolve issues sooner, setting goals and personal development plans, and more. Virtually every manager and CEO wonders why his or her organization doesn't perform better. What's wrong at the top? When effectiveness has gone stale despite using all the cutting-edge thrusts, the malaise's source is how the leaders are inadvertently behaving. What worked before when the company was smaller and its challenges were less complex doesn't work anymore, because the leader's foibles—once endearing and excusable idiosyncrasies—now create a lack of clarity and focus that lead to an ineffective, disempowered, lethargic organization. The problem is that the CEO is behaving inconsistently with the stated vision, decisions, and values of the organization. As CEO, you can't act consistently unless you know what your true driving values are. These are driven by old fears, successes, or aspirations, which motivate your behavior every day, in calm and crisis. You and your organization need to know what they are, and this book will help you define them. Once you know what they are, you need help in developing consistent behaviors around them. That requires vulnerability, which is a critical and often misunderstood leadership trait. When you ask for help, others are more willing to assist you in accomplishing necessary goals. This process gives rise to a shared fate and shared reward program, in which team members hold each other responsible by virtue of the peer dynamic, rather than a superior-subordinate one. This book describes how such a process can and must be done to ensure better execution, motivated employees, satisfied customers, and higher profits.

KEN UTECH is a Principal in Utech Consulting, Inc. where he thrives on helping CEOs and their management teams change their behaviors so they impact their organizations more productively. He has perfected his techniques over the past decade with more than 50 companies ranging in size from 50 employees to 5,000 employees. His current work grew naturally out of his background as a social worker helping dysfunctional families, which led him to set up Employee Assistance Programs. PHIL HAUCK is a Principal in in Counselor Enterprises and TEC, and he coordinates three TEC CEO Groups with more than 35 members as well as a group of Senior Marketing Executives. He is a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal who spent 15 years as a retail operations executive and then as publisher of business technique newsletters.