Few people have impacted the day-to-day management of people and companies more than Ken Blanchard. A prominent, gregarious, sought-after author, speaker, and business consultant, Dr. Blanchard is universally characterized by his friends, colleagues, and clients as one of the most insightful, powerful, and compassionate individuals in business today.
When Ken speaks, he speaks from the heart with warmth and humor. His unique gift is to speak to an audience and communicate with each person as if they were alone and talking one on one. He is a polished storyteller with a knack for making the seemingly complex easy to understand.
From his phenomenal best-selling book, The One Minute Manager®, coauthored with Spencer Johnson, which has sold more than 12 million copies and remains on best-seller lists, to the library of books coauthored with Sheldon Bowles, Raving Fans®, Gung Ho!®, Big Bucks!, and High Five!, Ken’s impact as a writer is far reaching.
He wrote his latest book, Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations, with the founding associates and consulting partners of The Ken Blanchard Companies. This definitive "Blanchard on Leadership" combines more than 25 years of breakthrough leadership insights in one extraordinary book.
Ken is Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Dr. Marjorie Blanchard, founded in 1979 in San Diego, California. He is also a visiting lecturer at his alma mater, Cornell University, where he is a trustee emeritus of the Board of Trustees. Ken is cofounder of The Center for FaithWalk Leadership, which is dedicated to helping leaders walk their talk in the marketplace.
Ken has received many awards and honors for his contributions in the fields of management, leadership and speaking. The National Speakers Association awarded him its highest honor, the "Council of Peers Award of Excellence." He was inducted into the HRD Hall of Fame by Training magazine and Lakewood Conferences, and he received the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International. And in 2004 Ken was awarded with The Thought Leadership Award for continued support of work-related learning and performance by ISA—The Association of Learning Providers.
http://www.kenblanchard.com
Empowerment can help companies focus on cost-effectiveness, rather than just cost cutting.
Apple Computer lays off 1,300 people;
Kimberly-Clark lays off 2,700 after acquiring Scott Paper; AT&T lays off
78,000 managers. And so it goes as U.S. businesses try to slice themselves into
greater profitability and increased productivity. Unfortunately, such cuts
often reduce a company's ability to serve its customers and produce quality
products-indeed its ability to grow.
Most companies have no plan associated with downsizing other than to reduce
their cost structure using the easiest means possible, namely reduce head
count. The positive impact is questionable. A recent American Management
Association study reported that within a year, only 46 percent of downsized
companies reported increased profits, and only 33 percent reported increased
productivity.
Moreover, downsizing has negative effects on companies. Early buyouts deplete
the number of experienced, talented people, and multiple rounds of layoffs
destroy employee commitment. Employees focus on keeping their jobs rather than
on doing their best. In short, downsizing reduces a company's ability to compete
and grow.
Furthermore, employees throughout downsized companies do not have time to think
about new growth opportunities. Nor are they inclined to suggest innovations
because their implicit commitment contract with the company has been severed.
Without a change in the organization's culture in conjunction with downsizing,
you simply wind up with a less efficient, smaller bureaucracy. And less
efficient bureaucracies cannot address the four essential demands facing
companies in the 1990s. They must be customer-driven, cost-effective, fast and
flexible, and continually improving.
Forward-thinking managers now realize that creating a culture which empowers
the work force to be accountable and use their knowledge, experience and
motivation is an essential complement to successful downsizing. Indeed, it may
help create viable alternatives to downsizing.
Empowerment helps companies focus on cost-effectiveness rather than just cost
cutting. And it helps them create new possibilities for future growth.
To create this culture takes a concerted effort. Management must start by
sharing information about its financial performance, its market share, its
profitability, its costs-everything managers use to make informed decisions.
"You have to open up your books and show everyone how your company makes
money," says Bob Argabright, president of Chesapeake Packaging Co. in
Baltimore, Maryland.
Sharing information that tells it like it really is creates a sense of
responsibility and "ownership" in employees. More subtly, information
sharing also helps restore trust between management and employees undermined in
the current climate of downsizing.
But information sharing only starts this movement toward empowerment. An
empowered organization is not just a more efficient bureaucracy. It is a place
where individuals take pride in holding themselves accountable for
productivity, innovations, cost control, customer service and other business
needs.
Surprisingly, creating responsible autonomy also means using boundaries different
from the controlling type found in bureaucracies. The boundaries in empowered
organizations encourage self-control and accountability.
For example, numerous companies we have consulted have had to redesign their
performance-management systems. The command-and-control systems typical of
bureaucracies must be replaced with systems that support self-control,
accountability and partnerships between managers and employees.
Companies like General Electric, Motorola and Chesapeake Packaging have found
that they must train people to function more effectively in teams. Empowered
cultures tend to be team cultures because empowered teams can do more than
empowered individuals. Such teams make and implement decisions and train
themselves in new, needed job skills.
In the current climate of downsizing, the companies that excel will be the ones
that look for new ways to do business and for new businesses to pursue.
Empowerment is a key tool for any organization that wants to grow, not just cut
costs.
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