Willenskraft und Entschlossenheit sind entscheidende, häufig unterschätzte Faktoren im Management.
Heike Bruch und Sumantra Ghoshal zeigen auf überraschende und inspirierende Weise, wie Führungskräfte und Manager durch den Einsatz von Willenskraft ihre Stärken effektiver nutzen können. Die Autoren erläutern, wie das weit verbreitete "geschäftige Nichtstun" durch entschlossenes und konsequentes Handeln ersetzt werden kann. Fallbeispiele aus der Unternehmenspraxis verdeutlichen, wie Manager Ziele besser definieren, unproduktives Verhalten und negative Emotionen vermeiden, Hindernisse aus dem Weg räumen und systematisch ihr Durchhaltevermögen stärken. Nur so werden tatsächlich Wirkungen erzielt und strategisch wichtige Unternehmensziele erreicht. Die Autoren beschreiben darüber hinaus, wie Manager mit den geeigneten Führungsstrategien ihre Mitarbeiter gezielt zu Eigeninitiative und konsequentem Handeln bringen und so eine optimistische und handlungsorientierte Unternehmenskultur erreichen.
Das Buch richtet sich an Topmanager und mittlere Führungskräfte, Personalverantwortliche und Managementforscher sowie an Studierende und Dozenten der Wirtschaftswissenschaften.
Managers will tell you that the resource they lack most is time. If you watch them, you'll see them rushing from meeting to meeting, checking their e-mail constantly, fighting fires--an astonishing amount of fast-moving activity that allows almost no time for reflection. Managers think they are attending to important matters, but they're really just spinning their wheels. For the past ten years, the authors have studied the behavior of busy managers, and their findings should frighten you: Fully 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities. A mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner. Effective action relies on a combination of two traits: focus--the ability to zero in on a goal and see the task through to completion--and energy--the vigor that comes from intense personal commitment. Focus without energy devolves into listless execution or leads to burnout. Energy without focus dissipates into aimless busyness or wasteful failures. Plotting these two traits into a matrix provides a useful framework for understanding productivity levels of different managers. Managers who suffer from low levels of both energy and focus are the procrastinators: They dutifully perform routine tasks but fail to take initiative. Disengaged managers have high focus but low energy: They have reservations about the jobs they are asked to do, so they approach them halfheartedly. Distracted managers have high energy but low focus: They confuse frenetic activity with constructive action. Purposeful managers are both highly energetic and highly focused: These are the managers who accomplish the most.
We use the case of German aviation Group Deutsche Lufthansa and its strategic change program, ‘D-Check Maintaining Leadership', to illustrate how a large company was able to execute group-wide change in order to effectively secure its future despite a highly turbulent environment. In this context, we found that top executives must systematically make two decisions. First, they need to decide what the right change is for their company and second, they need to decide how to implement the change correctly. In the process of making these decisions, various critical factors also need to be taken into individual consideration in a methodical, deliberate way. Details of Lufthansa's program are provided and the benefits of and insights into pre-implementation decision-making processes are assessed for framing and subsequently implementing strategic change. The impact of leadership and management decisions for successful strategic change is discussed in the analysis. We round up our discussion with major lessons learned.
