Leadership and the Customer Revolution Gary Heil · Tom Parker · Rick Tate Re-engineering? How about TQM? Maybe if we organize in teams? Hire a consultant? Benchmarking? We’re all looking for ways to create a fast, flexible, adaptive, customer-focused organization. We’re talking about the changes we have to make. The problem is that we’ve simply been better at talking about change than we are at making the hard and often risky choice to change significantly. Leadership and the Customer Revolution levels an unflinching gaze at today’s rhetoric around change and at the actual reality we’ve created. Authors Heil, Parker, and Tate advocate taking revolutionary steps while recognizing the need to be pragmatic — to serve today’s customers, quickly, efficiently, reliably, and impressively. They challenge us to re-examine our thinking, take on the system, delight customers, and help those we work with reach their potential. They invite us to become the architects of a very different kind of organization. Drawing from the data gathered in scores of organizational audits and years of real-life, on-the-job experience, the authors tell:
- How to overcome the inevitable resistance (organizational white blood cells) that is produced in significant change efforts.
- How organizational DNA can facilitate decision making while cutting down on the need for rules.
- How to turn employee compliance into employee commitment.
- How to reduce morale-depleting and time- and money-wasting internal competition.
- How and why to make learning the foundation of all our improvement efforts.
Leadership and the Customer Revolution lays out 20 challenges that we must confront and broadens our understanding of the key issues we must address. It offers ideas to expedite the learning process, provides suggestions for experimentation, and helps us anticipate the effects of our actions. In this era of constant whitewater, we must make the choice to lead a revolution. We must work to transform our organizations to adapt to a constantly evolving marketplace. To do less is to put our futures and our organizations’ futures at risk. As the challenges outlined by the authors suggest — these are not times for the faint hearted. Caretaker leaders need not apply.
About the Authors Gary M. Heil is an internationally recognized expert on leadership, service quality, and change management. As a popular and highly regarded speaker represented by the Washington's Speaker Bureau, most of Gary's insights concerning service strategies and organizational improvement have grown out of more than 18 years of consulting and speaking to private and public sector organizations throughout the world. He has conducted hundreds of organizational assessments in a wide range of companies and has served as a member of the Board of Examiners for The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Gary has also developed several widely acclaimed service programs that include Legendary Service, in collaboration with Blanchard Training and Development, Beyond Customer Satisfaction for Banc One, and Managing Customer Relations for Corporate Satellite Television Network. He is a faculty member of the Institute for Management Studies and the University of Southern California's Center for Telecommunications Management. As president of Heil and Associates, Gary is dedicated to helping organizations implement strategies for continuous improvement. Gary recently founded The Center for Innovative Leadership, a consortium of consultants, educators, and managers dedicated to developing information that can help leaders improve the effectiveness of their implementation efforts. Thomas Trebitsch Parker (AKA Tom Parker) is a noted organizational consultant, educator, and author. He has developed communication tools and strategies for over 50 corporations and has taught at Stanford and the University of California. His first novel, Small Business, was honored by the Commonwealth Club and his second, Anna, Ann, Annie, was recently nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He is also coauthor of CEO: Building A $400 Million Company From The Ground Up with ASK Group founder Sandra Kurtzig, and the national best-seller Winfield: A Players's Life with baseball superstar Dave Winfield. Rick Tate is internationally known for his work in service quality improvement, leadership development, and organizational excellence. An outstanding speaker and writer, he has worked with a wide variety of organizations for over 15 years. As co-founder of Innovative Thinking, Inc., an international training and consulting firm, he helps others to challenge their mindsets and develop the ability to think about "new answers to old questions." Rick's expertise at capturing the imaginations and the minds of his audience are backed up by 12 years of line management experience. In addition to speaking, Rick has developed and written several highly-acclaimed programs which have been used worldwide. His programs include Legendary Service, Frontline Service, and The Service Monkey.