The Four Pillars of High Performance : How Robust Organizations Achieve Extraordinary Results

How to stay on course and achieve extraordinary performance in a sea of change

In today's change-or-die business environment, companies that achieve the highest levels of performance are "robust organizations"--those that adapt quickly and without losing their strategic direction. Distilling decades of research conducted by Rand, one of the nation's most respected business think tanks, The Four Pillars of High Performance explores the strategies to truly manage change. Using examples, author Paul C. Light extracts powerful lessons for managers and executives, and he provides readers with:

• Never-before-published research by Rand on the shared traits of the highest-performing companies
• Cutting-edge techniques for improving performance across an organization
• Valuable insights into the five major attributes of agility, alignment, metrics, incentives, and impact
• Case studies and vignettes drawn from the experiences of industry leaders in every sector

Paul C. Light

is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service at the The Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution where he established the Center for Public Service, in 1999. The author of 19 books on business, public service, and education, he is a familiar voice on NPR's "Morning Edition" and a well-known public speaker on organizational life.