Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done
Feb 2009 · Harvard Business Press
5.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
224
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
The level of complexity in most organizations today is staggering-and it's only getting worse. There are so many choices to be made, people to involve, processes to manage, and facts to analyze, it's impossible to get things done. And in today's hypercompetitive world, that can be fatal.
Yet complexity doesn't happen on its own. Managers unwittingly create it, often through well-intended decisions. In Simply Effective, Ron Ashkenas provides a playbook for regaining control, focused on the four major causes of complexity:
-Constant changes in organizational structures
-Proliferation of products and services
-Evolution of business processes
-Time-wasting managerial behaviors
The author provides a diagnostic for identifying how these causes of complexity are affecting your organization-and presents practical tactics for combating each one.
Ashkenas also explains how to craft a strategy that will make simplification an ongoing driver of your company's success-no matter where you work in your organization. Abundant examples from companies like ConAgra Foods, GE, Cisco, Zurich Financial Services, and Johnson & Johnson illuminate his points.
A crucial resource in today's overly complex age, Simply Effective should be required reading for everyone on your management team.
Yet complexity doesn't happen on its own. Managers unwittingly create it, often through well-intended decisions. In Simply Effective, Ron Ashkenas provides a playbook for regaining control, focused on the four major causes of complexity:
-Constant changes in organizational structures
-Proliferation of products and services
-Evolution of business processes
-Time-wasting managerial behaviors
The author provides a diagnostic for identifying how these causes of complexity are affecting your organization-and presents practical tactics for combating each one.
Ashkenas also explains how to craft a strategy that will make simplification an ongoing driver of your company's success-no matter where you work in your organization. Abundant examples from companies like ConAgra Foods, GE, Cisco, Zurich Financial Services, and Johnson & Johnson illuminate his points.
A crucial resource in today's overly complex age, Simply Effective should be required reading for everyone on your management team.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
About the author
Ron Ashkenas is a Managing Partner of Robert H. Schaffer & Associates, where he consults to CEOs and senior executives on leadership, organizational transformation, and postmerger integration. He has served on the faculty of executive education programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Kellogg School of Management, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and Weatherhead School of Management. He is the coauthor of The Boundaryless Organization, The GE Work-Out, and Rapid Results.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
