The Second Cycle: Winning the War Against Bureaucracy

by Lars Kolind

You're growing fast. You're profitable. Maybe they're even writing great things about you in the business press. But, just beneath the surface, are you incubating the seeds of disaster? It's happened over and over again, in one industry after another, to companies ranging from IBM to Upjohn. In this book, Lars Kolind helps you uncover the earliest signs of trouble--and reignite a powerful new growth cycle. Drawing upon his own experience as the CEO who turned around Oticon, the world's top manufacturer of hearing aids, Kolind introduces a comprehensive toolbox for revitalizing mature tools for creating consensus around change, using staff more effectively, promoting innovation, and much more. Finally, he applies his tools to a wide range of organizations in decline, including the U.S. auto industry. The specific, practical advice you can adapt to galvanize your organization, no matter how well you're doing today.

Genres: Management, Business

230 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2006

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title refers to what Lars Kolind characterizes as an organizational re-design process by which to “enable and sustain innovation and growth. The starting point is the change from conventional mass production (for example, a metal parts factory) to knowledge work (for example, investment banking) in general and customization in particular. It argues that the conventional hierarchical and functional organization is long overdue as an adequate structure for organizations that perform knowledge work. [The re-design design process] highlights four fundamental characteristics of organizations that are essential if they want to exchange an upcoming death cycle [i.e. the first cycle] with a second or third lifecycle.” Kolind suggests that such an organizational re-design process is needed because most (if not all) organizations are involved in (for lack of a better term) a paradigm shift from being transaction-based to knowledge-based.

Kolind cites the rapidly increasing amount of available knowledge that becomes available, the competitive advantages that result from providing innovative and radically different solutions to problems, consumer perceptions that focus more on differentiated products and services (“Price-performance ratios are no longer the only criterion for purchase; environmental, emotional, ethical, and esthetical aspects play a greater role.”), and one-time costs (e.g. R&D and marketing) become more important than unit manufacturing and transportation costs. These and other factors create all manner of challenges to which organizations must now respond if they are to adapt to changing environments while continuously applying knowledge in new ways to create innovations in products, processes, and service. In other words, free themselves from the “death cycle” by becoming what Koland characterizes as a “collaborative organization” at all levels and in all areas of their external as well as internal operations.

[Leader Summaries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desde Leader Summaries recomendamos la lectura del libro El segundo ciclo, de Lars Kolind.
Las personas interesadas en las siguientes temáticas lo encontrarán práctico y útil: liderazgo, estrategia y modelos de negocio.
En el siguiente enlace tienes el resumen del libro El segundo ciclo, Estrategias para que las empresas en declive se reinventen y vuelvan a su antiguo esplendor: El segundo ciclo