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Managing from the inside out.

Article Excerpt
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It's easy to fall into the trap of looking for answers "out there." But the real solutions to improved business performance are inside your very organization. Get the management team in touch with its own wisdom and find a way to draw it out.

Organizations continue their struggle to manage in chaotic and turbulent environments as the need for change increases the pace and pressure on business. The only apparent constant in this picture is the need to stay competitive. Managers continuously search for outside techniques and programs that will allow them to improve performance.

We refer to these traditional responses to performance improvement as outside-in programs. Simply put, outside-in techniques are externally driven programs that have been developed to show managers new and better ways of performing. The programs are typically presented by outside experts, and managers are required to attend the sessions.

Unfortunately, the approaches taught often exit with the expert and become known as the management flavor of the month. At best, they have short lives in the organization. Our experience is that these programs fail not because of a lack of competence on the part of the expert or the managers but because the expert attempts to effect change from the outside-in.

Our observation and experience is that true and sustained improvement starts from the inside. Whether applied to an individual or a large organization, the ability to change and create performance improvement can come only from within the person or organization itself. This is a fundamental principle of change and a readily observable fact of organizational life.

Although all organizations can benefit from external...

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