How to Manage in a Flat World e book

Description

• Copyright 2008
• Dimensions: 234X156
• Pages: 184
• Edition: 1st

• eBook (Adobe DRM)
• ISBN-10: 1-4082-5046-2
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4082-5046-4

In today’s “flat” world, you must get the best from teams that span not just offices, but continents: teams of unprecedented diversity and complexity. Leading those teams, you must deliver better results faster and with fewer resources. Conventional management techniques just won’t do the job anymore. You need a radically new approach to management: one that’s more fluid, more agile, and far less hierarchical.

How to Manage in a Flat World teaches you that new approach. Drawing on hard-won lessons from today’s most successful global managers, this book covers both high-level concepts and hands-on techniques. You’ll find best practices for everything from building trust to choosing the right times to travel…even maintaining a healthy work/life balance when you’re leading a team that’s operating 24/7!  The new flat world has both high levels of interconnectivity facilitated by technology and high levels of dispersion within teams and companies, with colleagues often working in different offices, or even different parts of the world. This demands a new set of skills and tools of you as a manager. How to Manage in a Flat World gives you the ten strategies you need to be a high-performing manager. The key is to communicate and collaborate closely with your team, even if you don't see them very often. This practical book includes interviews with managers around the world, and will help the reader make the best use of technology; establish a work-life balance for yourself; know when you need to have face-to-face meetings; lead and motivate your team, wherever they are; create a culture of trust and motivation that will lead to higher performance; and prepare and adapt to change so that you are not left behind.

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Sample Content

Table of Contents

Foreword    xi

Acknowledgments    xiii

About the Authors    xv

Preface    xvii

Introduction    xix

Part I    The Team

1    “Flat” Teams Need Direction    3

Key Points    3

Followership    4

Getting into Focus    5

Leading out of the Darkness of Ambiguity    6

Behind the Scenes: Teams in Synch with the Business    9

Unity of Focus in Complex Teams    11

Case Study: Coca-Cola: RIP the Department Silo    14

Clusters    15

Case Study: Shell Retail: Huge Workforce in a Dispersed Operation    17

Do We All Have to “Bond”?    20

Case Study: United Biscuits    22

If We Don’t Know Where We Are Going, We Will Probably End Up Somewhere Else    25

Your Own Human Internet    26

Learning Points: High Performance with a Globally Dispersed Team    27

2    The Medium and the Message    29

Key Points    29

What Do We Get from “Being There”?    31

Video-Conferences: An Irritation    33

Why Are We Here?    35

Face-to-Face Can Be Powerful but Must Be Used Well    36

All Businesses Are People Businesses    38

A Level Playing Field in the Same Room    39

An International Team Can Really Fire    41

Benefits to Being the Virtual Stranger    42

Will Face-to-Face Become a Luxury?    44

Are There Hidden Advantages to the Virtual Connection?    47

Native or Nonnative English? Some Notes on Language    49

Onward with Travel    51

Learning Points: How to Get the Meeting Structure Right    51

3    Does Culture Still Matter?    53

Key Points    53

Is There a Generation Y?    57

Is It Really Culture?    59

In Which Ways Do We Differ?    60

In Which Ways Are We All the Same?    61

Individual Case Study: Monika Altmaier, Project Leader Internationalization, Siemens Business Services    63

Group Case Study: European Top Team    66

Defying the Stereotypes: WL Gore & Associates in China    67

Culture Clash Based on Profession    70

Learning Points: Tips to Avoid Stereot

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