GSA principals bring decades of experience to any consulting assignment. In addition to their consulting skills, they have a body of literature which presents their key operating principles:

High Performance book: Change-ABLE Organization

Articles on High Performance

Change-ABLE Organization: Key Management Practices for Speed & Flexibility

By John G. Mathers and William R. Daniels

ACT Publishing and Josey Bass Professional Distribution

Organization leaders at all levels in today’s fast-paced business world are searching for management skills to sustain consistent performance while they increase their speed and flexibility. Based on participative control backed by a uniquely integrated and pragmatic system of five practices, Change-ABLE Organization has been operating in large and small companies across industries as diverse as semiconductor, consumer goods, government and telecommunications.

This book is the result of the experiences in such companies as Motorola, Intel, Etec Systems and Genesco, and includes both the management practices and the values that drive them. Using graphics and a watercraft analogy contrasts the highly adaptive and ineffective organizational cultures, establishing the warnings about the consequences of becoming Change-ABLE, along with the experience of one company. For those investigating a complete system of management – and wishing to halt management from dying organizational cultures -- Change-ABLE Organization guides the way.

Table of Contents:

Section 1: Overview

1. Our Recommendation: Become Change-ABLE! -- like a Sea-Going Canoe!
2. Introduction: Some Basic Concepts and Terminology
3. Organizational Cultures as Watercraft: Raft, Dory Regatta, Galley, and Sea-Going Canoe

Section 2: The Stuck Cultures

4. Raft: Going with the Flow
5. Dory Regatta: Working Alone … Together
6. Galley: Under Autocratic Control

Section 3: Change-ABLE Organization: Participative Control for Speed and Flexibility

7. Linked Teams
8. Performance Plans
9. Work Reviews
10. Group Decision Making
11. Breakthrough Systems for Individual Contributors
12. Basic Assumptions of the Change-ABLE Organization

Section 4: Becoming Change-ABLE

13. Intervention: Recommendations for Getting Started
14. Case Study: Building a Change-ABLE Organization at Etec Systems
15. Warnings: This is Not for Everyone  

To order books, please contact Grinnell Scott & Associates, Inc. by phone at 415.720.0165 or fax a completed Order Form to 415.381.4660. Thank you.

Articles

Managing Innovation: Building Strategic Commitment in High Performance Teams

By John G. Mathers. Design Management Journal Fall 1997

Managing innovation – introducing new products, entering new markets, or refocusing an entire division – fine tunes an organization’s strength and showcases its failings. Every aspect of the process of creation makes the organization’s vision an accepted reality. What differentiates those organizations that can innovate from those that cannot is both mechanics and Strategic Commitment. Mr. Mathers separates mechanics – the processes, procedures and actions that define strategy and manage its implementation – from Strategic Commitment, the life energy that connects the organization’s vision to its strategy and management practices, ultimately driving it into the marketplace.

Provoking Organizational Change: Using the Five Behaviors of Network Management

By John G. Mathers, William R. Daniels.
Design Management Journal Summer 1995

Changing a traditional organizational structure into a more fluid, project- and resource-responsive Network Culture can significantly enhance performance and profitability. But making this dramatic shift in the way people work and communicate can be difficult and disruptive. John Mathers and William Daniels outline a five-step process they have successfully used to help businesses transform themselves into organizations that continuously and effectively redesign themselves in response to new challenges.

For further reference: As part of an advanced degree business management book “Thriving on Change in Organizations” (edited by Rick Crandall, published by Select Press 1997), Mr. Mathers summarized the Change-ABLE book. The chapter is entitled “Making Your Organization Change-ABLE”.