Articles

Take a more in-depth look at key organizational improvement issues and challenges in articles and papers written by our experienced team.

11.02.92  Robert Schaffer

The Quality Quagmire

Too often, quality movements get bogged down in endless, unprofitable activities. But by insisting on immediate gains, companies can achieve significant improvements now and for the long term.

 

05.04.92  Robert Neiman

How IS Groups Can Create More Value: A Financial Services Perspective

Information systems groups hoping to survive and prosper in contemporary financial organizations by riding the technology band-wagon alone are in for a rough trip.

 

The Lemmings Who Love Total Quality

Many North American corporations are rushing headlong to a destination called "total quality." These corporations are heading for a nasty surprise because the popular approaches to total quality are flawed by four self·defeating characteristics.

 

Successful Change Programs Begin with Results

Many corporate improvement efforts have negligible results because they focus on activities, not results, and there is no explicit connection between action and outcome. By committing to incremental change, managers not only can see results faster but also determin…

 

11.25.74  Robert Schaffer

Demand Better Results - And Get Them (an HBR Classic)

This article, first published in 1974, answers one of management's most important questions: Why do so few organizations reach their productivity potential? One of HBR’s 10 most requested articles of the 1990s decade.

 

08.15.69  Ron Ashkenas

How Goal-Setting Plus Discipline Licked a Plant Peak Load Dilemma

This article describes how we helped Bell Canada set an "impossible goal" to restore full service to customers much more quickly than they had been.

 

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