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Center for Effective Organizations

Book

From the Ground Up: Six Principles for Building the New Logic Corporation

Edward E. Lawler III, (Jossey-Bass, 1996)

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Compaq offered lower prices and better service to successfully compete with computer giant IBM where GE, Xerox, and Honeywell had failed. Steel industry newcomer Nucor pioneered the "mini-mill" and thrived against leading competitors U.S. Steel, Republic, and others. Land's End and L. L. Bean virtually destroyed Sears's catalogue business by understanding customers better and offering superior service. While many once-revered companies stubbornly cling to old ways and old structures, others are readily accepting an emerging new logic of organization and management - and leapfrogging ahead toward the twenty-first century.

Through his breakthrough approach to organizing and managing complex organizations, Edward Lawler - the leading authority in organization effectiveness and design - shows how today's top companies are replacing quick-fix, single dimension techniques of reengineering, TQM, and team building with a complete from-the- bottom-up overhaul for total organizational transformation. Firmly grounded in his extensive consulting experience and practice, and drawing on research and theory, Lawler identifies six "new logic" principles that guide the overall architecture, design, and management approaches of effective organizations. From the Ground Up offers a stimulating look at the foundations upon which the effective organization should be built - from how people are paid and careers are managed to how work is designed and organizations are structured.

The book shows, for example, how:

  • Involvement -- not bureaucracy -- is the most effective source of control
  • All employees -- not just top management and technical experts -- must add value
  • Lateral process -- not hierarchies -- are the key to organization effectiveness
  • Products and customer -- not functions -- are the foundation of successful organization design

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