Response Ability: The Language, Structure and Culture of the Agile Enterprise (Hardcover)

Response Ability: The Language, Structure, and Culture of the Agile Enterprise helps companies keep up with an ever–changing business environment driven by the explosion and rapid application of new knowledge and increasing connectivity and communication. This twenty–first–century business primer identifies corporate characteristics that facilitate change and shows managers how to instill these competencies in every part of any organization.

This user′s manual for the new economy shows companies how to reconfigure themselves to respond quickly when a business situation demands rapid changes in organization, distribution logistics, production capability, innovation capability, resource procurement, product design, service strategy, or any other activity or competency. It provides a strategic context for lean operating practices, puts knowledge management and the learning organization in perspective, and offers a framework within which to apply today′s best advice on new business practices and strategic focus.

This timely guide is the ultimate resource for enterprises struggling to adjust to rapidly changing economic conditions and for managers at any level who must introduce agility into a department, division, or entire organization. It is also an excellent supporting reference and tutorial for all others who will take part in the transformation.

From the Inside Flap
Gurus have long insisted that, to survive and thrive in an increasingly dynamic and uncertain business environment, organizations must be willing and able to change rapidly and repeatedly in response to changing conditions. Until now, however, none has addressed the practical, physical aspects of how a company can achieve this kind of agility. Is it possible to design an organization and all of its parts to transform themselves with competence into whatever a new situation requires?

Rick Dove answers this question with a resounding "Yes!" In Response Ability: The Language, Structure, and Culture of the Agile Enterprise, Dove defines and illustrates the characteristics that make a business and its systems easy to change at any level. He explains how to acquire these characteristics; supplies the tools and techniques needed to implement them; and demonstrates how to use them, not only to effect change but also to direct it.

Using positive and negative examples from major companies, including Microsoft, GM, and LSI Logic, Response Ability shows readers how to analyze opportunities and problems for their operational dynamics and how to use the results of this analysis to establish a solution strategy. This professional management primer also demonstrates how to measure change proficiency, profile an organization′s ability to change, and establish a strategy for improving a company′s change profile.

Corporate culture has an enormous impact on a company′s agility. Response Ability analyzes the role of culture in an organization′s change profile and demonstrates how to insert new, change–oriented values and competencies into an established corporate culture, no matter what it may be.

For senior managers, manufacturing managers, and organizational managers in companies of virtually any size in any market or industrial segment, Response Ability makes the concepts of agility and responsiveness real and actionable. Supplemented with numerous metrics and exercises, this eye–opening and completely practical resource will help organizations adapt and respond to changes in the business environment now and for years to come.

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