University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Mission Possible
Book

Mission Possible

Becoming a World-Class Organization While There's Still Time

Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn
McGraw-Hill, 1999
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Ken Blanchard, one of the most successful business authors of all time, teams up with Terry Waghorn in this clear, concise guide to surviving and prospering in a time of great change. The authors show you how to guide your business through the present while simultaneously preparing for and implementing changes for the future. This well-balanced book, which focuses as much on vision, intuitive processes and thinking as it does on nuts-and-bolts strategy, is a valuable guide for working and leading in the twenty-first century. getAbstract.com recommends this book for everyone in business, and finds it particularly essential for leaders, managers, and business owners.

Summary

Don’t Look Now: The Future is Zooming Your Way

The nature of doing business has changed dramatically. Many years ago, a business could "experience a change and then return to a period of relative stability." Then the pace accelerated: a business would handle one change, and would quickly have to get ready for another and another. Now, business is in an era of such rapid-fire change, that changes are happening "one on top of another." This means that there’s "no rest and there’s no getting ready." The result is that in "the heat of this chaos, it’s hard for people to maintain perspective."

Organizations respond to this climate in three distinct ways:

  1. The first group "sees no need to change." Its members think that doing what they’ve always done, the way they’ve always done it, got them to where they are today. These tactics, they argue, will do just fine to take them wherever they need to go tomorrow and in the future. "They are frozen in time, paralyzed at the prospect of changing the status quo." But, because of this attitude, they are out of step with their markets and will not be able to compete or survive in the current business climate...

About the Authors

Ken Blanchard, chairman of Blanchard Training and Development, Inc., is one of the most successful business book authors of all time. His 1982 book, The One Minute Manager, still appears regularly on best-seller lists. He has also co-authored a number of other best-selling books. Terry Waghorn is a Senior Fellow of the Nolan, Norton Institute, the business strategy think tank of KPMG. He specializes in observing and studying organizational transformation efforts worldwide. A Canadian, he is currently based in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

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