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Leadership and Management for a Changed World

by Basil Carter

155 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0072; ISBN 1-55395-709-1; US$24.95, C$19.95, EUR14.50, £10.00

The global economy has changed. This is not business as usual. With a dramatically changed economic landscape there must be dramatically changed management practices. This book challenges many current business beliefs.

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About the Book      About the Author      Sample Excerpts      Catalogue Info

About the Book The global economy has changed. This is not business as usual! Today's leadership and management face unique challenges. With a dramatically changed economic landscape there must be dramatically changed management practices. Much of the management in place today, the mangers who learned their trade in the last 25 years, have seen only minor adjustments to a business model where short term slowdowns were followed by economic acceleration - downsize and then upsize as the economic cycle unfolds. Conditions in this global marketplace will not allow for a standard recovery. Corporations that are just hanging on and waiting for the next updraft to return to profitability are not going to survive. Leadership and Management for a Changed World is a book for these convoluted times. It is a punchy, concise, and focused read with important illustrations and memorable hooks to help the reader understand and remember the material.             A herd of sheep led by a lion...             Will defeat a pride of lions led by a sheep! This compact and focused book challenges many current business beliefs. It is short on nonsense and long on facing facts. Now is the time for a voice with the courage to attack mainstream business thinking and offer specific advice. The corporate world needs an insightful book that challenges the business tripe currently being disseminated and presents a realistic view of the future.             Leadership and Management for a Changed World.

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About the Author Basil Carter is a seasoned turnaround practitioner who has been President and CEO of three public corporations. For the past 17 years he has been resuscitating and restructuring companies in North America and Europe. This book is based upon his broad experience and his exasperation with the lack of foresight and lack of corporate recognition of how the world economy is developing. In this changing economic climate corporate actions and reactions must be different than in the past. Carter tells why and how.

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Sample Excerpts

FOREWORD

There is a desperate search under way to find a new philosophy of conducting business during these challenging economic times. A search to find a new guru who has a plan and a theory that would significantly improve the bottom line results of many companies as well as lift the collective world economies out of the current doldrums. Probably neither will emerge and this author is certainly not purporting to be a business guru or someone in possession of a magic bullet or formula that will improve the global business climate.

While many are looking for a new future solution, perhaps the best course of action is to look at the past and determine how the current economic problems were created. I used to believe that it took a long time for companies to get into trouble, and correspondingly, it took a long time to get out of trouble. This view is probably in error. The mistakes of the past few years occurred quickly and it will take a long time to recover from these mistakes. Many companies will never recover.

It would be easier to have a new philosophy of business emerge or the surfacing of a new method of doing business. These new methods could then be embraced by corporate management and would perhaps rectify the many business problems that exist today. Something akin to winning a lottery or maybe just a revival of the old fantasy of alchemy, but it is unlikely that this is going to occur.

"A calm sea does not develop a good sailor"

Currently there is a malaise infecting business management and business operations. There exists a great deal of management uncertainty and inaction as there are many challenges to be faced. As always, the future is unknown, but there are very few rays of optimism in sight allowing corporate management to be more comfortable. There is a lot of hoping against hope, that the global economy will soon improve and that this updraft will carry all businesses to profitability.

This is occurring while the business analysts are shamelessly promoting and exaggerating the stock market and business conditions in general, without any regard for the facts. With vague promises, but a large serving of revivalist energy, some business commentators trumpet that the worldwide recession is over and that the coveted recovery is here or imminent. This nonsense is practically bold face lying and these analysts should be treated with contempt. It is this attitude, and lack of attention to true facts, that has led in part to the current abysmal financial conditions at many companies, resulting in a generally poor business environment. Ignore reality, create the appropriate spin, fanfare, and promotion and the economies will improve. Rubbish!

Money and Only Money

The economies of the world are not facing a crisis of confidence but a crisis of profitability. No amount of promotion is going to restructure companies, turn losses into profits, or develop detailed plans to operate a company for the next four years.

What have individual businesses been trying to do for the last 10 years? Become bigger by acquiring overpriced assets? Develop a higher profile? Create a platform to reward and give aggrandizement to the company CEO? Who knows?

Business is simply about making a profit and a return for the shareholders and investors. Regardless of how we try to glamorize any individual action this is the main role of business. Today this must be achieved in a very competitive marketplace where positive results are generally not realized by any high profile initiative. Rather, the companies that are profitable, and remain profitable, develop methods to do those thousands of daily mundane, but important business actions and steps, better than any of their competitors. Profitable companies stick to their core expertise.

The current problems of the global economy are not motivational or abstract. They are the structural problems of excessive debt and poor leadership. Even when there is a sound plan developed by the leadership at a company, there is poor execution of the plan, which is poor management. Most executives have become very good at spinning the company message as well as delivering the appropriate platitudes but more of these executives should get down to hard work and not high profile work. It appears that executives make statements that they do not believe, for marketing reasons, rather than making factual or accurate statements. Hype and hypocrisy are common bedfellows.

"According to my calculations the problem does not exist"

If the current problems were motivational, they would be solved by now, as there have been many attempts to misrepresent the facts and artificially fabricate a strong investment climate. The facts are obstinately resisting the propaganda. If just waiting was going to improve the profitability of businesses, waiting for this recession to end and the next recovery to begin, profitability would have occurred by now as businesses have already waited a long time. Waiting is not an option any longer as this is a time when actions speak louder than words.

Not this old song again!

It is time again for that old slogan "back to basics" to be dusted off and marched out to do battle. This occurs in every successive recession as if this slogan is really an incantation that will magically solve the problems of many businesses. I am a strong supporter of having businesses stick to the basics. However I do not understand why those executives who, during the past few years ignored business basics, embraced fads, believed the unbelievable, and accepted outlandish risks with the company shareholders money still have their jobs.

This book is delivering concepts but not a complete in-depth or detailed review of any single business principal. Still, there is detailed information in every section to enable the reader to fully understand and appreciate the point of the section. If a company needs to change then you must change the underlying concepts and aims of the business. Concepts and averages are what make businesses work. All businesses must be led, and have a strong person at the helm, and be forced to change as change will be resisted and will not occur by itself.

There has been much musing to establish how long this book should be and how much detail should be included. Eventually it was decided that this is a book for senior executives and focuses on a collection of management issues. These issues are framed with an anticipatory slant recognizing the changing economic and political landscapes. Consequently, the material was boiled down to allow the book to be shorter, more focused, and with less noise. This target audience is already well trained and this book recognizes this fact and this book is not a substitute for an MBA course. This is not meant to be a novel that should be savoured and enjoyed, but a book of insights into the changing economic landscape. A fast read dealing with issues, problems, opportunities, and meat.

"Leadership and management is long-term thinking, as there is no short-term for business at the executive level"

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Catalogue Information

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