3 Implementing Change Construction workers on scaffolding. hxdbzxy/iStock/Thinkstock Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following: Summarize the nine steps in Ackerman and Anderson’s road map for change. Analyze Cummings and Worley’s five dimensions of leading and managing change. Describe how to align an organization with its new vision and future state. Explain how roles/relationships and interventions are used to implement change. Examine ways to interact with and influence stakeholders. Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. —John F. Kennedy Alan Mulally was selected to lead Ford in 2006 after he was bypassed as CEO at Boeing, where he had worked and was expected to become CEO. Insiders and top-level managers at Ford, some of whom had expected to become CEO, were initially suspicious and then outraged when Mulally was hired. They questioned what someone from the airplane industry would know about the car business (Kiley, 2009). Chair William (Bill) Clay Ford, Jr.—who selected Mulally as CEO—told Ford’s officers that the company needed a fresh perspective and a shake-up, especially since it had lost $14.8 billion in 2008—the most in its 105-year history—and had burned through $21.2 billion, or 61%, of its cash (Kiley, 2009). Because Ford knew that the company’s upper echelon culture was closed, bureaucratic, and rejected outsiders and new ways of thinking, he was not surprised by his officers’ reactions. However, Ford’s managers had no idea that the company was fighting for its life. To succeed, Mulally would need Chair Ford’s full endorsement and support, and he got it. The company’s biggest cultural challenge was to break down the silos that various executives had built. As we will discuss more in Chapter 4, silos are specific processes or departments in an organization that work independently of each other without strong communication between or among them. A lack of communication can often stifle productivity and innovation, and this was exactly what was happening at Ford. Mulally devised a turnaround strategy and developed it into the Way Forward Plan. The plan centralized and modernized plants to handle several models at once, to be sold in several markets. The plan was designed to break up the fiefdoms of isolated cultures, in which leaders independently developed and decided where to sell cars. Mulally’s plan also kept managers in positions for longer periods of time to deepen their expertise and improve consistency of operations. The manager who ran the Mazda Motor affiliate commented, “I’m going into my fourth year in the same job. I’ve never had such consistency of purpose before” (as cited in Kiley, 2009, “Meetings About Meetings,” para. 2). Mulally’s leadership style involved evaluating and analyzing a situation using data and facts and then earning individuals’ support with his determinatio.

1. 3
Implementing Change
Construction workers on scaffolding.
hxdbzxy/iStock/Thinkstock
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the
following:
Summarize the nine steps in Ackerman and Anderson’s road
map for change.
Analyze Cummings and Worley’s five dimensions of leading
and managing change.
Describe how to align an organization with its new vision
and future state.
Explain how roles/relationships and interventions are used to
implement change.
Examine ways to interact with and influence stakeholders.
Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or
present are certain to miss the future.
—John F. Kennedy
Alan Mulally was selected to lead Ford in 2006 after he was
bypassed as CEO at Boeing, where he had worked and was
expected to become CEO. Insiders and top-level managers at
Ford, some of whom had expected to become CEO, were
initially suspicious and then outraged when Mulally was hired.
They questioned what someone from the airplane industry
would know about the car business (Kiley, 2009).

2. Chair William (Bill) Clay Ford, Jr.—who selected Mulally as
CEO—told Ford’s officers that the company needed a fresh
perspective and a shake-up, especially since it had lost $14.8
billion in 2008—the most in its 105-year history—and had
burned through $21.2 billion, or 61%, of its cash (Kiley, 2009).
Because Ford knew that the company’s upper echelon culture
was closed, bureaucratic, and rejected outsiders and new ways
of thinking, he was not surprised by his officers’ reactions.
However, Ford’s managers had no idea that the company was
fighting for its life. To succeed, Mulally would need Chair
Ford’s full endorsement and support, and he got it.
The company’s biggest cultural challenge was to break down
the silos that various executives had built. As we will discuss
more in Chapter 4, silos are specific processes or departments in
an organization that work independently of each other without
strong communication between or among them. A lack of
communication can often stifle productivity and innovation, and
this was exactly what was happening at Ford.
Mulally devised a turnaround strategy and developed it into the
Way Forward Plan. The plan centralized and modernized plants
to handle several models at once, to be sold in several markets.
The plan was designed to break up the fiefdoms of isolated
cultures, in which leaders independently developed and decided
where to sell cars. Mulally’s plan also kept managers in
positions for longer periods of time to deepen their expertise
and improve consistency of operations. The manager who ran
the Mazda Motor affiliate commented, “I’m going into my
fourth year in the same job. I’ve never had such consistency of
purpose before” (as cited in Kiley, 2009, “Meetings About
Meetings,” para. 2).
Mulally’s leadership style involved evaluating and analyzing a
situation using data and facts and then earning individuals’
support with his determination (Taylor, 2009). Mulally put a

3. stop to managers’ meetings in which maneuvering for power
occurred more than performance-based decision making. He led
by his mantra, “One Team, One Plan, One Goal.” The era of
politicking and power plays among officers was over. Mulally’s
style and method was also effective with the unions;
negotiations were tough but realistic.
Mulally also created a constant stream of data where all
managers saw weekly reports of Ford’s global operations that
compared executives’ performance against profit targets.
Located in the Taurus and Continental rooms near Mulally’s
office, the walls showed color-coded bar charts, graphs, and
tables that reflected information on Ford’s businesses in South
America, Russia, China, and other parts of the world. Red
indicated divisions that weren’t hitting profit projections; green
indicated those that were on target; and yellow indicated that
performance could go up or down. Updated numbers were
validated by pre-earning quarterly audits. These openly visible
charts and graphs created a culture of transparency where no
executive could avoid the truth. Mulally said numbers helped
executives anticipate issues and adjust strategy (Kiley, 2009).
Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, stands next to the Ford logo with
his fists raised in triumph.
AP Photo/Roberto Pfeil/dapd
Alan Mulally’s leadership was integral to enacting positive
change at Ford.
From the start of his tenure at Ford, Mulally declared, “I am
here to save an American and global icon” (as cited in Taylor,
2009, “A New Corporate Culture,” para. 6). He was
performance-driven, just as he was at Boeing. He once stated, “I
live for Thursday morning at 8 a.m.” (Synder, 2010, para. 3),
which was when he met with direct reports and led by using his
Business Plan Review. Ford’s four profit centers—the

4. Americas, Europe, Asia–Pacific, and Ford Credit—reported out
first, followed by 12 functional areas, including product
development, manufacturing, human resources, and government
relations.
These meetings did not include premeetings or briefing books
(Taylor, 2009), and Mulally stated that the difficult questions
he asked were never intended to embarrass anyone. He wanted
people to share information that could produce results in the
marketplace. Neither BlackBerrys nor distracting side
conversations were allowed at these meetings. Mutual respect
was demanded. Mulally removed vice presidents from the
meetings when they wouldn’t stop talking (Taylor, 2009).
Joe Hinrichs, a manufacturing supervisor, said, “Alan brings
infectious energy. This is a person people want to follow” (as
cited in Taylor, 2009, “A New Corporate Culture,” para. 3).
Mulally’s practice and insistence on transparency through open
and continuous communication with and among all
professionals at Ford was based on his assertion that “everyone
has to know the plan, its status, and areas that need special
attention” (as cited in Taylor, 2009, “A New Corporate
Culture,” para. 2). For example, Mulally was resolute that Ford
reduce its dependence on light trucks, since gas is costly.
Mulally’s openness gained him support across the company,
even with his candor and straightforwardness.
“Team Mulally,” as the CEO and his followers have been called,
has succeeded in turning around “a very sick company” (Kiley,
2009). The firm never accepted a government bailout like the
other U.S. auto companies. Ford generated $144 billion in
revenue in 2014, down from $147 billion in 2013. The company
sold 2.842 million vehicles in 2014 (Statista, n.d.).
The company positioned Mark Fields as the new CEO in 2014
following Mulally’s 8-year, highly successful run. Although

5. Ford’s competitive position is reportedly stronger than it has
been since the late Taurus/Explorer years of the 1990s (Taylor,
2014), there are still concerns ahead for the company. First,
Fields is not Mulally, who stands as one of the most popular
CEOs the company has known (Taylor, 2014). Despite this and
the fact that Fields may be more direct and not as charismatic as
Mulally, he knows the company and industry well.
Whether Fields can meet the vehicle-related challenges of the
digital and globalization age while keeping the company from
sliding back into a politically charged environment remains to
be seen. Fields has said that he faces the challenge of
transitioning Ford’s vehicles from the “ultimate industrial
product” into the “ultimate technology product” (as cited in
Nusca, 2015, para. 3). Mulally’s “One Team, One Plan, One
Goal” helped unify the company’s international operations, but
Ford’s sales show that it still is a “North American–centric
automaker” (Ford Online, 2008) whose profits stem mainly from
the truck business (it earned $8.781 billion in 2013 pretax profit
on North American auto operations and lost $1.228 billion in
the rest of the world [Taylor, 2014]).
The company must also be vigilant with regard to its corporate
social responsibilities and legal advertising. It was twice found
guilty of falsely increasing the window-sticker fuel economy
ratings by 7 miles per gallon on several of its models (Taylor,
2014.). Fields must also ensure that the company’s strategies,
culture, and mind-set stay competitive and do not revert to pre-
Mulally practices. Fields has stated, “We want people to
challenge custom and question tradition. We want them to not
take anything for granted” (as cited in Nusca, 2015, para. 6).
Critical-Thinking Questions
What went wrong at Ford that led to the competitive and
organizational problems that existed before Mulally came

6. aboard?
What specific change (leadership) practices did Mulally
employ to help turn Ford around?
From your own reading, experience, and online research,
what do you think Mulally’s successor should do to make Ford
vehicles more competitive?
Introduction: Getting From Here to There
Implementing major organizational changes is neither automatic
nor mechanical. Transitioning to a new vision and future state is
a process, not an event. During any change phase,
organizational leaders and change teams guide and shape
people’s mind-sets and behaviors to adopt new ways of
thinking, apply different strategies, reinvigorate the culture, and
align internal systems. Leadership skills, intelligence, courage,
and a high capacity for collaboration are required. The bottom
line is that the success of any organizational change depends in
large degree on implementation.
Assessment allows change leaders to better assess the reality of
the situation and a possible future, whereas action planning
allows changes to have a higher rate of success (Warrick, 2011).
Although both factors are important in the change process,
many OD practitioners consider implementation to be most
important. Without successful implementation, the change
process doesn’t matter.
The implementation process begins once the urgency for change
is communicated, the organization is assessed for the type of
change needed, and a plan is communicated throughout the
organization. In the following section, we present a road map
that highlights the implementation phases of large-scale
changes.
3.1 Road Map for Change

7. Corporations and organizations that embark on large
complicated changes, as Ford did and continues to do, depend
on a road map from which other plans are generated. Chapters 1
and 2 discussed two such road maps: Kotter’s eight-step method
and Cooperrider’s four dimensions in appreciative inquiry. Here
we discuss Ackerman and Anderson’s (2010) road map, which
overlaps with the other two. Figure 3.1 shows distinct
implementation phases that combine learning from all the steps
to help leaders move to their desired destinations.
The change process model offers a road map without dictating
the roads to take (Ackerman & Anderson, 2010). It is up to
leaders to decide the paths they will take based on their
individual circumstances. In this regard, the road map can be
used as a “thinking discipline” rather than a prescribed way of
forcing an organization’s behavior into a plan and timeline.
Used this way, leaders can have flexibility as they navigate the
organizational, technical, human, and cultural dimensions of
their end-to-end change process.
Even with this process model, transformational changes tend to
have a life of their own (Ackerman & Anderson, 2010). Since
both the change process and outcome emerge and evolve—that
is, both process and outcome evolve unexpectedly and
sometimes become a new or even better development than
predicted (Ackerman & Anderson, 2010)—leaders generally
launch a planned change without knowing exactly where they
are going, even though they have described a clear end or future
state. This is the case because markets, the economy, people,
and many other factors are constantly changing. Still, leaders of
transformational changes use road maps and plans to guide their
implementation.
Leaders must let go of old ways in order to move forward. Any
implementation plan is only as sound as the change strategy,
and if all other plan variables are consciously and

8. conscientiously enacted. Enhanced commitment and excitement,
combined with the collective intelligence of key decision
makers, are essential requirements for a transformational
change’s success (Ackerman & Anderson, 2009).
Figure 3.1: Road map for change
The change process shown in this model is continuous and can
allow leaders to implement change and organizational reach
goals
A continuous flowchart for change. It starts with “Hear the
wake-up call,” and then leads in to 1. Prepare to lead the
change. 2. Create organizational vision, commitment, and
capability. 3. Assess the situation to determine design
requirements. 4. Design the desired state. 5. Analyze the
impact. 6. Plan and organize for implementation. 7. Implement
the change. 8. Celebrate and integrate the new state. 9. Learn
and course correct. It then goes back to step one again, if
needed.
Source: Ackerman, L. A., & Anderson, D. (2001). Awake at the
wheel: Moving beyond change management to conscious change
leadership. OD Practitioner, 33(3), 46. Copyright© BeingFirst,
Inc. Reprinted with permission from the authors.
Mulally’s example as a change leader reflects many of the
stages presented in Figure 3.1. While stages 1 through 4 were
discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, it is helpful to briefly summarize
some of them, paying particular attention to the implementation
process. It is also important to note that all stages in any change
road map are in some way related to, and in preparation for, the
change’s implementation. In fact, the implementation’s success
depends on how effectively the previous stages were developed
and carried out.
Planning and implementing a large organizational change is, in
practice, not a linear or mechanical process. As we said at the

9. start: Change is not an event but a process. Some stages loop
back to previous ones as surprises and emergent changes occur.
Preparing to Lead the Change
Leaders generally embark on a change effort because of a wake-
up call (Ackerman & Anderson, 2010). In the case of Ford’s
turnaround, it was Bill Ford who watched the company’s stock,
cash, and competitiveness tumble. He called Mulally to lead the
charge to change because the officers in the company were not
moved to take urgent action.
Mulally’s mission, then, was to turn Ford around. To prepare to
lead the change, he learned the reality of the situation by
studying the facts, numbers, and details. He next began to create
a case for the change while identifying the desired outcomes.
During this time he was also building his capability to lead the
change, ensuring that he had the relevant skill sets, expertise,
and experience (Ackerman & Anderson, 2010). Because he had
learned how to deal with enterprise-wide change at Boeing,
Mulally seemed ready for the task. He also was charged with
clarifying an overall change strategy and creating an
infrastructure that had the conditions to support the change
effort. In this regard, he devised a turnaround strategy—the
Way Forward Plan—that centralized and modernized plants to
handle several models at once and that sold vehicles in several
markets.
Creating Vision, Commitment, and Capability
Mulally’s overall vision was to return Ford to its preeminent
status in the global auto industry. His commitment and
persistence were evident in his statement that he “expects the
very best of himself and others, [and] seeks to understand rather
than to be understood” (as cited in Taylor, 2009, “A New
Corporate Culture,” para. 3). As Bill Ford once said about him,
“Alan is not a very complicated person. He is very driven” (as
cited in Taylor, 2009, “A New Corporate Culture,” para. 3).

10. Mulally built the necessary capability by reorienting the top-
level global officers and 12 functional area managers to the
company’s long-term goals and short-term operating objectives.
He ensured this alignment by regularly communicating to all
managers via weekly operational reports that compared
executives’ performance against profit targets.
Assessing the Situation
Mulally never stopped assessing Ford’s situation—its financial
position, sales, marketing status, and capabilities in relation to
global competitors and in regard to his vision to get Ford back
to the top of the industry. In the turnaround described in the
opening scenarios, Mulally’s “One Team, One Plan, One Goal”
was the road toward his desired state of seeing Ford as the top
global competitor in as many vehicle classes as possible.
Although he depended on his managers’ input to help determine
vehicles’ design requirements based on customer demand, as
leader he ensured that the company’s culture did not return to
the splintered state of bickering and isolated control based on
different officers’ preferences.
In turnarounds like Ford’s, Mulally’s method reflected a
continuous examination of the ongoing impact of his changes.
His use of continually changing data, information, and analysis,
interpreted at the Thursday morning meetings, was the basis for
analyzing his vision’s impact, the company’s goal, and its
global operational systems.
Plan, Organize, and Implement the Change
Mulally’s plan centered on the implementation of his “One
Team, One Plan, One Goal” mantra. Put simply, that plan was:
Focus on the Ford brand (“nobody buys a house of brands”);
compete in every market segment with carefully defined
products (small, medium, and large; cars, utilities, and trucks);

11. market fewer nameplates (40 worldwide by 2013, down from 97
worldwide in 2006); and become best in class in quality, fuel
efficiency, safety, and value. (as cited in Taylor, 2009, “A New
Corporate Culture,” para. 4)
This plan was easier to outline than achieve. When Mulally first
arrived at Ford, he said it was the toughest environment he had
seen, but he believed that the company would succeed if it
adhered to its plan (Taylor, 2009).
Implementing the plan required preparing for all the stages
discussed previously. In the road map shown in Figure 3.1,
implementation occurred after the preparation stages were
completed, based on the development of the master
implementation plan (Taylor, 2009). Because Mulally had Chair
Ford’s and the board of directors’ support, and because he
painstakingly prepared himself with the financial,
organizational, cultural, and operational detail, he knew he was
ready to implement.
It is very important to state that Mulally met with and debriefed
the officers, managers, and many employees at Ford before and
while planning the change. Mulally had also met with Chair
Ford several times and discussed the company’s situation before
accepting the job. It all seemed to pay off. Mulally’s insistence
on transparency through open communication with and among
all professionals at Ford ensured that everyone knew the plan
and where the company was in the process. So, although the
change was not easy, neither was it impossible or unrealistic.
Mulally had used a road map and a plan, as well as his intuition,
discipline, and confidence.
The change has proved successful to date, as shown in Ford’s
financials and Mulally’s 2011 stock bonus. Mulally and Ford
have “Celebrated and Integrated the New Change,” as stage 8 in
Figure 3.1 shows. At his retirement in 2014, Mulally received

12. almost $300 million with stock shares and options. While at
Ford, he received a total base salary of $13.5 million with cash
bonuses of $30.8 million. He took in a total of $44.2 million in
cash by the end of 2014 (Isidore, 2014). The road ahead has
already proved challenging for Mulally’s successor Fields, as
noted earlier, as Ford continues the journey through stage 9,
learn and course correct. The remainder of this chapter
discusses how other planned changes are implemented.
Managing Change
Mapping the Road for Change
Suppose you are a member of the C-suite (that is, the top-level
officers of a company, including the chief executive officer,
chief financial officer, and others) at a multinational
corporation. After a period of stable, albeit slow, growth, you
begin to notice changes in output. The 40-year reputation of the
company is at stake, as are the jobs of your employees. In order
to prevent a downward spiral that will result in layoffs and
possibly plant closings, a change must be made.
Developments of concern include customer complaints, faulty
supplies that prompted a recall, and plummeting revenue. In the
interim, a short-term survival plan is in place to sustain the
company until the problems are reversed, but you and other
members of the C-suite are meeting to discuss an overall change
in the way you do business. It is crucial to evolve with the
markets and be attuned to changes in the business environment,
but this change requires more than that. When warning signals
like these are received, it is necessary to steer the company in
the right direction to avoid costly pitfalls that may threaten its
long-term prosperity.
The change process model in Figure 3.1 is called on to
formulate the plan. The input of C-suite members and unit
managers is an integral part of the initial planning. Leadership
recognizes that careful mapping must be completed for the

13. change to take hold and truly transform the company.
Discussion Questions
When embarking on transformational change, what
considerations do you need to keep in mind as a leader to move
the company to the desired state?
What is the impetus for change, and what tools are necessary
to move forward?
What are the principles of implementing a change?
How important are the members of your workforce in a
change implementation, and how do you utilize their efforts?
(See the end of the chapter for possible answers.)
Check Your Understanding
Explain how Mulally’s change program at Ford exemplifies
and differs from the stages in Figure 3.1.
What are some important differences between change
assessment and implementation? Which of these two processes
would you feel more interested and confident using to define,
lead, and manage change in an organization? Explain your
reasoning.
3.2 Implementing Change Through Leading and Mobilizing
Implementing change is an art and a science. Not all leaders and
CEOs succeed the way Mulally did. In fact, there is a mixed
track record when CEOs leave one industry to change a
company in another. As discussed in Chapter 2, John Sculley
from PepsiCo, who was chosen by Apple’s board of directors to
take over as CEO from Steve Jobs, failed in that capacity, as did
his two successors. Robert Nardelli, a vice president at GE,
became CEO of Home Depot and was eventually pushed out by
the board because his directive approach brought about mixed
results. CEO William Perez, formerly of SC Johnson (which
makes household brands such as Glade, Pledge, Windex, and so

14. on) became CEO of Nike but resigned after 13 months due to
disagreements with Nike founder Philip Knight and the fact that
he was running an unfamiliar business. However, there are some
success stories, such as that of Eric Schmidt, who was CEO of
Novell and became CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 (Kiley,
2009). We begin this section with the example of a change
master, ex-CEO Larry Bossidy, who came from GE to
successfully turn around AlliedSignal, which later became
Honeywell.
Larry Bossidy of AlliedSignal shakes hands with Michael R.
Bonsignore of Honeywell.
AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler
Larry Bossidy (right) shakes hands with Michael R. Bonsignore,
chair and CEO of Honeywell, after the 1999 merger between the
two companies. Bossidy would become known for his ability to
affect rapid, if ruthless, change.
AlliedSignal/Honeywell and Larry Bossidy
Bossidy became the chair and CEO of AlliedSignal, Inc., in
1991. The so-called Bossidy era spanned from 1992 to the early
2000s. The company began as Allied Chemical & Dye
Corporation in 1920 before becoming AlliedSignal, Inc.,
following the acquisition of Signal Companies, Inc., in 1985
(International Directory of Company Histories, 1998). As a
large industrial corporation, it was a player in many industries,
including aerospace, chemicals, fibers, automotive parts,
plastics, and other advanced materials (International Directory
of Company Histories, 1998). In 1999 a merger caused
AlliedSignal, Inc., to become Honeywell International, Inc. It
ranked number 74 on the Fortune 500 listing in 2015, with
revenues of more than $40 billion (Fortune, 2015b). Looking
back, the vision of AlliedSignal, Inc., was to “be one of the
world’s premier companies, distinctive and successful in
everything we do” (International Directory of Company

15. Histories, 1998, para. 1). Its success in achieving this was
largely due to Bossidy’s strategy and vision.
The Bossidy era was distinctive for its quick and ruthless but
effective change (International Directory of Company Histories,
1998). Bossidy came from the electronics and electrical
equipment industry, spending the majority of his 34
distinguished years at GE. His leadership positions included
chief operating officer (COO) of the GE Capital Corporation
(also known as GE Capital), executive vice president and
president of the company’s Services and Materials Sector, and
vice chair and executive officer of GE. After entering a new
industry and successfully mobilizing change, he is credited with
transforming AlliedSignal, Inc., into one of the world’s most
admired companies. He achieved earnings per share growth of
13% or more for 31 consecutive quarters and an eightfold
increase in the company’s share price (LeighBureau, n.d.).
Despite his tough methods and company drive, Bossidy was
well respected. He was named CEO of the Year by Financial
World magazine in 1994 and Chief Executive of the Year by
CEO Magazine in 1998 (LeighBureau, n.d.). He knew where he
wanted AlliedSignal to go and how he wanted to get there. He
knew that significant changes were necessary and wasn’t afraid
to make them.
Housecleaning
Bossidy’s first move at AlliedSignal was to “clean house,”
which he did by reducing the number of employees from 98,300
in 1991 to 76,700 by 1996 (International Directory of Company
Histories, 1998). He saw that the company was internally
focused and too crippled by ineffective organization—they had
“centralized all the paper and decentralized all the ­people”
(Tichy & Charan, 1995, para. 29). Bossidy set out to fix this.
News headlines about this time announced, “Larry Bossidy

16. won’t stop pushing,” and articles described him as a “tough
guy” (Lobel, 2000, p. 1). Bossidy was known for valuing hard
work and rewarding those who demonstrated it. He reportedly
said that he expected involvement, ideas, collaboration,
leadership, development, drive, anticipation, growth, and
adaptability from every one of his direct reports (Bossidy,
2007). He used these expectations as guidelines when
implementing change. He didn’t stop after he reduced the labor
force. He cleaned up unprofitable operations, sold off many
small and some significant business units, and cut capital
spending. Corporate culture was the hardest to change, but
Bossidy’s approach created a team-oriented, less bureaucratic
culture that was heavily focused on performance (Lobel, 2000).
A “Churn and Burn” Culture
Bossidy had high expectations, and he demanded from
employees what he demanded of himself: results-oriented high
yields, quality, and no-nonsense execution. This message was
clearly communicated and incorporated into the company
culture. Bossidy’s strategic goals for 1999 were growth,
employee development/learning, and quality improvement using
Six Sigma—“a management philosophy developed by Motorola
that emphasizes setting extremely high objectives, collecting
data, and analyzing results to a fine degree as a way to reduce
defects in products and services” (SearchCIO, n.d.). He worked
toward these goals by stretching each employee to his or her
potential, which often translated into long days and stressing
demands (Lobel, 2000).
Bossidy was once quoted as saying, “Meetings start at 7AM and
run until 6PM. It’s hard to get stuff done around other times.
After weeks of meetings, you have a pile of stuff on your desk
and people think you’ve been on vacation” (as cited in Lobel,
2000, p. 4). The culture was challenging but attracted
employees who thrived in that type of performance-driven
environment. As Sandra Beach Lin, then vice president and

17. general manager of the Specialty Wax and Additive group,
noted, employees knew that they would be in trouble if the
company did not make its numbers, and therefore did not need
to be pushed by management. Instead, they pushed themselves
(Lobel, 2000).
A Dramatic New Structure
Bossidy’s new vision …