The Smarter Organization: How to Build a Business That Learns and Adapts to Marketplace Needs

"An outstanding resource. McGill and Slocum have helped demystify the 'Learning Organization.' In so doing, they have helped redefine the essence of organizational effectiveness." —Albert A. Vicere Associate Dean for Executive Education Penn State Executive Programs

"McGill and Slocum unlock the secrets of successful companies and their leaders. If you want to lead, this book is worth your time." —Carl Sewell Author of Customers for Life

"Candid . . . provocative . . . down-to-earth advice for managers on creating a learning organization. McGill and Slocum have taken organizational learning one step further using practical examples to excite controversy about how organizations can learn to become smart."—Richard J. Haayen Retired Chairman of the Board and CEO Allstate Insurance Company Executive-In-Residence Southern Methodist University

"Successful companies adapt to a changing marketplace by a willingness to constantly change themselves. McGill and Slocum show both large and small organizations what it takes to learn from and adapt to the accelerated pace of change."—Keith Hughes President and Chief Operating Officer Associates Corporation of North America

• Mirage Resorts, Inc. turns Las Vegas into a family vacation destination
• Honda parlays a motorcycle mistake into an automotive miracle
• From Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart manages the world's largest retail operation
• Southwest Airlines opens routes to the East Coast

Why do some companies succeed where others fail? Why do once proud corporate giants struggle to return to profitability? If, as the pace of change in the business world accelerates, neither yesterday's achievements nor today's successes are guarantees of survival, what is? Is it culture, financing, marketing, manufacturing, or management that holds the key to business prosperity?

Michael E. McGill and John W. Slocum, Jr., believe that some companies are simply smarter than others. Smart organizations don't simply change—they learn. Smarter organizations actively manage every key process to ensure continuous improvement. They create competitive environments and corporate practices that promote learning for everyone. It is the rate at which individuals learn that determines an organization's sustainable competitive advantage. Smarter organizations and smarter managers survive and thrive.

In The Smarter Organization, based on years of hands-on work with some of the world's most successful corporations, McGill and Slocum will show you how to make the idea of the learning organization become a practical reality in your company. Drawing upon real-life examples from over 175 companies, this book reveals what makes for a learning organization and how you can make your company smarter. You will learn how to create a learning culture, how to craft a learning strategy, how to design structures and systems that promote learning, how to motivate a work force through learning, and how to lead a learning organization.

McGill and Slocum challenge today's popular approaches to organization and management. They argue for shifting the criteria of corporate and individual success from past performance to present improvements, from what have you done to what have you learned, from changing to getting smarter. The Smarter Organization shows that sustaining corporate success depends on unlearning business as usual, relearning key success factors, and learning new perspectives and behaviors. Whatever you have known, believed, or thought to be true about success in today's business world will be challenged by The Smarter Organization.

In engagements with clients ranging from owner-operated start-ups to Fortune 100 conglomerates, McGill and Slocum have tackled management problems in a style that brings cutting-edge management thinking to real-time business problems. They are insightful, iconoclastic, direct, and provocative.

A complete guide to transforming any business organization into a "smarter" organization

Unlearn, relearn, learn . . . three indispensable ingredients of corporate success in today's volatile global marketplace. The first book to show managers how to put into practice the principles originally introduced in The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge's best-selling book, The Smarter Organization transforms the concept of the "learning organization" into a practical reality by showing managers how to create the conditions that ensure ongoing corporate success.

• Practical easy-to-implement guidelines for unlearning business as usual, relearning key success factors, and learning new perspectives
• Bottom-line, continuous improvement approach—relates the "learning organization" to important topics such as organizational design, leadership, motivation, and business strategy
• In-depth case studies of companies that learned new ways of responding to revolutions in their industry, and some that didn't