Notes from "In Praise of Good Business" by Judith M. Bardwick

Excerpted by Cris W. Barnes, September, 1999.

Page 34-35

"[T]he basic questions [about your business] are pretty simple...
  1. What is the business of this business
  2. Do we have enough of a sense of urgency? (Do we have the drivers that create motivation for change?)
  3. Where do we have to go? (What are our three highest-priority goals?)
  4. What are the barriers we must overcome? (Especially those within us.)
  5. What are our values? (What do we stand for?)
  6. How will me measure our progress? (What are the key success indicators?)
  7. How will we sustain our own and other people's motivation? (How can we achieve success?)
...but achieving major change in organizations and in people is usually immensely difficult."

Page 54

"The pressure to achieve important, measurable results in the core business will cause people who have better approaches and methods to succeed. They will naturally become leaders and models of how to behave. As the goals are measurable, real performance becomes the focus and differences in achievement are clear. Driving for success in the business of the business, within the values of the organization, and rewarding and punishing appropriately and powerfully is the effective way to lead people and their organizations out of a sense of being owed and into a results-driven mind-set.

The most important questions for any organization are:

  1. What is the business of this business?
  2. What are the critical and measurable goals of this business?
The answers to the questions, What's our business? and, What are our real goals? are the starting point for strategy; for making choices, and for changing the organization's culture as well as individual's perspectives and behaviors."

Page 57-58

"I now believe there are three primary things [each with three components] organizations must do. Specifically, an organization needs to
  1. Get in touch with reality: This requires
    1. a sense of urgency;
    2. leadership; and
    3. purpose, a focus on 'moving the rock.'
  2. Use optimum ways to operate: This requires organizations to
    1. collaborate;
    2. select the best people; and
    3. use methods that increase business success
  3. Create conditions that are critical: This requires
    1. trust;
    2. commitment, or a clear understanding of the deal between employees and their organization; and
    3. success, both psychological and business.

Page 161

"There seems to be a structural place in every organization's hierarchy where communication stops. It's [sic] appears to be around lower middle management or at the level of supervisors. As a consequence of this disconnect, communication stops so there's neither feedback upward nor communication downward."

Page 170-171

"People always need to know the rules of the game in which they're playing. In fact, if the rules are new and are not clearly articulated, actions will not only appear illogical and inconsistent, they will be. That naturally increases people's feeling that their world is out of control and the only survival strategy is one of narcissistic expediency."

Page 179

"Whether it's because they are uncomfortable praising others, or they're afraid that people will slack off after being praised, or they feel uncomfortable differentiating between performers and nonperformers, too often managers don't recognize the efforts of those who work hard and successfully. The majority of managers are not forthcoming enough with news of success and praise in the face of achievement."

If you can't explain your change process on one page, it's too complex.
---Steve Mason

Back to Cris Barnes' Home Page.

L O S   A L A M O S   N A T I O N A L   L A B O R A T O R Y
Operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Ener gy

Copyright © 1999 UC | Disclaimer
Cris W. Barnes
Los Alamos National Laboratory
P-24 MS-E526
Los Alamos, NM 87545

September 15, 1999