Praise for Wide Angle Vision
"In this book, Wayne Burkan shows us that the vantage points from which we view and act can earn us critical advantages if we are willing to stretch our thoughts and practices beyond the edge of conventional thinking." - Robert W. Galvin Chairman of the Executive Committee and former CEO of Motorola
"Wayne Burkan's Wide-Angle Vision is a very pragmatic and useful guide to dealing with and implementing change. His concept of 'edge' as it relates to customers, employees, and competitors should help many organizations struggling with the rapidly changing marketplace and the endless panaceas being promoted." - David R. Stamper Vice President and General Manager, Hitachi Data Systems, Latin American Division
"At Southwest Airlines, we redefined air transportation by utilizing 'edge thinking.' Wayne Burkan is offering a 'flight plan' that if studied, understood, and followed, will improve your bottom line for the long term. If you really want to be on the 'leading edge' for your product or service, this is the place to begin." - Howard Putnam Speaker, author, and former CEO of Southwest Airlines
"Wayne Burkan has brought our attention to a great source of potential opportunities for profitable growth if we take his advice and really listen to those challenging customers, potential customers, small competitors, and unhappy employees whom we often want to dismiss as difficult." - D. H. Davis President and Chief Operating Officer, Rockwell International Corporation
"Strategically thought-provoking! It's just what busy leaders need to ensure they are focused on gaining a competitive edge. An easy-to-read wake up call for organizations and managers. Wayne Burkan challenges us to confront the perils of tunnel vision and the promise of a wider perspective. So simple, so clear, so right!" - Donald Himelfarb
President, Thrifty Rent-A-Car System, Inc.
Conventional business wisdom says to get close to your best customers, watch your biggest competitors, and reward your model employees. This controversial book offers a contrarian viewpoint and introduces a dynamic new way to compete-by broadening your focus beyond mainstream thinking to spot the critical opportunities at the edge of your core business. Wide-Angle Vision opens your eyes to the "edge," from "little guy" competitors preparing to take over the market to disgruntled customers and maverick employees whose complaints can lead to great ideas for change.
Listening to complaining employees pays off. That's where the idea for Java(r) , Sun Microsystems' successful Internet programming system, came from. With Wide-Angle Vision, now you can learn how to use "edge" groups to sharpen your competitiveness by reducing surprise, increasing innovation, and satisfying customers.
Filled with compelling examples from a range of industries and drawing on Wayne Burkan's extensive consulting experience with IBM, Ford, and others, Wide-Angle Vision equips you with specific action techniques that can enable you to:
* Anticipate crises before they occur by using "splatter vision," scenarios, and benchmarking
* Find breakthrough solutions to difficult problems by looking outside your field
* Create powerful, flexible teams that work-from "edge" teams to ideal teams
* Reduce resistance to organizational change through skillful timing, finding perfect change agents, and more
* Reengineer with lower risk and greater efficiency, using an effective seven-step plan for change
* Avoid tunnel vision by broadening your perspective-to the edges of what's happening in the mainstream
In today's rapidly changing marketplace, opportunities are all around you. Wide-Angle Vision gives you the power to look them in the eye and develop the daring skills you need to be a leading-and lasting-"edge" competitor.
Table of Contents:
1 Diamonds Beneath Your Feet 1
A Force within Reach 3
Introducing the Edge 5
Forklifts Fall Flat 5
The Curse of Success 7
Protecting the Crown Jewels 8
Finding Your Achilles’ Heel 9
Help Comes Knocking 10
2 Why Those on Top don’t Stay There 14
Invisibility 16
Impossibility 17
Transferability 21
3 Disgruntled Customers 25
The Five Percent Winner’s Circles 25
The Nature of the Edge 27
Meet Your Customers on the Edge 28
Invisible Customers 29
Complaining Customers 32
Lost Customers 35
Listening to Your Edge Customers 37
Case Study: Customers on the Edge 40
Expanding Market Share through Disgruntled Customers 44
4 Fringe Competitors 48
Looking at the Wrong Competitors 49
Creating Your Competition 51
Competitors at the Gates 52
5 Rogue Employees 59
Case Study: Miles Apart from the Rest 60
Java – The One That Almost Got Away 62
Case Study: Dissidents within Professional Organizations 64
Case Study: The Wiz That Woz 66
Suppliers on the Edge 67
Knowing Who to Listen To 67
6 Avoiding Crisis, Reducing Surprise 71
The See, or Not to See . . . 72
The End of Forecasting 74
Selecting Your Target 76
Breaking the Pattern 76
Learning from the Future 77
Four Powerful Anticipation Skills 78
Searching the Future 80
Why Don’t You Hear about Anticipation? 87
7 What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You 90
Signals from the Future 90
Identifying People working on Your Hardest Problems 91
Evaluating the Rule Breakers 94
Recognizing Your Diminishing Return 101
Looking for the Bandwagon 103
Learning from the Language We Use 104
Tracking Historical Patterns 105
8 Creating Sizzling Teams 110
The Benefits of Brain Damage 110
Teams That Blast through Problems 111
How Do Edge Teams Differ? 116
The Disbelief of Teams 118
Your Working Team 119
9 The World at Your Fingertips 121
Virtual Reality at Work 122
Creating an Ideal Team 123
Investing in Change 128
Designing Your Own Ideal Team 130
Creative Solutions with Your Ideal Team 132
Uses for Your Ideal Team 135
10 working with Those on the Edge 138
Plugging Your Innovation Leak: Employees on the Edge 138
How to Attract the Edge 142
My Most Painful Lesson 143
Altering Patterns 145
Benign Neglect 147
Predicting Resistance to Change 148
Take Me to Your Leader 150
11 Truly Delighting Your Customer 152
Why Focus Groups and Survey Fail 154
Be Careful Where You Walk 155
Your Customers’ Customers 157
The Bleeding Edge 158
12 Breakthroughs for Your Toughest Problems 161
The Art of the Impossible 161
Knowl-edge for the Asking 162
Finding Your Savior on the Edge 164
The Consolation Prize 171
Simulating Saviors 173
13 Why Organizational Change Is So Hard 176
Beyond Leadership 177
Ford Follies 178
The Secret to Organizational Inertia 181
Training’s Fatal Flaw 182
The Limitation of Leadership 183
14 Change – Fast and Efficient 186
The Ford Solution 187
Top-Down or Bottom-Up Change 189
Government in Revolt 190
15 Beyond Reengineering 192
The Illusion of Reengineering 193
What Is Right with Reengineering? 194
What Is Wrong with Reengineering? 195
Blistering Fast Reengineering 200
A Powerful Alternative to Traditional Reengineering 200
The Seven Steps to Streamline Reengineering 201
16 Dealing with Your Ever-Present Detractors 207
“There Are a Lot of Crazy Ideas Out There” 207
“We Don’t Have Enough Resources or Time” 212
“Salespeople Should Not Take Their Eyes Off the Ball” 213
17 Leading on the Edge 215
Falling through the Cracks 215
Your Organization’s Business Theory 216
Disaster Plucked from the Jaws of Success 217
Planning: Back to the Future 218
How I Destroyed Two Companies 219
Planning on the Edge 225
Core Competency or Core Deficiency 227
Examining Business Theory 233
Executive Information Delivery 233
18 Surefire Ways to Reduce Resistance 236
Predicting Resistance 236
Time: The Double-Edged Sword 237
Becoming Superman 239
Proaction and Reaction 245
The Change Agent’s Fatal Flaw 247
The Perfect Change Agent 252
Breaking Down the Walls 253
The Insult of Change 258
Notes 262
Index 268
