Predator's Game-Changing Designs

A volume in LMX Leadership: The SeriesSeries Editor George B. Graen University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Retired)When the tried and true formula for an organization's performance (its game plan) begins tofail it must change its game or become obsolete. Publicly recognizing that the old formula isbecoming less useful and a new formula must be developed and implemented is difficult formost stakeholders but for survival the stages of grief must be endured and the conclusionaccepted. Moreover the romance of the grand old formula must be overcome by the realizationthat a new and more attractive formula must be invented or found to replace it. The fate ofthousands of organizations that did not change their games when WalMart came to town bearswitness to the Iron Law of Capitalistic Markets: Change your game when necessary to remaincompetitive. As Mr. Sam Walton told my son Mike stay the course as long as you can but bewilling to change it when it's not working. Clearly Mr. Sam's protégés got the message.This book describes game-changing designs using the latest research-based strategies for inside organizational participants from CEOsBoards of Directors top middle and lower managers and participants and those people outside with a stake in its continued performance.We have had the unique opportunity to understand from the inside-out both Mr. Sam Walton's miracle at WalMart and the great turnaroundat Cincinnati's Procter and Gamble over the last 15 plus years. We conclude from these studies that Mr. Sam has become amodern patron saint of American game-changers. WalMart has been seen by most business reviewers as a clear business case study ofa stay the course formula of lowest price for the customer but our research shows that Mr. Sam created a game-changing designculture. Yes Mr. Sam began to build his juggernaut using a lowest price strategy that changed the game by shock and awe strategiesin small markets. Moreover Mr. Sam next changed the game by employing advanced information technology to reduce supplychaincosts and go international. Later Mr. Sam changed the game again by partnering with his reluctant vendors and requiring thatmost large suppliers maintain a permanent WalMart team near WalMart headquarters in BentonvilleArkansas. Later Mr. Scott the CEO successor to Mr. Sam changed the game againby going green. In addition the effective integrative partnering with originally adversarialsupplier teams by Mike Graen's coaches set of new standard for inter-organizational cooperation.Mr. Sam's legacy continues to inspire new game-changing designs across many differentkinds of organizations in America and beyond. Once CEOs understand that theircompetition is as bright and hard working as they and they need to leap-frog to new gamesMr. Sam's examples of carefully designed and implemented game-changing research-basedinnovations become their bible. As our domestic and international markets have becomeincreasingly discontinuous and what worked yesterday doesn't work today our CEOs shouldlook to Mr. Sam's approach that changed the game before his competitors many times.