Fit to Compete: Why Honest Conversations About Your Company's Capabilities Are the Key to a Winning Strategy

by Michael Beer

Overview

Is Silence Killing Your Strategy?

In his thirty years of working in corporations, Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer has witnessed firsthand how organizational silence derails strategic objectives. When employees can't speak truth to power, senior leaders don't hear what they need to hear about their company's fitness to compete, and employees lose trust in those leaders and become less committed to change.

In Fit to Compete, Beer presents an antidote to silence—principles and a time-tested innovative process for holding honest conversations with everyone in your organization. Used by over eight hundred organizations across the globe, the strategic fitness process has helped leaders in a diverse range of industries—including medical technology, information technology, banking, restaurant chains, and pharmaceuticals—hear the raw but necessary truth about the sources of misalignment between their strategies and their organizations.

In addition to step-by-step instructions, Beer offers detailed and illustrative case studies of companies that have conducted honest conversations to great effect. He also shows how to apply the process more broadly to a variety of strategic challenges and at multiple levels throughout the organization.

Practical, enlightening, and comprehensive, Fit to Compete is the book you should turn to if you to want create winning strategies that your entire company will rally behind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633692305
Publisher:	Harvard Business Review Press
Publication date:	01/14/2020
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Michael Beer is the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School. He is a cofounder and Chairman of TruePoint Partners, an international consulting firm, and chairman of the board at the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the number of companies and leaders committed to creating economic and social value. He is the author of eleven books, including Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011).

You can find the author at: truepoint.com/who-we-are/our-people/michael-beer/

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Preface xi

Introduction: Why Your Strategy Needs an Honest Conversation 1

Part 1 The Power of Honest Conversations

Chapter 1 How to Lead Honest Conversations 29

Chapter 2 Why Discussing the Undiscussabe Is Transformative 57

Part 2 Honest Conversations in Action

Chapter 3 Fit to Compete: Becoming a Corporate Olympian 85

Chapter 4 Fit to Perform: Overcoming the Silent Killers 117

Chapter 5 Fit to Trust: Overcoming Hierarchy 151

Chapter 6 Fitness to Adapt: Overcoming Complacency 173

Part 3 What If Honest Conversations Were the Norm?

Chapter 7 Corporate Stewardship 201

Chapter 8 The Need for Courage 223

Appendix A Nine Steps of the Strategic Fitness Process 241

Appendix B Research Purpose and Methods 251

Appendix C Questionnaire for Assessing Your Own Organization's Silent Killers 257

Notes 261

Index 273

Acknowledgments 283

About the Author 287

Editorial Reviews

Advance Praise for Fit to Compete:

"Fit to Compete is a survival manual for every leader who has struggled to create real change in an organization. Michael Beer offers a powerful tool—the strategic fitness process—that enables leaders to successfully implement their strategies and, in the process, transform their organization's culture and their own ability to lead." — Teresa Amabile, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School; coauthor, The Progress Principle

"Michael Beer has crafted a brilliantly simple process to help organizations honestly cut through the challenges of the day and advance their strategies in enlightened and impactful ways." — Douglas R. Conant, founder, ConantLeadership; former President and CEO, Campbell Soup Company; and former Chairman, Avon Products

"Many firms are stuck—strategically and organizationally—because no one will speak truth to power. In this hugely important book, Professor Michael Beer lays out how to structure a process to make these conversations happen and details the often-astounding results that flow from putting them in place." — Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur UniversityProfessor, Harvard University

"Before becoming CEO, I spent four months asking questions and listening to workers, middle-level managers, customers, and suppliers to try to learn the truth about the company. Few CEOs have this luxury. But Michael Beer's strategic fitness process shows you how to find truth in a way that not only works but also builds trust and institutional knowledge. It would have been hugely valuable if I had the method and wisdom in this book at the time I took over as CEO." — Richard Gochnauer, former President and CEO, United Stationers

From the Publisher

01/01/2020

Beer (Harvard Business Sch.; Higher Ambition) addresses corporate transformation from the perspective of human resources and shows how this links to corporate strategy. He begins by saying that the type of transformation at the core of this book is based on Douglas McGregor's (The Human Side of Enterprise) Theory Y, and may not be viable for all types of leadership. That said, at its core, this work advocates for senior management to listen to employees. Beer finds that many corporate boards do not adequately address human resources and how it fits into their overall strategy. Even when executives and boards are aware that their strategic objectives are not being met, they often fail to understand the root cause. So, Beer asks: Are employees to blame, or is it the situation they find themselves in? Through his consulting practice, Beer identifies what helps and prevents strategic corporate transformation. To his credit, the examples cited reflect goals that were met and goals that failed—and he explains why. VERDICT Great practical business advice from a teacher with real-world experience.—Steven Silkunas, Fernandina Beach, FL

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