The Seamless Enterprise - Hardcover

Dimancescu, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 088730544X ISBN 13: 9780887305443

Publisher: Harper Business, 1992

Synopsis

How would you like to have a consultant interrogate you in detail about your company's product, quality standards, and shipping methods, force you to admit exactly how you and your staff had dropped the ball, and ask you point-blank what you were going to do about it--while every single one of your employees watched and listened? According to Dan Dimancescu, this kind of meeting is not only a good idea--it's just one ripple of a huge wave of change in management that is absolutely vital to the future of American business.
Dimancescu, who has been a consultant to such companies as AT&T, Boeing, Digital, HP, NASA, and Xerox, has witnessed scenes like the one above over and over in Japan. Those employees and the boss who was being put on the hot seat were involved in a concept still very foreign to American business: cross functional management. Holistic in nature, cross functional management aims that everyone from the CEO on down to the delivery truck driver understands the company's goals, failings, and triumphs, and the part he or she contributes. Instead of workers blindly following the new systems or procedures instituted by management, everyone learns to improve their performance as a group, and to internalize knowledge across the whole team. It's a system in which process--not just results, but how to get things done--is the top priority. The results are, quite simply, astonishing.
Dimancescu believes that cross functional management can and must be our future. He looks at the recent achievements of companies including Ford, AT&T, and Hewlett Packard, and the growing popularity of holistic initiatives like time-to-market and concurrent engineering. He details what senior executives must do to lay the groundwork, and describes six steps to follow: access the opportunity, appoint a process core team, target a pilot project, use the cross function "tool kit," review the pilot, and plan and implement a rollout. The Seamless Enterprise provides the vision, systematic model, tools, and techniques every company needs to achieve the new dynamic edge--and unleash the long-stifled collective genius in American enterprise.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Praise for the Seamless Enterprise "The Seamless Enterprise captures the rich insights in advanced tools and methods being used to achieve breakthrough performance by effective teamwork across functions." Ray Stata, Chairman and CEO, Analog Devices "The Seamless Enterprise is by far the best resource we have found to date in helping us understand how to become a more efficient and effective "Horizontal Organization." Dan’s unique insights and experiences with the Japanese approach to cross–functional management has been invaluable in our organization redesign efforts." Keith Lawrence, Associate Director–Global Product Supply The Procter & Gamble Company Aspects of cross–functional management are already at work in most organizations. However, few companies are fully leveraging the true power of cross–functional teams to create dramatically improved, bottom–line results. The Seamless Enterprise is a step–by–step guide to creating teams that truly "cross functions" and are focused on improving results. Dimancescu shows managers how to build the groundwork for cross–functional management and describes a proven, six–step implementation plan. In addition, The Seamless Enterprise reveals important insights from early pioneers in the field of cross–functional management. These companies include Hewlett–Packard, AT&T, Ford and Boeing.

Synopsis

A new concept that brings people in companies together for maximum results.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 088730544X
• ISBN 13: 9780887305443
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256