You already know that getting a competitive advantage in today’s overcrowded marketplace depends on your people creating something valuable and distinctive. What you might not know is that in order to do this your company’s workforce can't be “normal.” This book explains why a Strange workforce gives you that competitive advantage and how to build one.
The problem is that most organizations treat their people just about the same way and deliberately benchmark their people practices to the industry average. So they expect to achieve extraordinary results with a solidly ordinary, normal workforce. But extraordinary business results demand a workforce that is extraordinary in a way that customers care about.
In Change to Strange, Cable goes beyond the theory and strategy, and he digs into the nuts and bolts of how to “get it done.” You’ll learn how to:
o Develop a workforce that will be obsessed with delivering your company’s message and make customers want to give their money to you and not your competitors. Case studies include The Home Depot, Whole Foods, 3M, and Southwest Airlines.
o Measure and manage success by creating metrics based on what makes you unique.
“Change to Strange...a fascinating and thought-provoking approach to extracting value from your human value chain. A must read for leaders engaged in reinvigorating enterprises in highly competitive markets.”
Sean Crane, Senior Vice President of Operations, The Fresh Market
“Change to Strange takes the mystery out of the gap between strategy and strategy execution. Daniel underscores that success is dependent on the quality of your workforce, specific targets, and disciplined measurement. The book provides a useful process and a set of questions that your leadership team needs to address to create a great organization that stands above competitors.”
Stan Kelly, Senior Vice President, Wachovia Corporation
Review copies of Change to Strange are available by request. To schedule an interview with the authors or to request an excerpt for publication, please contact Amy Fandrei at amy.fandrei@
About the Author
Dr. Daniel M. Cable is a Townsend Distinguished Professor of Management
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School. His consulting and teaching focus on aligning a wide spectrum of human systems with company strategy; his consulting clients have ranged from Sony Ericsson to The Bureau of Naval Personnel. Dr. Cable has served on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and other publications;
About Wharton School Publishing
Wharton School Publishing is a partnership between Pearson Education, the world's leading education company, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 80,000 worldwide.
About Pearson Education
Educating 100 million people worldwide, Pearson Education (www.pearsoned.com)
Change to Strange: Create a Great Organization by Building a Strange Workforce
Dr. Daniel M. Cable
May 2007
$25.99
224 pp.
978-0-13-157222-
