Shaping the Future: A Dynamic Process for Creating and Achieving Your Company's Strategic Vision

This book is the truth about the C-17 Military Program I am living. It describes the steps it took to save the program that was plagued by cost overruns, poor quality and an unsatisfied customers until employees at every level were guided by the "Strategic Imperative" of building a quality product. Once quality became the imperative to work toward, the rest fell into place. Bill and his consulting team trained the Employee Involvement facilitators/practitioners to teach the entire workforce team building and leadership skills. The journey began, we continued training employees in the areas of human behavior and leadership skills, until we aligned the arrows in the same direction and started to positively impact the culture and way of thinking. The collective effort of this consulting team, the Employee Involvement facilitators, who are named in this book, and the partnership of the U.S. Air Force customer resulted in great success. The C-17 Program won the U.S. Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award and moved forward to win other orders from international customers. The C-17 Globemaster III is the best military cargo plane in the world. It continues to prove itself repeatedly. It serves military and humanitarian needs globally. I am one of the original Employee Involvement facilitators personally trained by Bill Belgard and his team. I am proud to be part of the C-17 Story and thank Bill and his team for their book as it accurately describes the story as we live it. Buy this book and give it to every employee, every leader, and professor in colleges because the principles described in this book work. We are living proof of that success. People and organizations will move forward for one of two major reasons, "Inspiration or Desperation" and this book will guide your organization to a higher level of success if you are willing to work for it. I am proud to know Bill and his team and thank him for all his hard work in guiding us to the success we have in providing our customers the best we have. Thank you. Warm Regards, Dr. Charles A. Macias Psy.D. Organizational Development Practitioner

Jun 29, 2004 Shaping the Future: A Dynamic Process for Creating and Achieving your Company's Strategic Vision, William P. Belgard and Steven R. Rayner These guys are change mongers. What I really like about this book is that the authors not only talk theory, but they talk implementation as well.By using real life examples from companies they've researched, from Boeing and Rockwell Collins to Tektronics and Famous Footwear, they show how companies have shaped their future by changing strategic direction thought a series of six very clear, logical and well laid out shifts of change.Both of the authors, Belgard who specializes in change management and Rayner who is an expert in high-performance organizations, get right to the point of making changes in a high-performance company. It is one thing to affect change in a small fast moving company, it is quite another to change a behemoth the size of a continent. Through the examples they use, they show the reader how changes can be made in even the largest of companies with a simple, well planned and logical approach.Is there anything bigger or more complicated than building airplanes - very large airplanes? Yet the authors show how Boeing changed the way planes were reorganized from a herringbone assembly line to a straight moving assembly line reminiscent of Henry Ford's assembly plant. This simple appearing change allowed Boeing to increase efficiency and dramatically lower cost, while bringing a new sense of purpose and satisfaction to the work force.By using traditional companies as examples, the authors were able to show a step-by-step process of changing long standing paradigms by using logical such `meat and potatoes' tactics as: taking the right steps, setting the vision of the future, making the change completely understandable to the work force, working through those persistent anti-change issues, breaking through complacency and setting up a concrete foundation for future resiliency. In short these guys put together a book that enables readers to direct changes in their organizations and shaping the future of the company to encompass success. The entire message of the book can be summarized in the slogan "There is only one way to control the future and that is to invent."I can't pass up the chance to talk about some of the great anecdotes that the authors use to dramatically illustrate their points. At the risk of stealing their thunder, here is my favorite example of persistent resistance to change:"In the seventh century the Russian Orthodox Church decided that they would use three fingers instead of two when doing the sign of the cross. This upset their members so much that Church members took to locking themselves in barns, setting the barns on fire and burning themselves to death just to protest the minor change." Now that's what I call resisting change!This is the kind of book that you buy in bulk and then distribute to key members of your management team. Actually, don't stop there,