You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing

In his previously published book, Value Leadership, Peter Cohan identifies five qualitative factors and six quantitative factors of "Value Leaders" and examines several companies that exemplify the concept and principles. They include Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, J.M. Smucker, MBNA, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Synopsys, and Wal-Mart. Agreeing that "what you cannot measure, you cannot manage," Cohan offers a way to quantify and manage "the amorphous topic of values": what he calls the Value Quotient (VQ) "which is predicated on a set of four or five activities that companies can perform within each of the seven Value Leadership principles." I mention this book and provide this brief excerpt from it to suggest that, as in You Can't Order Change, Cohan is not prescribing specific methodologies, strategies, and tactics for his reader to adopt; rather, he provides information, insights, and suggests that he asks his reader to consider. Then, when applying any material that is directly relevant to the reader's own organization, Cohan assumes that necessary modifications will first be made. Jim McNerney and his leadership style and practices offer an excellent case in point, first at GE as group president and CEO and later as chairman and CEO at 3M and then Boeing. Throughout his narrative, Cohan identifies more than a hundred "leadership" lessons to be learned from McNerney's distinguished career thus far. However, it should be noted that how McNerney would apply them to challenges at GE would almost certainly differ from how he would apply them at 3M or Boeing. In fact, how he would apply them at GE in 2009 (if he were still there) would differ from how he would have applied them at GE 10-15 years ago. According to Cohan, "McNerney's a smart leader: He's very smart about motivating people; crafting business strategies that spark profitable growth; making operations more efficient and effective; and creating harmony within communities." The focus in this book in on McNerney's leadership of Boeing but the aforementioned "leadership lessons" accurately indicate McNerney's style and practices at GE and 3M. Cohan organizes his material in terms of eleven leadership challenges and devotes a separate chapter to each. All of these challenges are familiar to C-level executives (including but not limited to CEOs) in almost all organizations, whatever their nature and extent may be. Here they are, expressed as questions but they could also be expressed as imperatives: 1. How to increase individual performance? 2. How to increase the performance of a team? 3. How can executive compensation be tied to increasing long-term value? 4. How can technologies help meet customers' specific needs? 5. How to use strategies that achieve decisive competitive advantage? 6. Which acquisitions (if any) will help to achieve organizational objectives? 7. How can new leaders "hit the ground running" and produce results quickly? 8. Which management methodologies (e.g

In "You Can't Order Change", Peter S. Cohan methodically dissects the leadership style and practices of Jim McNerney, the talented CEO of Boeing Corporation. McNerney is one of Jack Welch's disciples from General Electric. Armed with a Welch-like "results" approach, McNerney also cares about how those results are achieved. In essence, he views an organization's people as it's "critical assets" and Cohan shows us just how McNerney goes about enabling his people to achieve superior results. In a field filled with egos, we see a CEO that knows he cannot do it all himself - "there's only one of him". The book's greatest strength is that it not only identifies the leadership style that McNerney employs to gain results at Boeing, but also describes the specific management tactics he uses as a CEO to overcome "leadership challenges". We see this through the lens of what Cohan calls "The McNerney Way" where the author has chosen four broad categories to convey "management imperatives" - leadership, strategy, operations, and communities. This is not a conceptual or high-level review, but rather a "nuts and bolts" view into a leader and his mission to change the fortunes of Boeing. Cohan has done his research and relies on a number of familiar sources while presenting his findings in a clear and straight-forward way. You will not find business school jargon or theoretical models in this book, but rather a real-world and no-nonsense look into the tactics a CEO uses to produce what matters in a corporation - things like revenue growth, operating profit, cash flow, and operating efficiency. I would recommend this book to both aspiring and established leaders and managers as it gives the reader an insightful glimpse into how to be an effective leader in today's ever-changing and challenging globalized business world. It will give you insight into how to be a leader who motivates and has the respect of his people, but more importantly, gets results.

In an era when CEO has a negative connotation, Peter Cohan's book, "You Can't Order Change" gives credence to the intellect of a great leader in a great industry. Reading the book is not only intellectually stimulating--it's an uplifting experience!

This book is an exposition in a defined leadership style promoting personal excellence at all levels of the organization, as opposed to a 'follow my orders' style of leadership. The details of the applicability of this style are well thought out. I would recommend this book to anyone needing a refresher course in what it means to be a 'leader' as opposed to being a 'dictator'.

Peter Cohan has written a very interesting and insightful story about a CEO and how he worked to change a major corporation. Changing any company is a very difficult task, but it is especially hard in a huge, premier company, such as Boeing. In addition to giving us a noteworthy book about leadership, Peter provides in a clear, almost textbook, style many useful check lists about how to carry out a change program. Walk in the steps of Jim McNerney and learn what he did and how he did it to change Boeing. You will not be disappointed.