| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JUNE 5, 2000 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BUSINESS WEEK E.BIZ -- MANAGEMENT
The Quick-Change Artist It's one thing for CEOs to decide their companies must be transformed to take advantage of the Net. It's quite another to make it happen. Here are some top execs who dared to do the unusual to kick-start change: The Symbolic Act David Pottruck, co-CEO, Charles Schwab, gathered nearly 100 senior managers at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. He handed each a jacket emblazoned with the phrase ''Crossing the Chasm,'' and led them across the bridge in a symbolic march to kick off his plan to turn Schwab into a full-fledged Net brokerage. Knocking Down Walls--Literally Jeffrey Skilling, president of Enron, moved the formerly regulated energy company from bureaucratic thinking to novel Net ideas by ripping out nearly all of the elevators at headquarters. His plan: to force people to use the stairs, creating more chance encounters, boosting collaboration and creativity. The Terror Tactic Isao Okawa, chairman of Sega Enterprises, decided to remake the company for the Net. But Okawa's management team resisted until Okawa defied Japan's consensus-charged, lifetime-employment culture by announcing that those who resisted the change would be fired, risking shame. Resistance vanished overnight. The Idea Hothouse James McNerney, CEO of GE Aircraft Engines, wanted to transform the plodding, straitlaced division into a Net-focused, in-house startup. He converted an old warehouse into an idea laboratory, complete with Foosball tables and open work pods. And he appointed ''e-belts''--the cultural equivalent of karate black belts--to lead change. The Strategic Lie Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, couldn't overcome sales execs' fears that customers would not trust the new Web-only strategy. After arguing fruitlessly, he led them to believe Oracle would work on the older products after producing the Web-only ones. ''I lied to my own team. It was the only way.'' _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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