Strategic Readiness

Shows executives--anyone concerned with making change happen--how to move beyond the limitations of fixed strategic planning processes and programs to create a flexible, responsive organization that thrives in today's climate of uncertainty: the learning organization. Draws from an extensive study of two hundred change-oriented organizations including Honeywell and Motorola to identify a series of practical actions that can be used immediately to help develop a firm's capacity to learn. Prologue: The Call for Learning Organizations
Part One: From Strategic Planning to Strategic Learning: Elements of the Learning Organization
1. The Strategic Learning Cycle: How Learning Organizations Learn to Change
2. Speed, Depth, and Breadth: How Organizations Accelerate Learning
3. Strategic Readiness: How Organizations Prepare to Learn
Part Two: Accelerating Strategic Learning
4. Continuous Learning
5. Improvised Implementation
6. Deep Reflection
Part Three: Building Strategic Readiness
7. Heighten Strategic Awareness: Understand the Need for Continuous Learning
8. Making Learning a Way of Life: Enhancing Individual, Team, and Organizational Learning
9. Become Self-Organizing: Continuously Changing Shape Based Upon Continuous Learning
Epilogue: Improvising the Future: Learning Organizations and Jazz "Redding and Catalanello's concepts of 'strategic readiness' and 'strategic learning' should take the place of strategic planning for any manager and for corporations interested in staying ahead in rapidly changing, increasingly competitive business environments." --Judy O'Neil, education manager, AT&T

"An exceptional resource filled with practical, actionable ideas and information.... It demonstrates that creating a learning organization will yield a significant sustained strategic advantage. This is a definite long-term keeper on my bookshelf." --Alan Honeycutt, manager, organization development and training, Nestle USA

JOHN C. REDDING is executive director of the Institute for Strategic Learning, a leading consulting firm that specializes in innovative approaches to strategic planning, project management, and leadership development. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles and books, including Strategic Readiness: The Making of the Learning Organization. He is also a frequent keynote speaker at professional conferences and chair of the American Society for Training and Development Research-to-Practice Committee. Shows executives--anyone concerned with making change happen--how to move beyond the limitations of fixed strategic planning processes and programs to create a flexible, responsive organization that thrives in today's climate of uncertainty: the learning organization. Draws from an extensive study of two hundred change-oriented organizations including Honeywell and Motorola to identify a series of practical actions that can be used immediately to help develop a firm's capacity to learn. Shows executives--anyone concerned with making change happen--how to move beyond the limitations of fixed strategic planning processes and programs to create a flexible, responsive organization that thrives in today's climate of uncertainty: the learning organization. Draws from an extensive study of two hundred change-oriented organizations including Honeywell and Motorola to identify a series of practical actions that can be used immediately to help develop a firm's capacity to learn."Redding and Catalanello's concepts of 'strategic readiness' and 'strategic learning' should take the place of strategic planning for any manager and for corporations interested in staying ahead in rapidly changing, increasingly competitive business environments."--Judy O'Neil, education manager, AT&T