Cover Image: Fit to Compete

Fit to Compete

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Member Reviews

Overall, Fit to Compete is a good resource for leaders and managers looking to improve their organization's performance and competitiveness. While it may not be the most groundbreaking or innovative book on the subject, it does provides a solid foundation for understanding the key elements of organizational effectiveness.
I would rate it a 4 out of 5.

Apologies to Netgalley for the late review

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This book feels like it was written primarily for the larger company or corporate rather than a smaller or medium-sized business. The structure of the arguments and the majority of the case studies reflect significant hierarchy, separate functional departments (and roles). There are some references to smaller (50 people) teams,

In essence, the organisation recognises a need to transform. One gets a sense that even where a new strategy has been agreed, moving the organisation along and making the agreed change is an entirely different ball game. The majority of businesses fail in this area. A Strategic Fitness Programme (SFP) is outlined and has many elements. It is clear that this is a difficult process, requiring courage and extraordinary leadership skills. They may have to overcome issues such as; unclear strategy, ineffectiveness in the senior team, leadership styles, poor coordination, inadequate leadership development or inadequate vertical communication (or a combination of these). Yet, throughout the book, the importance of honest, collective and public conversations is emphasised and appears to be a key aspect to bringing about the change businesses are needing to make. The value of outside consultants to mediate, problem solve and keep the process moving forward is also evident.

It is an in-depth and well- researched book walking the reader through a detailed process and providing action plans. Somehow the style (with my business focus on teams of fewer than 30 people) didn't quite gel, though the principles outlined .make perfect sense.

This thanks to Netgalley, and the author for my advance reader copy. The opinions expressed in this review ae entirely my own.

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What resonates with me in this book is the importance of having honest, collective, and public conversations in shaping an organization’s culture and making strategy implementation successful.

It focuses on SFP or the strategic fitness process as developed by Prof Beer of Harvard Business School with his colleagues. It is proven to be effective in several organization where it was applied.

The uniqueness of this book relies on the honesty it presents in every company where this process was applied. You will read stories of success as well as challenges in transforming organizations.

This book is written with a senior managers in mind. Nevertheless, those below them will benefit greatly as they have the most important element to which SFP will be successful: trust.

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