Chris DeRose - Judgment on the Front Line: Why the Smartest Companies Trust Their People to Make Real Decisions

A must-read for anyone who wants to get real about frontline transformation.

JOEL KLEIN,

executive vice president, News Corporation; former chancellor, New York City Public Schools

Innovation is no longer the providence of those at the top or in R&D departmentsit starts at the front line.

VIJAY GOVINDARAJAN,

Earl 1924 Professor at Tuck School at Dartmouth; bestselling author of Reverse Innovation

A must read for leaders seeking practical and pragmatic ways to leverage the capabilities, experiences, and judgments of frontline employees to create a competitive advantage for any company.

MIRIAN GRADDICK-WEIR,

executive vice president, Human Resources, Merck

This is not another book written by academics. Tichy and DeRose share their lifelong journey of actually working at the front line in numerous organizations, which makes the content of this book so compelling.

ROBERT KNOWLING,

chairman, Eagles Landing Partners; author of You Can Get There from Here

DeRose and Tichy have written the most compelling and well-crafted book ever written about how to harness the wisdom of people on the front lines. It is the most useful management book Ive read in years.

ROBERT SUTTON,

Stanford Professor; author of Good Boss, Bad Boss

The front linefocused organization is the organization of the future, and leaders on their journey to a new kind of relevance will welcome Judgment on the Front Line.

FRANCES HESSELBEIN,

president & CEO, The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

The DeRose and Tichy framework for activating the potential energy and insights of the front liners is compelling.

EDWARD A. SNYDER,

dean, Yale School of Management

DeRose and Tichy make it easy to see how leadership, frontline employees, and the bottom line all grow as boundaries are broken.

BRIAN A. GALLAGHER,

president and CEO, United Way Worldwide

This is both a down-to-earth and an uplifting book. Well done!

ROBERT A. BURGELMAN,

Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management, executive director of the Stanford Executive Program, Stanford Business School

Judgment on the Front Line turns years of research and experience into innovative, pragmatic ideas readers can use in their companies today.

CAMILLE MIRSHOKRAI,

global director of leadership development, Accenture

Tichy and DeRose have created a powerful blueprint for those seeking to radically improve the value they deliver to their customers.

TOM TORKELSON,

founder and CEO, IDEA Public Schools

Judgment on the

FRONT LINE

Also by Noel Tichy

Judgment

The Cycle of Leadership

The Leadership Egine

Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will

Judgment on the

FRONT LINE

HOW SMART

COMPANIES

WIN

BY TRUSTING THEIR PEOPLE

CHRIS DEROSE AND NOEL M. TICHY

Portfolio / Penguin

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in 2012 by Portfolio / Penguin,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright Chris DeRose and Noel Tichy, 2012

All rights reserved

Illustration credits

: Steelcase

: Intuit

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

DeRose, Chris.

Judgment on the front line : how smart companies win by trusting their people / Chris DeRose and Noel M. Tichy.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-56171-3

1. Customer relations. 2. ManagementEmployee participation. 3. Organizational behavior. 4. Corporate culture. I. Tichy, Noel M. II. Title.

HF5415.5.D467 2012

658.314dc23

2012018023

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Minion Pro

Designed by Elyse Strongin

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

In memory of Eleanor Josaitis (December 17, 1931August 9, 2011),
cofounder of Focus: HOPE, whose work changed the lives of thousands of
people, including ours, through her commitment to intelligent and
practical action to overcome racism, poverty and injustice.

T his book is the unexpected by-product of the more than forty years that Noel has spent as an academic and consultant and the nearly twenty years that we have worked together, with our colleague Patricia Stacey, consulting to CEOs of organizations large and small. In our consulting practice we partner with CEOs on their organizational transformation agendas, which often entail developing the next generation of leadership as CEOs reconsider what is required to achieve long-term success. In nearly every case, we are required to work with leaders from top to bottom in an organization to ensure enterprise-wide execution of the strategic agenda and to help thousands of employees align with the organizations vision.

We have had the great fortune, as a result of our clinical practice, to find ourselves in some unusual circumstances. Over the years we have collectively stood alongside frontline associates working on deep-sea oil rigs and retail sales floors and ridden with them on installation trucks. We have been in manufacturing factories of all sorts, pulled all-nighters with software teams, in call centers listening to customer complaints, and in warehouses unpacking boxes. We have even found ourselves in customers homes or in retail stores trying our best to assist with sales. In the process, we have witnessed firsthand how frontline workers deal with unpleasant customers, broken work processes, burdensome bureaucracy, and overbearing bosses.