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In thirty years of working in corporations, Michael Beer has witnessed how organizational silence has derailed many a strategic objective. When lower-level employees in the organization can't speak truth to power, senior leaders don't hear what they need to hear about their firm's fitness to compete. Employees lose trust in higher-ups and become more resistant to change.

In Fit to Compete, Beer presents an antidote to silence—an innovative and highly effective process for holding honest conversations with everyone in your organization. Used by over 150 organizations across the globe, the Strategic Fitness Process has helped leaders in industries as diverse as medical technology, restaurant chains, and pharmaceuticals hear the raw and necessary truth about the sources of misalignment between their strategies and their organizations.

In addition to a step-by-step guide, Beer offers detailed and illustrative case studies of companies that have used the Strategic Fitness Process to great effect. He also shows how to apply the process more broadly, to a variety of strategic challenges and at multiple levels throughout the organization.

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Endorsements

The old adage, “Honesty is the best policy”, is easy to say but hard to fully practice when issues are constantly competing with one another and swirling around the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world of work. Mike Beer has crafted a brilliantly simple process to help organizations “honestly” cut through the challenges of the day and advance their strategies in enlightened and impactful ways. A very worthy read.

Douglas R. Conant, Founder of ConantLeadership, Former President and CEO of Campbell Soup Company, Former Chairman of Avon Products

Many firms are stuck — strategically and organizationally — because no one will speak truth to power. The answer lies in building the ability to have honest, collective, public conversations. In this hugely important book, Professor Michael Beer draws on more than twenty years of research and experience in a wide variety of firms to lay out just how to structure a process to make these conversations happen and details the often astounding results that flow from putting them in place. If you’re serious about driving strategic transformation, this is the book to read.

Rebecca Henderson, John & Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard University

In Fit to Compete, Michael Beer once again provides incredible insights and shared proven tools for CEOs and leaders to engage their organizations and create winning strategies. The strategic fitness process provides a safe and encouraging environment to hear what all leaders need to hear from their organization — what they like about the culture, what they dislike, what concerns them about current direction and how they believe they can help you win. We were so affected by the honest and critically constructive conversations from the SFP team during the fishbowl exercise that we asked them to conduct a version with our board members. It was important that the company’s leadership team modeled the same courage the team displayed. SFP should be a foundational tool set to help solidify the culture and purpose of all organizations, not just businesses.

Fred Lynch

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