The Harper Report Archives

Eight Steps to Overcoming Organizational Resistance

By Pamela S. Harper and D. Scott Harper

Major change is a double edged sword. Even when people know that it’s necessary to do things differently because of new opportunities, mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, crises, or alliances, resistance is commonplace. The biggest challenge of leading through resistance, however, can be recognizing its various disguises.

It’s easy to recognize when resistance is overt and appears as hostile encounters with others, ignoring requests, or outright refusal to change. But even the savviest CEOs and executives can miss signs of covert resistance. This is because…
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Why Minor Changes Can Have a Major Impact on Your Strategy

In an environment of rapidly increasing complexity, it’s critical to consider how the seemingly minor changes inside and outside your company can accumulate to the point where they may have unanticipated, yet game-changing effects.

What are the minor changes to which we’re referring? They can include minor shifts of workforce within a department, or several changes of customers, suppliers, or alliance partners. They can also include small changes in industry regulations, and other shifts that, in of themselves don’t make the news. However, the interaction between multiple minor changes can have a major impact on your company’s ability to achieve its objectives.Read More

Four Steps to Powerful Strategic Alliances

Strategic alliances come complete with their own special set of advantages and challenges. Certainly the benefits of gaining access to knowledge, skills, and systems your organization doesn’t have without an equity investment makes these relationships compelling – especially given the rapidly changing business environment. Yet numerous studies indicate that less than 50% of all strategic alliances live up to original expectations. The good news is that there are enormous opportunities for improved outcomes. Recognizing and adapting to the unique characteristics of each alliance can dramatically increase the likelihood of powerful results for everyone involved.Read More

How to Create New Opportunities in a Changing World

Recently, we’ve been hearing more executives talk about “watching and waiting” for conditions toreturn to normal as a strategy for navigating the unpredictable business environment. However, since combinations of big and little changes in technology, workforce demographics, customer needs, and legislation are happening every day, waiting for things to return to the way they were at an earlier time often leads to bigger problems and missed opportunities.

In fact, “business as unusual” is the new normal, and whole industries are changing in response to a series of unprecedented demands and issues in the business environment. While we can’t always control circumstances and events, there are things we can do to minimize problems and leverage new opportunities for growth and profitability.Read More

The Keys to Unlocking Sustainable Innovation

Many of the CEOs and senior executives we meet consider innovation to be a critical strategic priority. However, they often tell us that despite adopting best practices to increase and streamline innovation, success can often seem elusive and even haphazard. The most promising new products and services can have disappointing results in the market, while other products with lower expectations can provide an unexpectedly high return on investment.

Over 50% of executives feel that innovation programs cost too much, take too long, and have an unpredictable return on investment. With so much effort being directed to improving and reaping benefits from innovation, the seemingly erratic distribution of success can be mystifying.

It’s easy to see when a new product or service succeeds and when it fails. However, unlocking the secrets to gaining sustainable control and making innovation more predictably successful is considerably more challenging.Read More

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