Fad Surfing in the Boardroom

Welcome to the fad-surfing age, complete with a seemingly endless supply of programs and mantras for accomplishing "breakthroughs" in performance and achieving "world-class" results. To reivew just a few of the options: you can, if you wish, flatten your pyramid, become a horizontal organization, and eliminate hierarchy from your company. You can empower your people, open your environment, and transform your culture. You can listen to your customers, create a customer-focused organization, and commit to total customer satisfaction. You can do the "vision thing, " write a mission statement, and put together a strategic plan. You can improve continuously, shift your paradigms, and become a learning organization. You can devote yourself and your company to total quality management. Or you can reengineer your corporation, with the intent, in the words of the original reengineers, of creating a "business revolution."