The Almanac Of African American Heritage features people, places, times and events which shaped black culture and is written by four Afro-American professionals of education and counseling. From the earliest slave ships to cross the Atlantic to modern times, this explores dozens of black trail blazers over the centuries.

"Corporate transformation challenges come in many forms and confront executive leaders with an array of vexing questions: How can I help my company, which is at the top of its competitive game, sidestep complacency and energize people to redirect their efforts and reposition their organization? How can I lead my company, which has lost its way and greatly depleted its resources, to revitalize itself for competitive excellence? How can our recently merged companies or functions overcome business and cultural differences? Or, more simply, now that I am in a position to do so, how can I effectively take charge of my organization and help people develop a new agenda to lead us through the next phase of its development? These questions, and more, have found successful resolution through the framework for leading corporate transformation described in this book (R. H. Miles)."

In this context, in the first part of this book, Robert H. Miles offers a framework for leading corporate transformation. This framework, as stated by Miles, identifies the major/required tasks that a leader-indeed, that leaders at all leves in the organization-must perform to achieve successful transformation without exposing the corporation to unacceptable risk :

I. Generate Energy for Transformation

* Confront reality

* Create and reallocate resources

* Raise the bar

* Model desired behaviors

II. Develop a Vision and Business Success Model

* Develop a strategic vision

* Model business success

* Analyze the total system: current vs. vision states

* Identify the gaps

* Focus on a few transformation initiatives

III. Align the Organization

* Restructure

* Implement infrastructure

* Reshape the culture

* Build core competencies

IV. Create a Transformation Process Architecture

* Educate and involve

* Create coordination and feedback mechanisms

* Communicate progress

* Fill transformation skill gaps

According to R. H. Miles these elements of the framework provide not only a platform for launching a corporate transformation, but also for managing transitions from one phase of transformation to the next en route to the vision state.

I highly recommend.