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New ‘rules for the organizational game’

responsibility for quality, serviceability, profitability and overall programme manage-
ment. Formerly the development team’s work ended at launch.
The focus therefore is on horizontal integration. Not least of the advantages is that
decisions can be made closer to the action. With the introduction of an integrated global
cycle plan for product launch, major product changes are planned to be achieved in half
the time. The matrix combines vertical integration with horizontal integration and raises
fundamental questions about the role of senior management in devising strategy, ensur-
ing that the needed capabilities are in place and so on.

We point to two themes relevant to this book, as follows:

1 Ford has begun the process of rethinking itself as a business. Specifically it
seeks to emphasize the horizontal process of creating value for customers, not
least because doing so provides opportunities to exploit economies across the
horizontal value stream.
2 Whether or not you deem Ford to be a ‘learning organization’, it is clear that
Ford has learnt a number of lessons, each of which allowed it to create a new
part of the ‘platform’ from which it now seeks to globalize.

As we shall see throughout this book, these two themes reoccur frequently when
looking at leading-edge practice in strategic change.
Thus, from this and the following case study we see evidence of new thinking
in three areas:

1 Rethinking the organization in terms of a horizontal stream of value-added
activities focused on customers/clients.
2 The learning organization and how to achieve that state.
3 The vital role of partnerships.
It is clear, therefore, that the world of major change is no longer simply a world
concerned with ‘resistance to change’. Indeed I have often wondered why ‘resist-
ance to change’ loomed so large in discussions about change. Many argue that
people are motivated by challenging jobs, discretion, autonomy, etc. These same

people also pointed to the prevalence of ‘resistance to change’ without posing
the obvious question. Change seems likely to create the very conditions which
people are supposed to find motivating. Why, then, are we so concerned about
‘resistance to change’?

CASE
STUDY Changing Childbirth

In 1993 the UK Department of Health published a report entitled Changing Childbirth. By
the early 1980s evidence of dissatisfaction as a result of fragmented care and obstetrician-
led services was apparent. Continuity of care was emerging alongside the perception
that women desired choice of care and place of delivery and the right of control over
their own bodies at all stages of pregnancy and birth.
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