USC Marshall School of Business

The only way organizations can succeed, according to Edward E. Lawler III and Christopher G. Worley of USC Marshall's Center for Effective Organizations (CEO), is to make fundamental changes to strategy, organization design and leadership. The management experts who collaborated on the new book Management Reset: Organizing for Sustainable Effectiveness (Jossey-Bass, 2011) released this week, say traditional management models that focus on hierarchy and maximizing profit are failing; to thrive, today's organizations must be structured and managed to address social and environmental impacts as well as financial results.

"The old ways of managing are obsolete," said Lawler, founder and director of CEO. "Today's complex, global business world demands a new approach to management; one that makes change easy and delivers triple bottom-line results. Without a complete 'management reset,' many businesses simply will not survive."

In a study of the world's leading organizations, including Microsoft, Cisco, Netflix, DaVita, Starbucks, Nokia and the United States Secret Service, Lawler and Worley—a senior research scientist in USC Marshall's CEO and professor of management at Pepperdine University, determined that organizations need to be managed and designed to achieve "sustainable effectiveness."

We are challenging the ways businesses and their leaders think about decision making," added Worley. "They need to start making changes now because it's only going to get more challenging from here on. This is the future of management."

To listen to a podcast with Dr. Lawler and Dr. Worley about their new book, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgs1rvGxe0Y

About the Management Reset Authors
Edward E. Lawler III is a major contributor to theory, research and practice in the fields of human resources management, and organization development and effectiveness. A Distinguished Professor of business at the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business, he is also the founder and director of the University's Center for Effective Organizations (CEO), one of the country's leading management research organizations. A widely recognized leader in strategic change, organization development and organization design, Christopher G. Worley, Ph.D., provides the innovative perspectives today's complex organizational challenges require. He holds a joint appointment as a senior research scientist in USC's CEO and professor of management at Pepperdine University.

In addition to Management Reset, Lawler and Worley are also co-authors of Built to Change: How to Achieve Sustained Organizational Effectiveness (Jossey-Bass, 2006).