Articles: Rapid Results Approach
Improving Supply Chain Compliance in Developing Countries, Patrice Murphy and Daniel Manitsky, Industry Week, January 3, 2011.
Many enterprises can improve environmental practices and worker safety very quickly, using the money, staff and local know-how they already have.
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Best Foot Forward, Matthew McCreight and Ronald Ashkenas, Northeast Executive, Fall 2009.
This article is an excellent overview of our firm and how we help our clients realize their fullest potential.
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Healthcare Rx: Start with Results Today, Patrice Murphy and Celia Kirwan, OD Seasonings, an online publication of OD Network, Volume 4, Number 1, Winter 2008.
This article focuses on using rapid results to achieve gains in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. It shows how these speedy projects can be expanded to make larger gains in operations and patient care.
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Using CAIDI as a Leading Indicator, Keith Michaelson, Rod Kalbfleisch, and Bill Burley, Electric Light and Power, March 2008.
CL&P discovered the critical elements of effective outage response.
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Rapid Results, a chapter from "The Change Handbook: The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems"; Patrice Murphy, Celia Kirwan, and Ron Ashkenas; Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.; 2007; p. 450-464.
Describes how Rapid Results projects were used by companies and by governments to build confidence and capacity to manage change.
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Make Results Part of Your Process, Robert H. Schaffer, AIMC Newsletter, Winter 2007.
When internal consulting projects fall short of expectations it is frequently because the groups who have to carry out the changes lack change implementation skills. This article describes how to develop these skills and how to ensure that all the modifications in work processes necessary to make the project succeed are also carried out.
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Leadership Excellence - Development is a full-time job, Robert H. Schaffer, Leadership Excellence, January 2006.
This article describes how Avery Dennison yielded over $50 million in new revenues in their first year of using rapid-cycle projects to develop leadership capabilities.
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Turning Giants, Robert H. Schaffer, American Executive, May 2006.
When a company is in difficulty, the CEO is so worried about not getting further behind, they can't imagine investing time and resources trying to build grassroots change capability. Fortunately, they don't have to make that choice.
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Rapid Results: Easier to Achieve Than the Gurus Will Tell You, Robert H. Schaffer, MWorld, Fall 2006.
If you have to improve productivity significantly, lower costs, shift market focus or make other major changes in your company, cheer up: it can be done much more easily than you probably believe it can.
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Aprender de los resultados rapidos (Learning from Rapid Results), Claudio Avila Tobias, Harvard Business Review Latin American Edition, December 2006.
This article shows how Banorte used Rapid Results projects to add US$7 million in profit—in only nine months. (English translation is available as well as the original in Spanish.)
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From Pilot Project to Business Strategy: How to Turn Innovation into Growth, Wes Siegal and Evan Smith, C2M: Consulting to Management, April 2006
Pilot projects need more than success to realize their promise. Learn what organizations can do to involve stakeholder groups in selecting, conducting, and reviewing growth pilots - and how these steps maximize the long-term value of those pilots.
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A Thousand Cures—Which One Is Right?: Chapter 1 of Rapid Results!, Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
Like a broken record, business authors, journalists, government leaders, and economists continue to warn that the pace of change is accelerating, and that managers need to move faster. How can they respond to these challenges in ways that will ensure success? Rapid Results is a comprehensive change strategy, but it begins in ways that have rapid pay-back, that do not require major investment, and that are very low risk. This chapter will introduce the concept and show how it can serve as the fundamental building block of large scale change.
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Start With Results, Not Preparations: Chapter 3 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
Rapid Results projects are not an alternative to longer-term vision and strategic management. Rather they are a necessary, complementary element in major strategic change efforts. Rapid Results projects ensure that the large-scale strategic efforts are effectively absorbed into the organization. This chapter includes a case study from United Aluminum which, to this day, maintains an on-time shipment delivery of 99.4%.
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Results in 100 Days, Keith Michaelson, Electric Perspectives, May-June 2005.
When you challenge people to take on the accountability for rapid results, you can ensure the continued success of your business. This article describes how utilities used rapid results to successfully tackle critical business issues in 100 days or less.
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The Potential Is There To Respond: Chapter 2 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
Our ancient ancestors saw fire occur spontaneously in nature. Only after they observed it in awe for eons did they eventually realize they could control it and utilize its power. In certain emergency and “must-do” situations in organizations, Rapid Results also occur spontaneously in that same awe-inspiring way. We’ve all seen it happen—a heroic performance in a crisis, an exceptional effort to meet a deadline, an unexpected leap to beat a competitor. This chapter explains how organizations have a hidden capacity for better performance and why building capability at the micro-implementation level is the only way to enable larger changes to occur.
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Development and Results Go Hand in Hand, Ronald N. Ashkenas and Robert H. Schaffer, IMPA-HR News, August 2005.
HR professionals can add value to an organization by focusing on organizational results as a key measure of their own success. (This article is available in Spanish.)
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Rapid Results: Unlocking the Door to Major Change, Robert H. Schaffer and Wes Siegal, C2M, December 2005.
This article shows how Avery Dennison, Georgia Pacific, and others have used Rapid-Results projects to bring about large scale change plans.
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Mobilize Large Numbers of People In Change: Chapter 5 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
This chapter shows how Rapid Results projects and WorkOut can serve as a vehicle for engaging large numbers of people into the change and improvement process and how a modified version of the well-known GE “WorkOut process” provides a structured methodology to support this rapid engagement. The experiences of Avery Dennison, Zurich U.K. and Armstrong cited in this chapter show that rapid-cycle projects, even if somewhat modest to begin with, can quickly be turned into powerful engines for accelerating change—change that can advance as fast as you want it to happen and can involve huge numbers of people as quickly as you want to involve them. As more and more people lead and participate in Rapid Results teams, more and more change management competence is developed at every level in the organization. And as this competence grows, so does the organization’s overall capacity to implement large-scale change.
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Build Your Own Unique Transformation Process: Chapter 6 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
While organizations can certainly benefit from the accumulated experience of others, the most successful approach is for each organization to create a unique change process that works best for itself. In this chapter we will sketch a framework by which management teams can carry out the experimentation and learning necessary to accomplish that process. If you want a high-success approach to transforming your organization you need follow only one aspect of the Zurich UK case examined in this chapter: Create an orderly way to launch the various elements of your developmental process and work hard at learning from success.
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Georgia-Pacific Takes It All The Way: Chapter 7 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
For Georgia-Pacific change and improvement is now part of the daily routine. After ten years of using rapid-cycle improvement, this implementation process is in place throughout the company. It is the engine that drives continuous improvement not only at the plant level but also throughout the business. In their Consumer Products facilities alone, in 2002, $300 million a year of sustained cost reduction and cost-impacting productivity gains were documented and audited—and in 2003 another $300 million of improvement was achieved. One manager stated: “Rapid-cycle improvement is a simple concept. The greatest danger to its successful implementation is that new people in leadership roles want to make it more complicated. Georgia-Pacific has done a grand job of keeping the methodology simple and pure to the essential results-achieving rapid-cycle projects.”
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Unleashing Implementation Capacity in Developing Countries: Chapter 9 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
For over 60 years, international agencies have tried to help the developing nations of the world free themselves of poverty—with far too little success. The same assumptions that are at the heart of big fix solutions in business also underlie most of the economic and social development programs. In this chapter, we will describe how government officials in developing countries are beginning to use Rapid Results as a vehicle for unleashing implementation capacity in their countries. The emerging stories from Nicaragua, Eritrea, Kenya, and other counties shed light on a path toward higher returns on investments in international development work.
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Rapid Results Spark Strategic Momentum: Chapter 10 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
The power of Rapid Results goes beyond the effective implementation of strategy. These projects can open a new approach to how strategic planning is carried out and how it can contribute to progress.
Strategic planning becomes an on-going, iterative process and the entire organization becomes involved in its evolution. The how-to of integrating thought and action in a strategic process does not have to be complex. While the way is often challenging and always unpredictable, there is a firm logic both to getting it started and to keeping it going.
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Develop Leaders Through Results Achievement: Chapter 11 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
Quite frequently when their companies fail it is not because leaders lack the knowledge of what needs doing but rather because they lack the ability to make it happen. This chapter urges those responsible for developing leaders to ask managers to strive for and achieve tangible results and shows how these results-driven experiences can be designed into formal training programs as well.
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Challenge for Leaders: You Can Make It Happen! Will You?: Chapter 12 of Rapid Results!, by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and Associates, Jossey-Bass 2005.
Producing Rapid Results while building long-term capacity for change, in the context of longer-term visions and strategies, is the challenge we have laid out for executives in this book. It does not require substantial training, a long-term executive education program, or any other kind of “reformation” or rewiring. On the contrary, you can move into this territory at once. All it requires is the will to get started, to experiment, and to learn along the way.
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Improving Project Results: Operating 'Below-the-Line' to Produce Real Value, Nadim Matta, The Conference Board's Executive Action, Number 125, December 2004.
Project teams and their sponsors rarely acknowledge the risk that their project's outcomes will not translate into the intended benefits to the organization. How can you keep a project on track for real results?
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Attention HR: Managers Need Help, Robert Neiman and Rudi Siddik, Canadian HR Reporter, September 13, 2004.
Human resource professionals could sit around, hoping to come up with that big idea that will get them to the boardroom table ... but this article details a less idealistic path, but one that is much more likeley to succeed.
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Bridging the Capacity Gap, Nadim Matta, Ron Ashkenas and Jean-Francois Rischard, Leader to Leader, Number 23, Winter 2002.
The gap between aspirations and the ability to implement thwarts the most well-meaning, well-conceived developmental efforts. This article presents an approach used by World Bank to design and implement projects that help organizations bridge this "capacity gap."
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Generate A Zest Through Success, Robert H. Schaffer and Gerard van Hoek, Management Today (South Africa), Volume 18 Number 3, April 2002.
A description of the rapid-results methodology for a South African audience, with several cases of South African experiences with the methodology.
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How to Create Successful Business-to-Business Partnerships, Richard A. Heinick, 2001 Handbook of Business Strategy, Faulkner & Gray, 2000.
A specialty chemicals company used the structured customer partnering methodology described in this article to reduce costs, improve delivery time, boost both companies’ profitability, and augment customer relationships.
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Breakthrough Strategy: A stepping stone to greater success (DuPont), DuPont Canada Courier, March 1999.
This newsletter describes how RHS&A helped DuPont use the Breakthrough Strategy to deliver results in savings and safety in many of their Canadian locations.
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Beginning with results: the key to success, Robert H. Schaffer, Journal for Quality and Participation, Volume 20, Number 4, September 1997. Published as a two-part series with Looking at the 5 fatal flaws of management consulting, Robert H. Schaffer, Journal for Quality and Participation, Volume 20, Number 3, June 1997.
The earlier article explains why failures are a direct outcome of the way consulting is usually practiced, and why consultants and clients collude to perpetuate this wasteful pattern. It suggests a radically different approach. The later describes how both consultants and clients can avoid "fatal flaws" by shifting to the more effective, results-focused, High-Impact consulting paradigm.
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Putting the Engine into Re-engineering, Elaine M. Mandrish and Robert H. Schaffer, National Productivity Review, Spring 1996.
Results-driven process redesign blends many elements of reengineering into a continuous improvement approach. It employs incremental initiatives that are focused on results and involve key players in the redesign and change efforts.
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The Quality Quagmire, Robert H. Schaffer, CIO: The Magazine for Information Executives, November 1, 1992.
How information systems groups can shift to a results focus to improve their own performance.
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Even Less Water in the Mojave Desert, Mike Slavich, U.S. Borax, Borax Pioneer, Number 3, 1994.
After 40 years of trying unsuccessfully to reduce its water consumption, U.S. Borax accomplished its goal using the breakthrough strategy and saved over $24 million in capital expense.
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Results...The Forgotten Element of Quality Programs, Harlow B. Cohen, S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal, 1994.
This article outlines the fundamental flaws that undermine many quality programs, and recommends an alternative approach based on effectively demanding higher performance and achieving measurable results.
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10X Reduction in Time, Bobby Potts and Rudi Siddik, Motorola UDS Online, Volume 1, Number 8, April 1994.
Using the breakthrough approach, Motorola UDS reduced order-to-ship time on their top-selling modem from eight days to one day. Additional benefits included quality improvement and cost reduction.
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The Breakthrough Strategy, Robert H. Schaffer, World Executive Digest, May 1993.
A very short description of the results-focused approach describing how PPG Industries and a number of other companies used the process to achieve rapid-cycle improvement.
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TQM: Just Do It, Ron Ashkenas, Incentive, April 1993.
The best way to achieve total quality is by challenging people to generate specific results early, then using these results to drive further improvement.
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TQM: Let’s Not Do It To Ourselves Again, Harvey A. Thomson and Richard A. Bobbe, Tapping the Network Journal, Winter 1993-1994.
Instead of abandoning stalled TQM programs, leaders should revitalize them by tying them to urgently needed results and compelling business challenges.
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The Lemmings Who Love Total Quality, Ronald Ashkenas and Robert Schaffer, The New York Times, May 3, 1992.
A brief newspaper article describing the results-driven quality approach.
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How IS Groups Can Create More Value: A Financial Services Perspective, Robert A. Neiman, Journal of Systems Management, May 1992.
Technology doesn’t guarantee performance improvement. IS groups can create value by increasing productivity, designing projects to achieve business goals, and applying their insights to a range of improvement situations.
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Successful Change Programs Begin With Results, Robert H. Schaffer and Harvey A. Thomson, Harvard Business Review, January-February 1992.
Performance improvement initiatives rarely improve performance because they focus on activities not results. This article contrasts typical activity-centered change programs with the more effective results-driven approach.
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Managing Change: A Breakthrough In Billing, Gary L. Schwass (Duquesne Light Company), Grant L. Davies and Richard A. Bobbe, Financial Executive, January-February 1991.
Duquesne Light’s finance group reduced billing time from five days to one, increasing revenue by $1.7 million annually and developing internal change management capabilities.
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Results Improvement Is the Key to Creativity and Empowerment, Robert H. Schaffer, The Journal for Quality and Participation, September 1991.
Many managers hope that "empowering" people and encouraging creativity will yield better results. In fact, it is the reverse. A strenuous effort to improve results stimulates the best that people can do.
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Teamwork and ’Razzle Dazzle’ Win Big Heat-Rate Gains at Eddystone, Daniel F. Wusinich (Philadelphia Electric Company) and Matthew K. McCreight, Electrical World, August 1991.
Special cross-functional teams were able to realize significant operational improvement at Philadelphia Electric Company by carving out short-term results-focused projects, and using the success achieved to fuel further gains.
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The Breakthrough Strategy, Robert A. Neiman, Electric Perspectives, July-August 1991.
Faced with increased competition, electrical utilities saved millions of dollars and increased productivity using the Breakthrough Strategy. Large-scale, complex change was accomplished through incremental, goal-oriented projects.
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Quiz: Sales Reps, Is Your Own Anxiety Costing You Sales?, Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas and Matthew K. McCreight, Spirit, the magazine of Southwest Airlines, December 1991.
This quiz helps sales reps to identify how anxiety negatively affects both their behavior with customers and their ability to communicate—and offers techniques for managing anxiety-producing situations.
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Restoring Health to Workers Compensation, Suzanne C. Francis and Matthew K. McCreight, The Bureaucrat, The Journal for Public Managers, Spring 1990.
Illustrates how two state health facilities were able to dramatically reduce incidences of on-the-job "accidents" by focusing on short-term projects with challenging but achievable goals, then leveraging these results for greater accomplishments.
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Overcoming Hidden Barriers to New Product Development and Commercialization, Martin R. Strasmore, Proceedings, 45th Annual Conference, Composites Institute, the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., February 12-15, 1990.
Six barriers to successful commercialization are identified, each one deeply rooted in patterns of behavior and communication. Steps for overcoming these barriers are outlined.
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How to Tap the ‘Zest Factor‘, Robert H. Schaffer, The New York Times, Business Forum, Sunday, May 7, 1989.
The same dynamics that stimulate performance surges in a crisis can be replicated in short-term projects aimed at producing immediate, measurable performance results..
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Quality Now! Through the Looking Glass to Quality Improvement, Robert H. Schaffer, The Journal for Quality and Participation, September 1989.
Don’t lose time gearing up. Produce better quality quickly.
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The Incremental Strategy for Consulting Success, Robert H. Schaffer and Keith E. Michaelson, Journal of Management Consulting, Volume 5, Number 2, 1989.
Long consulting projects often fail as priorities change and recommendations multiply. Avoid this by tackling projects incrementally in manageable pieces that produce quick, measurable results.
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Built In Barriers To High Performance, Robert H. Schaffer, Management Solutions, November 1988.
In order to remain competitive in the global marketplace, managers must sharpen their awareness of the barriers that undermine the impact of improvement programs.
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Transforming the Sales Force in a Maturing Industry, Kevin F. Sullivan, Richard A. Bobbe and Martin R. Strasmore, Management Review, June 1988.
How PPG Fiber Glass Reinforced Products sales force increased product sales despite slowing market growth and intensified competition.
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Breakthrough Strategy for Performance Improvement, AIPE: Facilities Management Operations and Engineering, July-August 1987.
A commodity chemical plant saved over $14 million annually by improving management processes.
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Manage R&D, or Else, Growth Strategies, American Management Association, July 1987.
Collaborative planning among R&D, manufacturing, marketing and customers speeds new products to market.
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Breakthroughs in Quality and Productivity, The Calvert City Newsline, October 1986 and February 1987.
Breakthroughs in Pennwalt Corporation chemical plant saved millions of dollars and rejuvenated the business.
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Solve More Significant Productivity Problems by Guiding Your Employee Task Forces, Productivity Improvement Bulletin, September 1986.
Principles used to organize the successful task forces behind Domino Sugar’s breakthrough projects.
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The ’Start With Results’ Theory of Innovation, Intrapreneurial Excellence, American Management Association, June 1986.
Synopsis of the Breakthrough Strategy in a manufacturing setting.
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Professional Productivity: The TIAA-CREF Experience, R.N. Ashkenas, National Productivity Review, Summer 1986.
The TIAA-CREF case illustrates Schaffer Consulting's (then called RHS&A) approach to professional productivity.
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Frank Stowe’s Productive Ways, William F. Miller, Industry Week, July 1985.
Amstar’s Baltimore refinery manager tells how the Breakthrough Strategy helped to improve results.
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Gold Collar Motivation: Appeal to Professionalism, Fritz K. Plous, World of Work Report, November 1985.
Improving the productivity of lawyers, accountants and systems professionals at TIAA-CREF.
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Professional Productivity, J.B. Sellner, TIAA-CREF Topics, February 1985.
Breakthroughs described in article number B-21 are featured in the company newsletter.
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Involving Employees in Productivity and QWL Improvements: What OD Can Learn from the Manager’s, T.D. Jick and R.N. Ashkenas, a chapter from Contemporary Organization Development: Current Thinking and Applications, Scott Foresman 1985.
Success of employee involvement depends on alignment with critical managerial goals.
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Managing Change in Bank Operations: The Chase Experience, R.N. Ashkenas and V.G. Albanese, The World of Banking, July 1984.
Chase Manhattan’s operations managers responded to deregulation by improving results.
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Boosting Productivity-No Simple Answers, Frank Haarhoff, Chemical Business, September 1983.
Unionized plants used employee involvement to greatly increase productivity.
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Solution Vinyls Sets New Record, The Forecaster, June 1983.
Union Carbide achieved record-breaking outputs using the Breakthrough Strategy.
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The Breakthrough Approach: Taking Productivity One Step at a Time, Productivity, Volume 4, Number 4, April 1983.
Union Switch & Signal task force resolved backlog in the tool shop.
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Productivity Improvement: Manage It or Buy It?, Richard A. Bobbe and Robert H. Schaffer, Growth Strategies, Business Horizons, March-April 1983.
Many companies try to meet the challenge of productivity by means of capital investment in more efficient technology, plant, and equipment. Others concentrate on training, incentives, or quality circles. These elements are all necessary. Significant improvement, however, requires management to expand its capacity to get more—both from these new investments and from the ones in place.
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Productivity and QWL Success without Ideal Conditions, R.N. Ashkenas and T.D. Jick, National Productivity Review, Autumn 1982.
Employee involvement efforts can overcome suboptimal conditions and measurably improve results.
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Program/BREAKTHROUGH Boosts Performance and Productivity Improvement, The Bristol-Myers Beam, May-June 1982.
Bristol-Myers’ staff groups significantly improved results through a series of short-term projects.
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Want Productivity Improvement? Manage It!,, Richard A. Bobbe and Robert H. Schaffer, Administrative Management, August 1982.
Systematically managing productivity growth ensures ongoing performance improvement.
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Hard Times? Manage Results, Not Just Resources, Darwin A. Gillett and Ronald N. Ashkenas, Advanced Management Journal, Autumn 1981.
During business downturns, focus on increasing returns from existing resources, not just on making cuts.
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Make Success the Building Block, Robert H. Schaffer, Management Review, August 1981.
Traditional programmatic performance improvement initiatives are contrasted with the Breakthrough Strategy‘s results-focused approach.
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Epitaph: The Transit Strike, Ronald N. Ashkenas, The New York Times, June 1980.
New York City’s 1980 transit strike illustrates the energizing effect of crises.
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Getting a Big Payback from Those You Pay, Joseph V. Barks, Iron Age, January 1980.
Atlas Steels used the Breakthrough Strategy to significantly increase output, lower costs and boost morale.
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Productivity Improvement in a Bank Branch Network, Bank Executives Report, April 1980.
How the Royal Bank of Canada upgraded service-and results-in over 1,000 branches.
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Success Breeds Success: Helping Your People Do More, Robert A. Neiman, Plastics World, April 1980.
How the Breakthrough Strategy can produce improvements in process industries.
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The RHS&A Approach, Robert Gibbens, The Globe & Mail (Toronto), April 1980.
The RHS&Aapproach in Canadian corporations.
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Three Productivity Myths, Robert H. Schaffer and Ronald N. Ashkenas, The Christian Science Monitor, April 1980.
Three widely accepted assumptions about productivity improvement which can actually impede progress.
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Developing End-Use Marketing Teams, Harry J. Demas, Richard A. Bobbe and Phyllis E. Connolly, Industrial Marketing Management, November 1979.
How Allied Chemical’s sales organization doubled sales to meet expanded production capacity.
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One Success at a Time, Personal Report for the Executive, Research Institute of America, December 1979.
A brief summary of how to use small, incremental steps to achieve large-scale performance improvement.
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Productivity: Nice & Easy Ups It, The Effective Manager, November 1979.
An interview with Robert H. Schaffer.
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Strategies for Managerial Impact: The Dynamics of Individual Change, Robert A. Neiman, Management Review, May 1979.
How managers can achieve dramatic productivity improvements.
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Want Better Performance? Insist on It!,, obert H. Schaffer, Administrative Management, December 1979.
Abbreviated version of "Demand Better Results" article.
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From Conflict to Collaboration, Edwin H. Wegman, Richard A. Bobbe and Phyllis E. Connolly, Trustee Magazine, October 1978.
Doctors, nurses, board members and administrators improved patient service through collaboration.
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Tapping Human Potential, Harvey A. Thomson and Claude G. Guay, The Canadian Personnel & Industrial Relations Journal, September 1978.
A steel mill’s personnel group helped line managers to significantly increase tonnage and quality.
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A Case Study in Performance Improvement, Robert A. Neiman, Health Services Manager, November 1976 and December 1976.
Illinois Blue Cross/Blue Shield improved claims processing quality, output and customer satisfaction.
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A Results-Oriented Approach to Improving R&D Operations, Richard Steele and Richard A. Bobbe, Research Management, May 1976.
Celanese Fibers‘ R&D group identified improvement priorities and launched action steps.
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Mastering Change in Education, Margaret S. Dwyer, Educational Technology, September 1976-February 1977.
Six-part series applying the RHS&A approach in educational institutions
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Educational Decision-Making, Richard A. Bobbe and Phyllis E. Connolly, Educational Technology, November 1975.
School district increased community participation in school affairs.
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Un Style de Management à la Portée de Tous, Claude G. Guay, Revue Commerce, March 1975.
A four-part strategy to improve organizational productivity. En Français
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Demand Better Results-and Get Them, Robert H. Schaffer, Harvard Business Review, November-December 1974, reprinted as a Harvard Business Review Classic March-April 1991, and appeared in Harvard Business Review’s 1990’s 10 Most Requested, as well as chapter 2 in Ultimate Rewards: What Really Motivates People to Achieve, Steven Kerr ed., Harvard Business School Press, 1997, p. 83-95.
For most managers, the capacity to ask for improved performance in ways that elicit results is their least developed management skill. This article explains why, and outlines a strategy for demanding more and getting it.
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Questionnaire: How to Demand Better Performance...and Get the Results, based on "Demand Better Results-and Get Them," Robert H. Schaffer, Harvard Business Review, November-December 1974, reprinted as a Harvard Business Review Classic March-April 1991.
Supplement to Harvard Business Review article "Demand Better Results - and Get Them".
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The Psychological Barriers to Management Effectivenes, Robert H. Schaffer, Business Horizons, April 1971.
Managers must recognize and overcome their own behavior patterns that block performance improvement.
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Licking a Peak Load Dilemma, Keith A. Boyce and Robert W. Perkins, Telephone Engineer & Management, August 1969.
Bell Canada’s Montreal area successfully met a workload goal previously viewed as "impossible."
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Mastering Change: Breakthrough Projects and Beyond, Richard A. Bobbe and Robert H. Schaffer, Management Bulletin #120, American Management Association 1968.
The first comprehensive Breakthrough Strategy article. Selecting initial projects. Managing the improvement effort. Sustaining successful change.
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Notes on "Mastering Change: Breakthrough Projects and Beyond", Richard A. Bobbe and Robert H.
Schaffer, Management Bulletin #120, American Management Association 1968.
Supplement to article number C-4.
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Putting Action Into Planning, Robert H. Schaffer, Harvard Business Review, November-December 1967.
This was one of the first articles ever to sound the warning about the dangers of elaborate planning that is not effectively implemented. An approach is outlined to help managers link long-term plans with short-term sub-goals and action steps.
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Maximizing the Impact of Industrial Engineering, Robert H. Schaffer, Management Bulletin #82, American Management Association, June 1966.
Industrial engineers can assist line management in improving performance if they see themselves more as consultants and less as "experts."
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Need Better Managers? You May Have Them Already, Robert A. Neiman and Howard Newman, Hospitals, April 1965.
Roosevelt Hospital upgraded operations and management effectiveness through action projects and associated training.
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Measuring Supervisory Performance, Robert A. Neiman, Personnel, January-February 1962.
Using appraisal systems to reinforce organizational goals.
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The Planning Process in Hospital Management, Robert Zager, Hospitals, November 1962.
Hospital administrators must engage medical staff and trustees in planning and performance improvement.
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