Signals: Capability: Strategic Tool for a Competitive Edge

Like a whirling tornado, the first half of the 1990s has overturned most of our traditional notions about what it takes for organizations to be successful. We have seen premier companies like IBM, General Motors, Kodak, Sears, Aetna, Prudential, and Westinghouse stumble or fall despite dominant market size, brand recognition, and well‐proven management systems. We also have seen mega‐mergers reshape whole industries such as banking, pharmaceuticals, and entertainment; and mega‐breakups reshape our notion of conglomerates. And overlayed on all of these industry shifts has been an unrelenting parade of organizational change programs—total quality, reengineering, business process redesign, reinvention, delayering, and more—as individual companies have resorted to massive doses of disruption to keep up.