Mining The Middle Ground: Developing Mid-level Managers for Strategic Change
by David N. Williams
Category: Business & Economics

Throughout the late 80s and 90s many companies fell victim to the downsizing trend. Of the companies that downsized by removing middle managers 66% found productivity declined, 49% found profits did not increase, and in 86% morale plummeted. Middle managers often provide your most important link between top management, operating staff, and your customer. Yet this valuable resource is often stereotyped, skipped over, and avoided as deadwood and blockers. Why make this expensive and critical mistake? Mining the Middle Ground: Developing Mid-Level Managers for Strategic Change presents an applied, field-proven model for the roles, responsibilities, and steps necessary to develop, integrate, and mine your middle management resource for strategic change. Founded on a strong theoretical basis, the model has been developed and refined over the past 15 years and implemented in over 100 organizations. Case study examples, success stories, and interview excerpts lend support and explain the various aspects and steps involved in the model. Anecdotal examples and in-depth interview excerpts support and illustrate the concepts and steps involved. Successfully enabled and cultivated, mid-level managers can be your company's strongest resource for knowledge creation, breakthrough thinking, and change leadership-and they are readily available to you. Developing and tapping this resource is an option you cannot continue to ignore. Stop wasting the valuable resource middle management represents based on stereotypes and low expectations. Raise your sights, actively develop and involve them, and you will discover that this group is a vital, unique asset for strategic change. Mining the Middle Ground: Developing Mid-Level Managers for Strategic Change shows you how to make it happen.