Journey to the Emerald City: Achieve a Competitive Edge by Creating a Culture of Accountability

Taking inspiration from The Wizard of Oz, international management consultants Roger Connors and Tom Smith have adapted the underlying framework of one of the world's most famous morality plays to propose a better way of doing business. In their first book, The Oz Principle, they described the potential benefits of a related structure of corporate unification and discussed its long-range ramifications for organizational improvement. In their new effort, Journey to the Emerald City: Achieve a Competitive Edge by Creating a Culture of Accountability, they articulate a step-by-step plan for accelerating its development. The obstacle-strewn path negotiated by the story's legendary characters helped create an "understanding of what was needed in order to achieve the goals of each person on the team," write Connors and Smith. "Yet, the journey not only led to personal insight about what needed to change, but also a collective insight about how the team needed to think and act as a whole in order to get where they were going." Accordingly, the authors present a Yellow Brick Road-map here for altering behavioral patterns of employees and managers to get them working together more effectively to achieve superior results. --Howard Rothman

"The transformation of corporate culture perhaps the most important single leadership challenge facing organizations today has largely eluded the recent wave of performance improvement innovations. In Journey to the Emerald City, Connors and Smith fill this gap by taking another impressive step in outlining how their processes for cultural change work not only in theory but also in practice. This volume provides hands-on, concrete tools for helping organizations fulfill their potential." Sidney Taurel, Chairman and CEO, Eli Lilly and Company "A company's ability to create a Culture of Accountability will ultimately be the true test of its capacity to achieve organizational results. Journey to the Emerald City clearly paves the road to creating a company culture that produces results with a foundation of both personal and organizational accountability." Don A. O'Grady, Director, Leadership & Organizational Effectiveness, TRW, Inc. "This book and its predecessor, The Oz Principle, offer excellent and practical insight in how to build a Culture of Accountability. Organizations that implement the principles and practices found in Journey to the Emerald City can successfully and continuously create a culture that will produce outstanding results and enjoy significant competitive advantage." John Hogan, President of Brokerage Services Division, ADP "Connors and Smith offer, through a very methodical approach and through common sense observations, the path to a clearly defined and sustainable culture that business leaders will be well advised to reflect on and follow." J.P. Millon, President & CEO, PCS Health Systems, Inc. "Rather than presenting a formula for 'one best way' to run an organization, Journey to the Emerald City provides a practical and powerful desktop guide for any organization or team leader who has a genuine interest in shifting their organizational culture in a 'non-cookie cutter' format." Abel Porter, President and CEO, Smith's Food & Drug Centers, Inc. "Sustainable competitiveness is only available to the operating management that understands and practices the principles outlined by Connors and Smith. Aided by their 'this is what it looks like' approach, the reader gains real insight for action that leads to results." Ronald W. Dollens, President and CEO, Guidant "Journey to the Emerald City provides a roadmap for leaders to change the culture of their organization so that they dramatically enhance their performance. The authors explicitly describe how accountability can be built into the culture in a way that drives business results." Mark d. Wortley, Executive Vice President, Beverly Enterprises & President, Beverly Care Alliance