The Story behind the Story of One of America's Most Beloved Brands
Harley-Davidson's Unlikely People-Based Transformation
While the business press was celebrating Harley-Davidson's remarkable financial turnaround in the late 1980s, the company's leader, Rich Teerlink, was deeply concerned. He knew that the storied motorcycle maker-flush from having beaten back an assault by skilled and determined Japanese competitors-now faced a new and even more formidable challenge: maintaining and improving upon its success in the absence of an external crisis. Partnering with longtime organizational consultant Lee Ozley, Teerlink did something extraordinary: he moved beyond the top-down strategies that had just saved the company from extinction and began building a different Harley. The new Harley would be driven not by its top executives, but by its employees at every level. What happened over the next twelve years is the stuff of turnaround legend.
More Than a Motorcycle is the story behind the story of the purposeful transformation of an American icon-as told by the two individuals who were most deeply involved in that process. While marketers and the media alike have long celebrated Harley, this candid inside account goes behind the headlines to reveal the highlights and lowlights, the victories and setbacks, and the breakthroughs and dead ends experienced by Teerlink, Ozley, and others as the company engaged in this transformational change effort. Part corporate biography and part memoir of a rare CEO/consultant partnership, the book chronicles Harley's difficult journey from a traditional "command-and-control" culture to an open, participative organization in which employees no longer went along for the ride, but took new levels of responsibility for charting their course.
Teerlink and Ozley deliver three fundamental messages: that people are a company's only sustainable competitive advantage; that there is no "quick fix" to effect lasting and beneficial organizational change; and that leadership is not a person, but a process, to which every employee must contribute. They advocate for a new concept of leadership, which entails not demanding compliance, but earning commitment. They provide practical, reality-based prescriptions for developing employee alignment and effectiveness; lifelong learning opportunities; structures that support participation; and effective approaches to rewards, recognition, and meaningful communication. The authors also distill lessons from the Harley experience-such as living one's values and cultivating an environment within which all kinds of people can thrive-that may apply broadly to any business.
An inspiring, against-the-odds story of a business road less traveled, More Than a Motorcycle encourages today's organizational leaders to look around the next bend-and to give everyone within the organization a view of the road from the driver's seat.
More Than a Motorcycle: The Leadership Journey at Harley-Davidson
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