The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition
- 5h 36m
- Steven J. Spear
- McGraw-Hill
- 2009
How can some companies perform so well that their industry counterparts are competitors in name only? Although they operate in the same industry, serve the same market, and even use the same suppliers, these extraordinary, high-velocity organizations consistently outperform all the competition—and, more importantly, continually widen their leads.
In The High-Velocity Edge, the reissued edition of five-time Shingo Prize winner Steven J. Spear’s critically acclaimed book Chasing the Rabbit, Spear describes what sets market-dominating companies apart and provides a detailed framework you can leverage to surge to the lead in your own industry. Spear examines the internal operations of dominant organizations across a wide spectrum of industries, from technology to design and from manufacturing to health care.
While he investigates several great operational triumphs, like top-tier teaching hospitals’ fantastic improvements in quality of care, Pratt & Whitney’s competitive gains in jet engine design, and the U.S. Navy’s breakthroughs in inventing and applying nuclear propulsion, The High-Velocity Edge is not just about the adoration of success. It also takes a critical look at some of the operational missteps that have humbled even the most reputable and respected of companies and organizations. The decades-long prominence of Toyota, for example, is contrasted with the many factors leading to the automaker’s sweeping 2010 product recalls. Taken together, these multiple perspectives and in-depth case studies show how to:
- Build a system of “dynamic discovery” designed to reveal operational problems and weaknesses as they arise
- Attack and solve problems when and where they occur, converting weaknesses into strengths
- Disseminate knowledge gained from solving local problems throughout the company as a whole
- Create managers invested in developing everyone’s capacity to continually innovate and improve
Whatever kind of company you operate— from technology to finance to healthcare— mastery of these four key capabilities will put you on the fast track to operational excellence, where you will generate faster, better results—using less capital and fewer resources.
Apply the lessons of Steven J. Spear and gain a high-velocity edge over every competitor in your industry.
About the Author
Steven J. Spear, five-time winner of the Shingo Prize and recipient of the McKinsey Award, is a senior lecturer at MIT and former assistant professor at Harvard. A senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, he is the author of numerous articles appearing in academic and trade publications, including the Harvard Business Review and The New York Times.
In this Book
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The High-Velocity Edge—How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition
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Preface
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Foreword
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Getting to the Front of the Pack
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Complexity: The Good News and the Bad News
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How Complex Systems Fail
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How Complex Systems Succeed
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High Velocity Under the Sea, in the Air, and on the Web
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Capability 1: System Design and Operation
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Capability 2: Problem Solving and Improvement
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Capability 3: Knowledge Sharing
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Capability 4: Developing high-velocity Skills in others
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High-Velocity Crisis Recovery
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Creating High-Velocity Health-Care Organizations
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Conclusion
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Epilogue: Learning From Toyota’s Stumbles
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References
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Notes
