Re-engineering needs an evangelist at the top

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August 1, 1995

Don't confuse re-engineering with downsizing. At Andersen Consulting, it's defined as "an intensive, customer-focused, top-down management effort to establish 'breakthroughs' in performance capabilities." Robert Weisstuch, a manager at Andersen Consulting, told magazine executives at a recent Magazine Publishers of America seminar: "If re-engineering is to work, senior management has to be passionate about it, live it and breathe it on a day-to-day basis, and sell it every waking moment.

If you have that intensity, and are looking at things not at the task level but across functions, you can really make a quantum leap." inevitably, when managers are involved with re-engineering, he said, they are going to have some disagreements and political battles. Rather than slugging it out among themselves, it's much easier to go to senior management and say, "Here's what you asked me to do. Here's what I want to do. Here's what's standing in my way. Can you help?" Other imperatives for re-engineering from Weisstuch: 1) A sense of urgency for change. Sometimes it is triggered by an event, such as a major customer leaving you because he thinks you no longer fulfill his company's needs. 2) Know what you're re-engineering to. Set goals you want to achieve. Make them simple and succinct. 3) Cross-functional participation. "You do this with a lot of charts on the wall," he said. "You need to get out and touch a lot of people." 4) Employee involvement. People need to bring customer concerns back to you. 5) Communication. "In real estate, the three most important lessons are location, location, location," says Weisstuch. "In re-engineering, we say the three most important lessons are communication, communication, communication."