Publications
Corporate Culture in the Digital Era
Traditionally, business leaders have focused M&A's, alliances and strategic partnerships using primary expertise from financial, legal, and business advisors. What was missing, causing such a high failure rate?
Scientific evidence-based techniques revealed that the crucial missing component was the lack of a formal addressment of the human culture merger in the new organization. The foundation for enabling and structuring the cultural integration to gain synergy, was the missing dynamic.
Practical leadership skills and tools have been distilled, from effective leaders of M&As and are presented to corporate leaders to optimize successful results, using the 7 Secrets.
7 Secrets of Structured Synergy
Corporate Culture in the Digital Era
Are Leadership Challenges Holding You Back?
Research indicates that about half of all managers and supervisors are failing. In today’s workplace of empowered knowledge workers and teams, the old-style top-down leadership just doesn’t cut it. The smartest, most motivated and hardest-working employees often leave. Those who stay often under perform.
Learn the Right Leadership Skills for Your Situation
The new, dynamic economy driven by technology, innovation, and creative relationships demands a new kind of leadership. Side by Side Leadership is a deeply researched and well constructed guide to the 5 fundamental spheres of leaderships including the specific skills that underlie each style.
Side By Side Leadership
Corporate Culture in the Digital Era
For many managers, teamwork is a concept that in their minds has little to do with making money and staying in business. Breakthrough Teamwork changes that perception by offering readers insights from companies such as Motorola, Monsanto, Westinghouse, and Amoco that have experienced significant breakthroughs in productivity and profitability as a result of the author's unique process called Structured Teamwork(R). Focusing on successful implementation of teams, Breakthrough Teamwork reveals: A summary of 1200 studies of "what works" in business and industry. A new definition of teamwork that endures as a team develops and improves its structures. A structured methodology for implementing successful teams. Examples of what the most effective teams in corporate America have accomplished for their organizations using this system.
Breakthrough Teamwork
BOOK REVIEWS
7 Secrets of Structured Synergy Reviews
A Well Written Guide to Facilitating Mergers and Alliances
This is an excellent book. I enjoyed reading how the author drew upon his years of international consulting experience and careful, data-based research, merged with wisdom aligned with research to offer insightful strategies to enhance organizational mergers, alliances, and strategic partnerships. Dr. Romig presents practical skills and tools to help leaders avoid the traps of merger and alliance failure and ensure success in leading others to work toward common goals. I found this to be a well-written, clear, and accessible book and an important resource for all who collaborate and face the challenges and benefits of forming new corporate partnerships.
This book is born of dedicated research and extensive experience
As with his past successful publications, Dennis Romig writes with a staunch dedication to extensive research. His is in the mold of Jim Collins whose classic "Good to Great" was the result of in-depth analysis of actual case situations. But Dennis adds a rich history of highly successful consulting engagements with 30 organizations involved in some form of combining. What he has condensed into 7 secrets, then, is an amalgam of all the research and all that experience.
Rooted in reality and verifiable successes, this book provides very clear, concrete, practical imperatives to achieving a successful outcome. Not at all surprisingly, the suggestions focus on the human aspects - the dynamics and cultures that are necessary to implement a theoretically good plan. His research clearly demonstrates that it's the human aspects that most often are the seedbed for failure. And this psychological realm is Dennis domain. He understands human behavior! He know what is required to circumvent the forces of egos, turf, resistance and reluctance. Or rather, he knows how to convert this negative energy into a positive, cooperative energy to achieve the synergy that looked so good on paper.
10/10 would recommend this book
I 10/10 would recommend this book not only to companies looking for success but also for individuals looking to grow and think more about what makes successful companies.
Merger & acquisitions, alliances and strategic partnerships typically forget to look at the culture as the part also needed in order to have success & achieve desired business results. In this book Dr. Romig highlights his research and expertise on how to merge the human cultures across the organizations coming together. The author discusses the 7 practices that help bridge human relationships across the work groups and key divisions. I personally took away a lot from the section about teamwork/synergy being required not only at the lower level of employees but also in management and exec levels.
Side by Side Leadership Reviews
The substance of the book was based on research and real life testing. Anecdotes were in service of the key concepts, not replacements for true content. Layout--lots of illustrations and diagrams of the concepts throughout the book. This is really like a practical primer, a manual for leaders. I'm an executive coach. I want to get this book into the hands of all my clients and I'll recommend they get a copy for all the people who work for them. It's a great book for anyone who wants to improve how they work with others.
I believe that the leadership points the direction of where to go and when to get there and the frontline people figure out the "how" part. When I picked up Side-By-Side Leadership, I was immediately struck by the wealth of research to support the basic premise of the book. I was also impressed with the careful, almost scientific approach Dennis took in proving the case for frontline people driving performance improvement by working side-by-side with organizational leadership.
Dennis Romig's consulting experience gives real and personal flavor to this research-based guide for leaders. His examples are interesting and the book is especially readable because he keeps his references to research findings brief and compelling. I was especially interested in his references to Bowen's work on patterns to be watched for in teams and organizations. Romig has written a great "how to" text of best practices.
I like his 5 spheres of side-by-side leadership. He then added certain skills to each sphere. 20 skills in total spread out among 5 spheres. I found his chapter on "Interaction Fields" to be the most useful part of the book. I read other books on leadership. And this one has a lot of good information. Great book to read for a beginner in leadership.
Dennis Romig has done an excellent job of integrating real world experience with a wealth of research to create a very readable book. Often leadership books are criticized for being "too theoretical" or "too soft" for the real world. This book is different. The principles and best practices presented are backed up with "hard" data obtained from the review of 3,000 studies.
It is wonderfully creative and imaginative, giving a new twist to what others have approached from a different angle. As with all the other books, it can use a good dose of philosophical foundations, however, to compliment its side by side practical concepts, so that the reader can fully appreciate the author's efforts.
Dennis Romig identifies seven principles that are critical in all five spheres of influence. These principles include focused creativity and structured participation. Each of the five spheres of influence can be thought of as an assemblage of these seven principles. Finally, the author shows that it is important for a Side by Side leader to master twenty critical skills, such as two-way listening and living organizational values. Dr. Romig has done a superb job of integrating all these elements and relationships into his book, keeping references to research findings brief and to the point. He shows that there are many "entry points" into the Side by Side leadership model, and there are many different ways to be a successful leader. This is not a "one size fits all" kind of book!
I am very impressed with Side by Side Leadership. The approach used in Chapter 1 is very innovative (a meeting with the reader). The book is based upon a review of 3,000 cases and provides "hard data" that this new leadership model is not based on "fluff". The example stories and case studies support that the leadership pracitices work.
I found the book to have an easy reading style, and also to be designed to provide support for the new ideas and skills. Additionally, I found that there were areas in my life (both professionally and personally) that could probably benefit from following the research.
Side by Side Leadership is one of the most carefully constructed blueprints for leadership success that I know. Author Dennis Romig is one of the most curious and persistent science writers I know. The combination, as you might suspect, has produced a work of genuine and lasting value.Romig work puts the casual researcher to shame. This particular book is not only supported in its no nonsense review of 3000 studies of leadership, it is supported by 300 control group studies from a much larger and more confusing body of speculation and outright speculative fiction. If Romig had done us no more service than that of sorting through the rocks for the genuine jewels, this book would be a significant achievement. That it is also written to make these principles accessible and exciting is a rich bonus.
Breakthrough Teamwork Reviews
Wonderful practical suggestions for building a better work environment. This book came recommended I found many useful suggestions that apply in my field of work I did not need as many details in terms of stories of success firms
Results. My primary motivation for reading business books is specifically to learn how the world's most successful businesses, leaders, and teams are producing breakthrough results. "Breakthrough Teamwork" delivers. For example, if you want to instantly improve your company's creative output and your facilitation skills, turn directly to page 81 and read "Structured Brainstorming Versus Unstructured Brainstorming." I've personally used this simple procedure to boost the creativity of my clients, coworkers, and family members. And that's not the only idea I've successfully borrowed from the book! The author, Dr. Dennis Romig, has distilled 20 years' work experience as a businessman, consultant, and applied psychologist into a set of 10 teamwork skills that have been proven to produce results in companies such as Motorola, Advanced Mico Devices, and Amoco. The origin and procedure for each of the skills is backed by hard data studies, which Dr. Romig defines as studies that have been tried in a real business, have generated real business results, and have been compared to a control group. After having read shelves full of popular business books chronicling the latest fads, I really appreciated Dr. Romig's hard data approach. To me, it seems that many of the business practices prescribed in the business books and journals I've read are based upon a single case, studies with college students, or the imagination of an enthusiastic author -- not the most credible business sources. My conclusion: Suggestions in most business books are seldom effective outside the context of the book. I highly recommend "Breakthrough Teamwork." It's one of a handful of books I've read that contains scores of immediately applicable ideas. Though it's not quite as metaphorical as some of the popular business books, it's filled with cogently organized, results-bearing suggestions.